Earth, After ✔️

Day Four

"Water!"

Raina's eyes flew open as Perry dashed ahead, down the other side of the hill to a stony patch jutting out of the land. Nestled in the middle of the stones lay several pools of water, clear liquid reflecting the sun into their eyes until Raina squinted and looked away.

"Let me clean it--" Calen began, but Perry brushed him off, hurrying out of earshot.

"Raina," Arleigh said, drawing her attention behind her.

Arleigh stood, map unfurled, at the summit of the hill. "I might have a lead."

Raina rushed to her. "What do you think?"

"The river was large enough to be on the map, and with those rocks and these plains," she said, gesturing around them, "I figured I could narrow it down to a few places. We're in northern France for sure. And it has several provinces that I think might match this terrain, adjusted for all the changes of the past two centuries."

She spread it out on the ground, and Raina and a few others gathered over it, watching as she reasoned out their possible locations.

"They're all farther north than we'd hoped," Raina said, frowning. But regardless, this was the greatest news they had received yet. Now, they could adapt, adjust. Now they could plan. She ran a hand through her hair and smiled.

A scream ripped through the air.

Raina whipped around to see Ava and Atticus leaning over Perry, who lay face-down beside the water. "What is it?" she asked, sprinting to them.

"P-Perry--" Ava began, but her sobs sucked the breath from her lungs.

Raina knelt down and rolled him over.

Behind her, someone vomited.

From his right eye down to his chin, his face had burned and blistered with welts the size of her fist. One of his eyes had popped, the other frozen in his last seconds of agony.

Raina fell back, the words robbed from her mouth.

Arleigh approached, the colour leached from her face. She picked a handful of grass and dropped it into the pool. It fizzled and disintegrated.

"What--" Maeve began, but Kieran was already turning in circles, looking around them.

"This is a crater," he said. "Who knows what was dropped here. The right combination of chemicals, and--"

Tears filled Raina's eyes. She blinked, and they tumbled down her cheeks as she sat motionless, her hands trembling, staring at his body. Another gone. Perry. "We're burying him," she said.

"Raina--"

"We can't just leave him here. We won't leave him to rot in the heat."

"We have nothing to dig with," Maeve said.

"I'm not--"

"Raina," Rance said. "We can't."

Raina looked them all over. "And if it was you? Would you want us to leave your body to be picked apart by animals, to fester in this sun?"

"When we're dead, we won't want much of anything," Finn said.

Raina closed her eyes and fought to keep her chin from trembling. She sucked in a breath. Then another. Someone sniffled. Another cried. But they were right, and she knew it.

"He deserved better," she said.

"Yes," Kieran said. "He did."

And so they wept. Then they stood. And they moved on.