Silent Horizons

Chapter 3

In the morning, they packed up their bags and prepared to head out. Renewed with a new sense of purpose, they were invigorated. They had no idea where this map would bring them, but it was better to continue their death march with a sense of purpose than like lost fools. Like an animal without a prey to hunt, their lack of purpose at times made it difficult to keep moving. Filling their bags with as much food as possible, they prepared for departure. The remaining cans they buried in shallow holes in the yard with some rocks or sticks to mark the locations. If they ever needed to come back, they knew they would be thankful they had hidden themselves some food. As unjust as it was to strip other survivors of the possibility of food, it wasn't personal. No sense in leaving a treasure trove for others when they were barely surviving as it was.

Selfishness was the new world order.

With the brisk morning air hitting their faces, they shouldered their bags and set out away from the wooden cabin. As much as they both wanted to remain in a building with walls and beds, they knew that it was only a matter of time before someone else found it like they had. The group that had stolen their gun was probably near and would leap at the opportunity of a warm home just as they had. It was with regret that they left, the map thankfully mitigating the bitterness in their chests.

The breeze hitting the long-overgrown grass, they marched through the yellow waves flowing like the current of an ocean. Two dirty brown silhouettes, marching through equally brown nature seemingly untouched by the misery that had befallen the planet.The grass brushing upon his calves tickled him through his pants as he trudged onwards. The tree branches swaying in the wind, leaves blowing freely hopping on currents and tumbling in the sky. To his left, a squirrel climbed up a tree. A nut in its mouth it prepared for the winter. He could see its fluffy body, plump and warm as it relied on nature to provide for it. Although he now relied on nature to provide too, he didn't have the lifelong skills of a wild animal. No, animals like that squirrel took from mother nature, and he begged her. What a blessing it would be to live like that rodent, blissfully unaware of what was happening in their world. As it climbed the tree trunk, it stopped, and they made eye contact. Its brown eyes huge, ears twitching as it listened to the surrounding forest noises. It seemed to cock its head as it observed him, acorn firmly in its jaws. Peering at him, it seemed to wonder what he was doing there. Wondering what he was and why he was in its home. Maybe he was the first human the little rodent had ever seen. A likely possibility considering how civilization had been decimated. This squirrel had probably been born and grown up in this world, unaware of what it had once been.

He knew he should hunt it; they needed all the food they could get. But something about the little brown creature peacefully minding its own business as it prepared to outlast the cold made him look away and keep walking. Maybe he was motivated by the innocence of the animal. Maybe it was his hope someone would ignore him and allow him to live another day, he did not know. He wondered if one day he would be able to look at a squirrel and not consider eating it.

If he managed to escape this planet, maybe there wouldn't even be tiny animals to observe.

Although she thought he was ridiculous to hope for escape off Earth, he struggled to give up. There was some intrinsic, primal part of him that refused to abandon hope of rescue. This couldn't be how the world ended, how his life ended. The woman had long accepted that they would live in this misery forever, but he couldn't. What would be the point of continuing if this was what he would always know? He wouldn't care to live in a world with no hope.

Although he knew with certainty how he felt, something about her told him that even without a purpose, she was alright surviving.

Although she had a gentle nature, she walked with the confidence one wasn't born with but earned. He knew the survival skills she had and taught him came from years of practice and application. Although he never asked, she seemed to have military training or some form of survival training. The woman seemed like someone who had fought her whole life and that surviving the apocalypse was just another challenge. A difficult milestone in her journey. Not like him. No, he came from comfort and hadn't had to struggle a day in his previous life. That comfort which now hurt him in ways he could never have imagined.