The clock was ticking, and before the sun even began to rise started Clay to turn his concept of a silken underlayer into reality. The process would take all that he had learned about leather work. All the techniques developed during patching his clothes more times than he could remember.
He started by cleaning the silk. A shallow basin with water was mixed with ash and fat from a dire wolf. He dipped the silk into the mixture, rubbing it to remove dirt and spider residue, then stretched the cleaned threads between two upright sticks to dry for the rest of the night. The result was a gleaming, almost otherworldly material, smooth to the touch yet resilient like steel.
The next step required a bit of ingenuity. To weave he needed a loom, which he unfortunately didn’t just have any lying around off, so he had to make his own. The morning was spent in fashioning a simple frame from branches lashed together with cord.
It wasn’t much to look at, he wasn’t even sure if it was correctly made, but it had to suffice this once. Anchoring the first threads to the frame, he began weaving. The design in his head was loose – a lattice of interlocking diamond shapes with enough spacing to let air and movement through. The underlayer wasn’t meant to shield him from harm, only to stay on his body no matter how brutal the fight.
Hours passed as he worked. The silk slipped between his fingers, as he knotted intersections of the weave. The silk was too strong to cut, so he used a heated tamping iron, carefully pressing against the threads to fuse them at the joints.
It was a risky method, as too much heat could ruin everything. Causing him to wince every time one of the fusions left a charred spot but in the end, if not pretty, held most of the intersections strong. By the time he was done, he had a lattice that resembled a loose net.
He slipped it over his shoulders, adjusting the fit. The underlayer clung tightly to his skin, its flexibility ensuring it wouldn’t tear when he moved. It covered his whole torso and reached all the way to his wrist and knees. A few adjustments with extra silk reinforced the shoulders and knees, where the most strain would occur. Satisfied, he set it aside to cool and harden fully overnight.
The next morning, he began attaching the patches. His supplies were varied to the scraps of leather which mostly came from dire wolves, to bits of cloth scavenged from the surrounding houses. Using thread, he sewed the patches onto the underlayer, one at a time. He worked quickly, knowing how little time they had and that each patch would eventually need replacing. The patches didn’t need to be perfect – they just needed to keep him covered for now.
By midday, the garment was complete. He stood and tested his movement, stretching and twisting to ensure the framework wouldn’t shift or restrict him. Satisfied, he threw his dire wolf cloak over his shoulders, providing him the protection against the elements, in which the silken underlayer lacked. It wasn’t armor, but it was enough to keep him from standing naked under the sun. That was all he needed.
The whole process took about two days, so they still had forty to go. Venturing into the spider infested part of the forest, Clay and Mia hunted the remnants of the bone spiders and dire wolves for their heart blood. The toads unfortunately retreated back into their pond, staying out of reach.
Like he expected, was there little blood to harvest, the pressure of the atmosphere had forced them to burn most of it. After five full days of scouring the forest, they only gathered a few vials, which had to suffice, there was no time to lose. They just had to hunt more on the way.
The only good thing about this situation was that the beasts were just as weakened as they were. It was unlikely that they would be ambushed during their journey, when most beast would focus on recovering their strength.
During their small excursion, was the forest eerily silent, showing the huge aftermath of this catastrophe. Should this phenomenon of the moons really repeat itself every 42 days like he suspected, then he saw little hope for life to thrive on Earth, but he shouldn’t judge too soon. Maybe the world out there was doing better than he imagined.
A week passed since the moons returned to normal. Their preparations were complete, traveling mostly light, with Clay having already thought long before what would be best to take and what to leave.
It definitely helped that they were super human and could allow themselves to prepare somewhat lax for certain situations. They were strong on their own, and he was fairly confident he could push through with only a single tool.
Thinking this, he felt for his hunting knife, making sure that said tool was secured around his belt. The belt was of course made by him, with a sheath for his sword on the left and a smaller sheath for his knife on the right, both easily reachable even if he was only one-handed.
The more he fought, the more he missed having two arms. It would be great if he could just replace it with some sort of prosthesis, but he lacked the knowledge, material and time to make one. Maybe someone out there could help him. Nodding, satisfied at his equipment, he took one last glance at the house, which they called home for the past one and a half years.
The palisade was torn and broken a large chunk caved in, due to the attack of the toad. The place still smelled of blood from the mushy mountain of flesh, blood and organs. They couldn’t be bothered to clean up, when they intended to leave anyway.
One wouldn’t believe it, but you actually got used to the smell… somewhat. Turning his back, he smiled at Mia. “Ready to go?”
“I’m fucking raring to go, I can’t smell this place anymore!” Without looking back, she began to walk towards the exit of the village, leaving Clay taken aback. Since when did she curse so much?
Well, it didn’t really matter, he cursed too from time to time. He had to focus on the task at hand to make as much distance as possible. They would surely find more people soon enough. He was quite excited to go out, as he actually never left Churchville and its surrounding villages that often. Resulting in him having seen very little from the country, not to mention the rest of the world.
