Wastelands: A Broken World

EPILOGUE: A NEW WORLD

I had to try.

'You don't have to do this,' Jace had said as I'd prepared to leave. 'You don't have to go alone. I could come with you.'

'I was alone before. I will be alone again. It'll be okay,' I'd replied, looking over his shoulder to the craft that had wiped Buckingham Palace clean off the map of London as if it had never existed.

The once-terrifying monolithic craft still lay where it had fallen, half-embedded into the ground like an edgy art exhibition you would have expected to see outside the Tate Modern. Now it was just a shell of what it once was, scavenged for parts and macabre souvenirs of dark times. A shiver ghosted my spine every time I looked at it, scarcely able to comprehend how we'd survived the fall and managed to escape the twisted wreckage it now was. Of course, not all in the group had survived – Iza, Gav, a few more from Levi's crew – and the pain of that, and the guilt it brought with it, was still raw and strong.

'Will you come back?'

I'd looked at him then, this man who had risked everything to be my friend – who still was my friend – and I'd shot him a wry smile.

'Missing me already, Jason Bourne?'

'I won't miss you, Lara,' he'd sniffed. 'I'll be glad not to share rations and weapons with you anymore. You're greedy as fuck.' He'd grinned, but his eyes told a different story. 'How long will you search for him?'

'For as long as it takes to know if he really is dead.'

'You could be searching forever. How will you even know?'

I'd sighed as I'd scanned the city landscape, or whatever was now left of this place I'd come to love because Evie had loved it. Because they had loved it.

'Oh, I'll know. If he's alive, he'll find me,' I'd said. 'He always does.'

Three weeks into my search and I knew that London held nothing for me.

I'd flicked through Evie's memory book, trawling through page after page of places familiar to them both, places that might have meant something and finally, after all the searches proved fruitless, I'd ended up here.

The holiday cottage. The place in which they'd first confessed their love for each other. The place in which they'd realised this thing they had together was probably going to be for keeps.

This was my last port of call.

My last hope.

Treading carefully through the tough, tall grass, I gripped my pistol tight, scanning each window for any signs of movement, turning slowly to scan the peripheral area. Up on the roof, a seagull squawked as if announcing my arrival - or objecting to it, I wasn't sure – and opened its wings wide, pompously fluffing out its feathers. 

Other than the gull, and the sound of the sea in the bay, it was graveyard quiet. My skin prickled ominously.

The front door was slightly ajar, a stack of aging, rotten newspapers and post piled just inside, turning into a small mountain of papier-mâché filling the gap and spilling out onto the doorstep. I sidled through the gap, peering around the door into the hallway beyond and gripping my pistol in both hands to steady my aim.

The hallway was unwelcoming, but then again, it always had been. The walls were stippled with woodchip paper that had been painted magnolia and which now appeared more yellow than ever before. Rain had mottled the paper just inside the doorway with a blackish mould that had gripped the wall with a fervour, its rotting fingers stretching out eagerly to claim as much of the hallway as it could. A single naked bulb hung from the ceiling. On the wall, a print of the local landscape encased in a cheap black plastic frame was slightly askew. The only addition was a faded slogan graffitied across it in spray paint, the empty can lay discarded on the tiled floor.