Day 1 — Leaving the City

The city didn’t fall in one night. It rotted. Brick by brick, block by block, until the skyline looked like a mouthful of broken teeth. Wind pushed smoke across the river and the smoke tried to hide what we already knew: the old world had gone soft and gray like meat left out too long.

We left at dawn. The Holland Tunnel lay half-flooded ahead of us, the ceiling sweating rust. Rainbow slicks of gasoline drifted over the water like oil rainbows from a dead carnival. The car’s headlights cut yellow paths through fog. Every few feet the tires bumped something under the surface. I told myself it was debris. It wasn’t always.

She sat beside me, jaw tight, one hand resting on the handle of the machete across her lap. She used to hum when she was nervous. Now her silence rode shotgun and refused to look at me.

We crawled out of the tunnel and the light hit hard—color bled out of everything and the air tasted like rust and wet paper. Behind us, towers leaned at angles that made the stomach lurch. Their windows were black sockets. Something burned somewhere we couldn’t see.

For a handful of breaths the wind carried a cleaner taste—rain on stone. Hope tried to stand up inside my chest. It didn’t last. Hope never lasts out here. You hold it a second too long and it cuts you.

She didn’t look back. I did, once. Then I put the city in the rearview and left it there.

Day 2 — Turnpike

The highway ran like an old scar no one remembered getting. Asphalt buckled and split. Grass punched through seams. Cars sat on the shoulders like stripped bones—doors open, windows gone, upholstery turned to gnawed foam. A billboard offered a future that never showed up:
COLD COLA — TASTE TOMORROW.
Somebody had shot the O in COLA. Tomorrow looked like a broken mouth.

Midday light was the color of rust. We passed shapes far out in the haze—maybe scavengers, maybe ghouls. Either way, I kept the car moving. When you stop, things find you.

We pulled over once for water. The silence was so complete it made my ears ring. No birds. No hum of power lines. Just wind whispering through wrecks. She stood by the guardrail staring into the treeline, her fingers turning the dull gold band on her hand. The gesture was small, constant, like breathing.

I wanted to ask what she was thinking, but I already knew. There are names that don’t survive the world ending.

We drove until the sky bled orange. Found an overpass still standing and parked beneath it. I tore apart an old fence for firewood. The flames stuttered but held. She sat across from me, face hollowed by light and shadow. For the first time in days, she looked less like a ghost.

“How do we go on without him?” she said.

The question didn’t have an answer. I fed another board to the fire and watched sparks drift up and die before they reached the concrete above us.

She slipped off her ring, turned it in her fingers, slid it back on. The fire caught the edge of it and for a heartbeat the gold shone like it remembered sunlight.

Day 3 — Rest Stop

We slept a few hours, maybe. Something moved out there in the dark. Every sound carried teeth. I kept my hand near the gun.

By morning the world looked like it had been washed in ash. We drove west until we found a burned-out rest stop. One wall still stood. The air inside smelled like mildew and old smoke. I built a small fire anyway. The light gave the ruin shape.

She crouched near the flames, eyes half-closed, breathing slow. I took out the notebook. The paper was warped but still took the pencil.

The road goes on. Whether we want it to or not.

When I looked up, she was watching me. The fire painted her face in soft oranges, and for a second she almost looked like the woman I remembered. Then she blinked and the moment was gone.

That night she whispered his name in her sleep. I pretended not to hear.