******
Not even fully leaving the village behind the horizon, they ran into their first problem. The only proper road leading out of the mountain basin, in which Churchville was located, ended in a huge mountain of rubble and stones. A pretty big landslide, blocked their path forward, reaching all the way into the river on their left, which the road followed.
To their right was a large mountain, or you could outright call it a cliffside. Dropping her backpack, Mia cursed, “Of course there had to be a landslide! Nothing is ever going to plan, isn’t it?”
Tapping his foot, Clay tried to think of a solution, mumbling, “Everything is going to be fine. This is just another small hurdle.”
There was his fake enthusiasm again, but at least it usually led him to finding solutions, which Mia didn’t have. She just wanted to finally be back into society.
Putting his own backpack down, Clay loosed the ties which kept the dire wolf cloak on his shoulders, and laid it over his pack. Going over to the huge mountain of ruble, he took a hesitant step until he somewhat found hold and then took another step and then another, each with more confidence, until a stone which promised hold gave away after he put his whole weight on it.
The stone brought a chain reaction to live as he stumbled and rolled all the way to the bottom, scraping and bruising himself all over, landing on his back, legs dangling over his head. Seeing the smug smirk on Mia’s face, he sighed. “Keep your comments to yourself.”
“I didn’t want to say anything!” she defended herself.
“Oh, really? Your Face tells me otherwise.”
“Well…” she trailed off before settling on what she wanted to say. “It was a pretty stupid idea.”
“Why didn’t you warn me then?” asked Clay with feigned curiosity.
“I had hope that you would somehow succeed,” she lied.
“You wanted to see me fall?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I wanted to see you fall,” confirmed Mia with a slight smirk.
Good that this was out of the way. She must have some leftover grudges in her, or it was her general cheekiness, he couldn’t tell either way. Well, just walking over the landslide wouldn’t work. Shifting his gaze to the left, he let out a heavy sigh.
Walking over to the shore of the river, he began to undress himself. Seeing this, Mia began to frantically shake her head. “You are not serious, right? Please tell me you don’t really want to cross the river?!”
Without turning his back, he replied, “If you don’t grace us with another option that allows us to continue on our way, then yes, we are going to cross that river. Because we both know that this is the only way out of this valley.”
Mia’s was frantically looking around for a better solution, but eventually gave up in defeat. Walking over to Clay and beginning to undress herself beside him. They both stripped to their underwear. With Mia sticking her feet tenderly into the river. It was cold.
Really cold, like freezing cold. Suddenly there was a cold touch on her shoulder. Looking up, they were greeted with the first snowflakes of the winter, as if the heavens themselves were mocking them.
Too flabbergasted to speak, Mia just made a series of sounds and gestures that could have well been come from some new species. Hearing this, Clay couldn’t hold his laughter. The following fist was quickly dodged, as he escaped into the river. His clothes balanced on a pile upon his head and held in place by his arm.
It was cold, but compared to the pain he had to endure during his fights it was rather refreshing, the coldness shaking away any rest sluggishness he might have had, he was focused. He made the trip two more times, brining his cloak and backpack over.
Mia watched all of this unfold while clasping her shoulders with her hands, shivering on the shore. Standing on the other side, Clay shouted, “Come already! You will catch a cold if you keep standing there.”
The river wasn’t even that deep, with him being able to barely walk, Mia had to swim, but she also had two arms so it seemed fair to him. Making his way over again, he waited before her.
Looking up, she asked with pleading eyes, “Could you bring my stuff over? I need a moment longer to prepare.”
He was about to rebuke her, seeing it as a challenge for her to further grow, but upon seeing her pleading eyes, he just couldn’t say no and relented. Another three trips and her stuff was safely on the other side. “Now it’s your turn. You just have to quickly swim over, and then we can dress ourselves and be warm again, okay?”
Standing beside her, and seeing that she still wouldn’t budge, he sighed. Some people had to be given a little push. With that in mind, he pushed her straight into the river, a high-pitched scream foreboding the torment he would have to endure for the rest of the day.
Breaking through the surface, Mia looked outraged, her owl half mask still clinging to her face even after being pushed into a river. That was good news at least. She was about to make her way over to him, when he asked, “Do you really want to go out and then have to get back in to get over?”
Realizing that she held in her stride, fury burning in her eyes, soon replaced by a sly spark. Maybe he shouldn’t have provoked her so much?
She quickly swam to the other side, placed her foot on the shore, and dashed for his clothes. When he realized what she wanted to do, it was far too late as his clothes were misused as a towel.
Slowly walking over, he could practically feel the smugness on her face. Not commenting further on the matter, he dressed himself with his wet clothes and continued on. Mia followed behind him with a small spring to her steps.
******
After passing the landslide, their way was mostly undisrupted as they made good progress on their way towards the next city. I was a long track to the next city, about 150 kilometers, not a distance they can just travel on foot in a single day, especially with the road being as broken as it was.
Luckily, the way forward was easy to follow as they just had to walk along the river, it winded through the whole valley, reaching all the way to their goal, so he was saved for understanding the regional map for now.
