Page 5 of Ronan

He has plenty of examples, I’m sure.

“We’ve been friends too many years,” I decide, and he chuckles.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, only the lights of the base and the twinkling of the stars above to keep us company. Distant voices shout back and forth, and a few doors slam, but otherwise, it’s quiet.

Peaceful.

“Are you really going to let this slip away?” Elas finally asks, and that string to my stomach yanks a little harder. Another few minutes tick by in thick silence as the tug inside my gut begs my feet to hit the ground… begs me to go, to run, todosomething. It’s more insistent than anything I’ve ever experienced.

“We both already know the answer to that.” The weight of my whispered words hangs heavy between us until they fade into the night and slip away, almost as if they never existed.

Chapter 2

Cameron

Four days prior

Ducked behind the largest oak I could find in this grove, I silently curse the oppressive heat as sweat trickles down my face. In the years after the veil fell, temperatures rose until half the forests died, cooked alive where they stood. Barren, cracked earth took their place, and there’s never enough rain to quench its thirst.

In layman’s terms, it’s hot as fuck, with little chance of rain.

My vision blurs as my glasses slip, and I shove them back into place for what must be the thousandth time today. I can’t afford for them to fall off. This is the third pair I’ve gone through in less than six months, and I don’t have any more spares.

Monsters invade the world, and suddenly, vision correction falls away from modern society. What was routine healthcare a century ago is now a pipe dream.

Heathens.

Next thing you know, it’ll be toothbrushes and books that disappear, and if that happens, I’ll just lie down and let the darkness take me. Surrender to the void.

No thank you, filthy apocalypse. It’s been fun, but there’s only so much a man can take.

Fur brushes against my leg, and I instinctively place my hand between Boomerang’s ears. Her coloring tells me she’s at least part German Shepherd, with a blend of black on her head and back, and a deeper golden brown on her legs and paws. One day she trotted out of the woods, a limp rabbit hanging out of her smiling mouth, and never left my side. For months, she’s been my traveling companion, and earned her name because no matter what I do, she’s there. If she leaves, she comes right back.

After a few days of watching her jet back and forth, it hit me. Boomerang.

In my mind she has an Australian accent, but I’ve never been there… or met anyone from there… so, yeah. I’m winging it.

She could actually be Irish, with one of those unpronounceable names that sound nothing like they’re spelled, but it would be awkward to ask this late in our relationship, you know?

I’d become so accustomed to being on my own that her presence initially felt intrusive, and it took weeks for me to warm up to her company.

I was afraid of her.

Afraid her inevitable noise would put me in danger. That she’d get me into trouble, eat all my food, or worse... that I’d get attached. I was terrified I’d love her only to have her leave me, too. No one else has ever stayed, so why would I risk it with her?

Eventually, though, she won me over.

My inevitable partner.

She is surprisingly quiet—light on her feet and smart enough to move silently, even in the dense forest. I imagine it’s how she survived on her own in this wasteland. She doesn’t bark, instead wheezes in a pitiful rasp that makes me wonder what injuries she suffered… and at whose hands.

The world is fucked, but it’s all I know.

Those who remain on this toxic dump of a planet are divided into two factions. Most of the control is wielded by the monsters, aided by the humans who have sided with them. After they invaded, humanity did what it does best—sought out the most likely victor and grabbed on to their skirts like a begging child. The military and monsters formed their own regime, seizing power and silencing dissent.

But as history tells us, every new power breeds rebellion.

Rebel camps materialized almost overnight in the less populated parts of the world, far outside the cities the monsters had claimed as their own. Furious and defiant, they made it their mission to disrupt the new authority and take back the power we’d lost.

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