Washington DC wasn't hit as hard as New York apparently had been. Whereas the entirety of my home city was taken by an inferno, this one had survived the Burnout for some reason. It was already past noon when we finally passed from rural landscape into dense suburbs, and began spying the odd blackened ruin and a lot more crashed and broken-down cars.

I complained about traffic a lot in my old life, but it was never this bad. There were times I had to do zig-zags because the cars standing or lying smashed to bits in the middle of the road were too large and heavy, and didn't form any clear path to proceed with ours.

However, I was still not ready to abandon this car yet, seeing as our entire stock of supplies was contained within.

During this urban exploration trip, we stopped at some of the more opulent houses in search of silver, as a bored millionaire sitting in their villa would undoubtedly have. During one of those trips, I accidentally tripped an alarm system, which nearly gave me a heart attack as it began blaring into the deep silence that was permeating the current surroundings.

Overall, we had a lot less luck finding silver than I'd hoped - I found a single set of pure silverware, and the rest was just coated or not silver at all. It seemed that in recent years, trends had switched from precious metals to chrome and stainless steel instead.

The lenses proved as big a problem. If they could be any size, or the same size three times, that would be something, but My Reflection informed me that they needed to be of varying sizes, with the smallest about the diameter of the lens inside a camera.

That night, we camped inside an urban gas station, filling the five canisters we'd used for the trip back here and the powering of my defenses the night of the siege. I suggested a campfire and made to grab a lighter, only to be interrupted by Raven angrily jerking my hand away from my pack and then toward our surroundings - which were still the gas station. The large building full of flammable liquid.

Feeling foolish, I instead grabbed a lantern from inside the shop. It seemed to run on batteries, and provided about the same light as a campfire would have, just without the side effect of a highly explosive death.

And so, in the warm, unwavering light of human ingenuity, we continued Raven and I's "mental resistance training", as my Reflection so charmingly put it. If I couldn't read a small note of concern on her face every time I was overtaken by a spike of pain, I'd have guessed her a sadist or worse, but in light of that, It was clear that she was simply trying - and somewhat failing - to keep us both emotionally stable.

"You are a Failsafe. A failsafe for what?"

A dagger, right between the eyes. The 'training' had two goals; number one, to prevent blackouts and increase pain resistance, should it come. Number two, to train our minds not to question the details behind the statement given.

Something which I failed horribly, but which Raven seemed to be a natural at. She could be inquisitive when she wanted to, yes, but when faced with a consequence, it was as if she could just willfully ignore the framework of the given statement.

That, and the pain, drove me a tiny bit madder every time.

The upside, so to say (although it feels cruel to put it that way) was that she was an utter lightweight when it came to actual 'consequence' tolerance - where one more mindless "but why though" caused a mild stab in my head, it seemed to leave her out cold every time. And concerningly, I was getting better, while she wasn't.

"The Shadow Demon. Where do its powers come from?"

A cheese grater applied to my brain, slowly eroding away at my thoughts. I had to fight this one tooth and nail.

In the process of our training, I noticed something else, which I wasn't sure about - The dangerous knowledge seemed to be treated akin to knowledge and memories gained within a dream, and unless I wrote them down, they disappeared within a few minutes. I had a recollection of the fact that they had happened, and I could recall the question with some effort, but it wasn't a surface memory as it should be.

When I brought this up to my reflection in the store window we were currently sitting in front of, she began saying something, but her voice was quickly blocked out by a searing hot knife carving into my skull, and apparently taking the knowledge of what she said and what I'd asked with it.

"Think back to how it felt when the humans disappeared - you told me you were aware of 'the limits of your mind' - recall that feeling in detail"

In essence, we were winging this process. My reflection stated in no uncertain terms that this was simply the best option she could come up with in our situation, but that she had no idea if it would actually work in the way she intended it to.

That last question was an experiment on only me, as Raven had not seemed to have the same experience as I when the humans disappeared. We were trying to analyse these 'barriers' or 'limits', and see if we could perhaps create them intentionally to blockade dangerous knowledge as it appeared.

So far, all it had resulted in was pain.

***

When I awoke, It was barely dawn. I'd gone to sleep uncharacteristically early, and thus, it was perhaps six or seven in the morning. During the night, our little lamp seemed to have run out of battery, as it was now cold and relatively dark in our little camp, though the sun was already creeping its rays through a few choice gaps in the nearby houses.

With a stretch that sounded as if all my bones snapped into their natural positions under great protest, I awoke, dragged myself out of the bedroll and into the cold morning air, and descended upon a can of beans in the food-bag. My Reflection, who did not seem to sleep ever, was leaning on something nearby, furiously writing into my - her notebook, and had apparently not noticed me waking up.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

However, my bird friend was apparently awoken by the smell of beans in a very unhealthy "tomato" sauce heated on a tiny hot plate, because she cawed once, shook her feathers, and fluttered over to my right shoulder, looking down at the slowly heating can.