He never realized how hard it can be to read a map until he didn’t have a digital one, which was much more convenient. The size alone with all its wrinkles and folds made it unnecessarily hard to even pinpoint where you are, while the wind only threw more stones in your way.
Their journey started early in the morning and the goal was to make as much progress in a day as possible. They both circulated their essence inside to constantly replenish their energy and to prevent their aura from leaking, to avoid any unnecessary attention.
It was still a mystery to Clay how the dire wolves and other beast were able to pinpoint his location during the alignment of the moons. But he suspected it had something to do with his aura. In general, acted the beasts strange during that night, but this whole thing was a huge anomaly, so it didn’t surprise him that they freaked out a bit.
They just needed to find more people, who hopefully had more answers. All day, they walked at a brisk pace, stopping only occasionally to fill up their waterskin to stay hydrated.
Once the sun had fully set and their surroundings fully vanished in a veil of darkness, they didn’t stop. Solar-powered flashlights provided them enough light to continue deep into the night. Eventually they found a small natural overhang where Clay finally decided to stop for the day.
Once it was clear that they would camp, Mia broke down, sitting on the ground, her breathing heavy and feet beyond sore. They traveled quite the distance and with Mia not being as proficient in inner circulation as Clay, was the trek hard on her. She struggled, but refused to complain nonetheless.
They quickly built their tent up, placed their foam pats on the ground, laid their sleeping bags above and lastly the dire wolf cloaks on top for even more insulation and warmth.
Mia went to bed as soon as they finished, while Clay stayed awake. He would do the first night watch, lasting six hours, while Mia took the second, lasting two hours. With his inner circulation he didn’t need as much sleep, four would be best, but in their current situation he figured two had to suffice.
******
After three full days of walking from the crack of dawn to the deepest of night, they finally reached the abandoned road leading to the city of their hopes: Riverton. It couldn’t be compared to the small backwater city that was Churchville. It was a proper city with well over two hundred thousands citizens.
With how close it was to Churchville it was the only proper city Clay had frequently visited and seen all his life. Every time he was here he was overwhelmed by the tall houses, seemingless endless streets and numerous shops that adorned every corner. Due to Churchville’s isolation, it often felt more like a large village rather than a proper city.
This time he was struck in awe, just as always, but because of a completely different reason. Seeing Riverton in the distance, he was greeted by a picture of destruction and misery. The grand, spotless city in his memory was washed away and replaced with ruins. The closer they got, the clearer became this picture.
He knew how damaged Churchville was after the first light of the meteor, but he hadn’t expected the difference to be so stark. In comparison to the sight before him was the damage on their home city harmless. Most buildings were a pile of rubble and debris, while those that still stood had cracks running all over them or were partially damaged, with whole parts crashing away.
All around and along the mountains of rubble, new vegetation was growing, like in Churchville at an unnatural speed. Slowly walking along the streets they saw the birds soaring above, insect clawing around the houses and between the scarce vegetation, but no humans.
Riverton had not many noteworthy buildings or things that would invoke many people to stay over the holidays. Like the name suggests, was it famous for its nature and countless rivers, with many bicycle tracks, golf courses, parks and so on.
From the damage, the city must have been hit with an earthquake of high magnitude. Small crevices and cracks followed them as they walked. No matter where they went, the land was torn and ripped open. The few walls that still stood were smeared with various drawings and writings…
“The end is here!” written in blood.
“God will bring us salvation!” preached another. Someone else crossed the word God out and wrote instead, “There is No God.”
“Here lies Garry Evans, Beloved Father and Protector.”
“In the ashes, we wait.” Underneath, someone wrote, “Help never came.”
“Survival is all that remains.”
“I won’t make it, don’t forget the heroi–” the rest of the writing abruptly cut off.
“Hope is a lie.”
It was this last writing, plastered in big letters over a partially broken wall, with orange paint from a spray can, that made Clay stop. They finally made it to the city. The place where they hoped to find more people to begin a new life. It didn’t even accrue to him that it could be destroyed and that maybe no one was left.
It’s just that everyone wanted to go here. All the people they had sent away before fighting the ants, they all planned to journey to this city and yet seemingless no one remained. Was there still hope?
Forcing himself to look away from the writing, they continued on and eventually wandered into the city hall. Maybe it was because of habit or just by chance, but the only grand building in Riverton and one of the few that still stood proudly came into view.
Still lost in thoughts was Clay’s gaze directed downwards, until he felt a tug from Mia who pointed at something. Looking up, he saw the city hall in all its glory, it was almost like he had remembered it. Written all over the front in light blue color stood:
“Salvation awaits in the Vanguard. The last hold of humanity.”
Exchanging glances, they refused to be too hopeful but made their way over and surely enough found a small stack of maps leading them to this place. Looking over the map, he still struggled, but eventually had a rough idea of how far away it was. He checked again and again, but he always came to the same result.
“This Vanguard place is just a little over 1,000 kilometers away from here.”
“Sorry, how much?” asked Mia.
“A thousand kilometers,” repeated Clay.
There was a moment of silence before Mia said, “Well, then let's go. We don’t have much time now, do we?”