Ashfall

01

Chapter 1
The Last Quiet Street

The last can of tuna tasted like wet socks soaked in metal. That's not me being dramatic—it really did. I took a bite and thought, "So this is how gourmet ends. Not with a bang, but with Mercury Poisoning Lite."

"Maybe we should ration it better," Elaine said softly, her voice trailing off like she was afraid to push too hard. She always talked that way now, even when the world was burning.

I swirled the remaining bits in the can with the broken end of a plastic fork. The prongs were gone, just a sad little stem. Like me. "Sure, let's stretch out our last disgusting fish product to last us the week. That way, we can enjoy the subtle notes of lead-lined expiration until starvation kills us more elegantly."

Elaine didn't respond. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor across from me, wrapped in that oversized flannel blanket we found draped over a burned armchair upstairs. It had once been red, probably. Now it looked like something a vampire with bad taste would wear to bed.

The living room was half collapsed. The front wall was still standing, but the windows were just holes, and soot blackened everything above waist level. We'd stuffed cardboard and nailed-up couch cushions into the worst of the gaps. It looked like a beaver built a barricade during an emotional breakdown. Which felt about right.

I leaned back, resting my head against a half-melted radiator. "You ever think about how this used to be someone's Airbnb?"

Elaine blinked. "This house?"

"Yeah. I found a binder in the closet upstairs. 'Welcome to your home away from home!' With like... polite instructions about where to leave the keys and not to flush baby wipes. And now? Now it's a tomb full of cereal dust and fish slime."

Her lips twitched. Almost a smile. Victory.

I kept going. "Some influencer couple probably stayed here to 'unplug from the world' for a weekend. Hashtag rustic. Hashtag no signal. Bet they cried if they didn't get their oat milk latte."

Elaine picked at a scab on her knee. "Do you think they're dead?"

I looked at her.

The worst part is, I didn't have to ask who. She meant everyone.
Our friends... maybe.
Our parents... definitely.

That was always the real question, no matter how you phrased it: Is anyone else still alive?

"I think," I said, "they're probably fine. Living on top of a mountain, hot-tubbing through the apocalypse while rationing locally-sourced avocados."

She gave a short laugh, brittle at the edges.

That sound always made me feel like I'd won something and lost something at the same time.

She didn't ask me what I really thought. She knew I wouldn't say it out loud.

Instead, she reached into our cardboard box of "nonperishables"—a term that now just meant "inedible but technically chewable"—and pulled out a Ziplock bag of cereal crumbs. Mostly air. She poured some into her palm and offered me half.

"Cheers," I said, clinking my dusty handful against hers. We ate them like communion wafers from hell.