I decided it was done when a tiny amount of steam began wafting from the open lid. Since my phone was broken and I didn't think to bring an egg timer, that was the best guess I could make. I should have probably let it simmer for a bit longer, as the very top layer was still cold, but a bit of stirring solved that little problem. I put some in a bowl for the bird, grabbed a spoon for myself, and ate to the sound of still-going furious scribbling.

Soon enough, the sun had risen in its entirety, and it was once again time to move. No rest for the wicked, it seems. I rolled up my makeshift bedding and went into the little store's bathroom to rinse my face of the stubborn tiredness clinging to my skin.

The city was even more crowded further in than it had been farther out, and soon enough, it would have been faster to just walk instead of trying to navigate the labyrinthian maze that were the city's narrow streets, packed with abandoned cars.

It was a strange place, really. Apart from our car's steady noise, the city was bathed in utter silence.

Eventually, we reached the place I'd guessed our target museum to be at - the large, but central, park smack dab in the middle of this silent city.

I parked the car on the lot of a tiny little private area, apparently reserved for very expensive-looking boats, and we made our way toward the central area containing almost every large landmark which made its home in D.C.

We came up from 'behind' the Washington Monument, a.k.a the very large phallic structure, and Raven flew ahead of me to scout the area.

By the time I reached the enormous obelisk, she'd returned, and was guiding me further to the east, where I’d begun to spy a building which was, although vaguely familiar, exactly what we were looking for.

Eventually, we stood before the red brick castle-shape's door, and I tried to open it.

It was locked.

"Fuck"

***

"You could try to lever it open."

Was one of the more sensible options my reflection, which was visible in a mirror I'd propped against the wall, gave me.

"Yeah, if I was Herculina, maybe. Do you really think I could brute-force this thing?"

"I have no idea. You humans are inconsistent. Maybe a ladder?"

She suggested, while filing down one of my - one of her nails.

I slapped my head. We'd been standing in front of this gate for a few minutes now, just brainstorming how to get in there. Luck hadn't been on our side, either, and every security system had rearmed after a few days of no human contact.

I'd considered a ladder, of course, but I had no idea how to get down once on top of the fence, or the gate.

"I suppose I could snatch two ladders from somewhere, put them up next to each other, climb one and then somehow pull the other one over. I don't know if that'll work, though."

"You can always try."

I looked around. There were buildings, mostly on the other side of this enormous park-and-or-venue-area, which most probably held the kind of ladder I needed. I left the second mirror shard against a nearby pole, and set out toward the nearby buildings.

***

It took me some time to find not just one, but two ladders large enough to climb the massive security gate, and they were both in the same building, in one of the janitorial rooms. I realized that lugging them both, even though they were made from aluminum, would be a fool's errand, so I resigned to doing two trips.

One thing I found out real quick while lugging a gigantic metal ladder through this city was how quiet everything was.

Not just a basic stillness, with distant rumbling and the sound of human habitation, but utter silence. Apart from the seemingly incredibly loud noise my ladder made on the concrete path, there was nothing.

Well, not entirely nothing.

There were the constant noises of small insects, which seemed to have multiplied exponentially. I suppose with little around to hunt them, they would eventually become a problem.

Though hopefully the thing my reflection was planning could help with that.

The pain still came, but it was dulled somewhat. Not enough for me to just shrug it off, but it didn't make me black out anymore either. I suppose the mental resistance training was already working.

When I neared the gate we'd made our makeshift camp at, I unsurprisingly heard my own voice, and although I could not understand the words yet, I heard the binary communication style my reflection had apparently adopted for Raven.

"But what does it feel like? Are you ever afraid?"

clack. No then, apparently no fear. Fear of what? I didn't know.

"Afraid of what?"

"Oh, you're back! And you've got a ladder. Wonderful. I was just grilling our friend here on what it's like to fly."

"Tell me what she said later, I still need to get the other ladder," I said as my Reflection was getting ready to relay what was undoubtedly revolutionary knowledge. After all, what human could boast to know what a bird felt like while flying? Answer: None. Because they're all dead.

Damn, that one still stung.

Before I could sink into the implications, I quickly set off to lug back the other ladder. It was already nearing day's end, with the sun touching the highest building of the neighborhood, so I made haste, and had the second ladder by our makeshift gate-camp before the sun fully disappeared behind the nearby buildings.

With that done, I set both ladders to lean against the wall, grabbed my pack and the two mirror shards, and climbed one.

***

We decided to make that night's camp inside the heavily secured area, not outside.

And this night, I managed to convince my double in the mirror of a campfire, a decision mostly motivated by the fact that we didn't have a battery-powered lamp like last time.

As we ate in the flickering light of a small fire, lit unceremoniously using the dry trees of this small garden as fuel, I watched my reflection in a nearby window, as she stared furiously at the ornate pen (which was lying on a rock about 5 meters away from where she was), hand outstretched and face furrowed in concentration.

She sat like that for a few minutes at a time, before giving up, opening her notebook, crossing something out or scribbling some more, and then trying again.

I was mesmerized by the display, and not wanting to disturb what was obviously a very involved ...project, I didn't speak up.

Eventually, the fire died, but I was already fast asleep, dreaming of faceted light, gleaming metal, and water.