They called it the Hammer of God. A rock the size of two city blocks that slammed into North America. The world burned, the skies darkened, and we nearly went extinct. The struggle lasted for centuries, but bit by bit, little by little, life returned to the Earth.
No one really knows what life was like before the end. They say there were billions of people, as if there was enough room for that many people. I know I can't imagine it.
It's hard enough with thirty people on this patch of green land, and raiders growing bold enough to strike at us.
Oh, I'm Sam. I'm the village chronicler. Not that I'm going to get to chronicle much anymore, because if i'm lucky, the raiders that just took me will only kill me.
I figure that I've been blindfolded for a good hour when the wagon suddenly rocks violently. I hear the raiders shouting, and then the scream of a dying haul animal. I try to hunker down deeper into the wagon. I can't see, but I can hear plenty and what I hear is the sound of men dying.
The wagon comes to a stop, and nothing moved, nothing made a sound, until the blindfold was ripped from my face. I'm face to face with someone. He's wearing a mask that covers their face, two yellowish lenses for eyes. The mouthpiece is painted with white grinning teeth, each one pointed and jagged, and there are symbols on it I don't recognize. It's impossible to tell what he looks like, or if he's even a man but women like this are unheard of.
He's garbed in a long black coat, over some kind of featureless brown armor. It looks like it's made of plastic, but I've never seen that much plastic in one place before. It's rare, from the before days.
Tilting his head, the man regards me, then slips off the wagon and offers me a hand. I take it and he helps me down.
"Thank you. I don't know if they wanted to eat me or worse."
"Where's your village?" His voice sounds strange, like there's something changing it, and his accent is one I've never heard before.
But my face falls, and I shake my head. "Gone. They destroyed everything."
He's silent, then nods. "All right. Come with me."
I look back at the wagon. There were six raiders and they're all dead. Four have arrows sticking out of an eye socket or a neck, one looks like he's been gutted and the last had his neck snapped. The animals that had been hauling the wagon milled about. Each stood taller than me, with wide shoulders and wide, intelligent eyes.
All the blood is enough to make my queasy, so I look forward again. My savior is sitting on some metal contraption. It was a metal frame that had been soldered together from piping. Animal skins covered most of it, and cushions for seats had been fashioned out of old rags. The frame sat on top of something I've never seen before. They weren't wheels, but oval in shape with some kind of toothed metal belt around gears.
He pats the cushion behind him and I straddle the beast. No sooner had I settled than we shot forward. It's very quiet, the only sound the rattling of metal and the toothed belts digging into the ground. I don't know what powers it. It's not like the motors my grandparents had salvaged from the Ruins of Low that helped our generator. Those are loud, and obnoxious and fueled by our refuse.
I cling to his back and he feels warm and comforting. The fields of my home are long behind me now, and we travel across the mudlands. Once, this had been some kind of channel, filled with water. After the Hammer of God, all the coastlines had shifted in great earthquakes and now it was a salty swamp. A wagon couldn't cross it except in special areas that were rarely maintained but this vehicle made it look easy.
We rise out of the mudlands and into the countryside. There's been a drought here for as long as I've been alive, and the plants that had clawed their way back in the centuries after the apocalypse were dead or dying again.
"Where are we going?" I finally find my voice. He glances back at me, my reflection in his lenses. I think I can see his eyes, just barely.
"An old city," he replies. "There's a settlement there."
We find an old road, overgrown and broken but it's smoother riding than it was before. It gets greener the farther inland we go, until there are trees, and even flowers. And rising in the distance is a skeletal corpse, an old city. Broken buildings reaching for the sky like bony fingers, vines covering many of them. We pass under a broken arch. I can barely make out the figures carved into it. Ahead of us is another skeletal structure, a spire on four legs that has somehow survived the aftermath of the impact and all the centuries since.
It makes me a little angry. We were barely eeking out a living, and a day's ride on this vehicle away there's life. I begin to question everything I've been told about the impact and the end of the world.
We stop in front of a reclaimed building. There's even some kind of glowing pink sign, and I stare at it as my savior stands.
"Come." He offers his hand, and I take it as he leads me inside.
There's a few people inside, and they barely look up. A dark skinned woman steps out from behind the counter and embraces the man. "It's been a long time," She says.
"I probably won't be here long," he replies. "I just need a room."
She looks past him at me, then raises her eyebrow. "I only got one room and it's got one bed."
He stiffens, then nods. He pulls something out of his coat and holds it out to her. "Okay. I scavenged something from the raiders I killed. Will that work?"
"This pays for a lot more than a room, my friend. I'll make sure you're stocked up before you go."
"You're wonderful, thank you." He glances back at me, then jerks his head. I guess that means I should follow him up the stairs.
"This is so weird," I say. "We'd trade with other settlements but we had no idea that there were people in the cities."
"They're starting to reclaim everything." He seems to sigh, shoulders slumping. "... so much was lost."
The room was tiny, and the bed was too. Honestly I didn't really mind. He was warm and frankly I wanted to kiss him for saving me. He takes his coat off. Without the hood I can see he's a brunette, his hair shoulder length.
"I don't actually know your name. Not that you know mine. I'm Sam."
He hesitates, then takes the mask off. Her face is soft, her eyes an earthy brown, a large scar down her left cheek. I know I'm staring and I kind of blurt out, "You're a woman?"
"It's better to keep that fact hidden," she explains. She starts to unclasp her armor. "I get shite treatment and bad deals some places otherwise."
Under the armor and an overshirt is a simple shirt that exposes muscular arms and shoulders marred with scars.
"I'm going to need your help," she says. Lifting up the shirt, I can see a nasty bruise on her ribcage. "One of those bastards got me good."
She's gorgeous. The tone of her muscles, even the faint scars that seem to be everywhere. I'm having difficulty breathing.
She raises her eyebrow at me. "Are you all right?"
"I uhm..you're.."
"What about me?"
I gesture at her. "You. All of you. Damn."
Sitting on the bed, she winces. "If you're done oogling, I still need your help."
"Okay, but you still owe me your name." I sit next to her. It's easy enough to run bandages around her ribs and if my fingers slip sometimes to touch bare skin that's not my fault.
"Do I now?" She laughs. "I'm Lara."
"Thanks, you know, for saving me and everything." I try not to stare into her eyes for too long. "Where are you from?"
Those eyes grow sad, as though she's remembering something from long ago. "It no longer exists."
I secure the bandage, and then put an arm around her. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right. There's no going back now, it would be impossible."
"So do you just travel around saving girls from bandits?" I just want to keep her talking, and keep her close. She'll probably leave me here or something and I don't know what I'd do.
"Hardly. I… well I travel. I'm trying to record all the settlements and cities. Figure out how many of us are still left. If we can rebuild our cities." She pulls her boots off, and then rubs her shins.
"I'm a chronicler," I tell her. "I kept our village's history, and all the old stories. Maybe...maybe I can help."
"Really?" She looks up at me with an almost earnest expression. "It's dangerous. Raiders and bandits, and most towns are hostile to outsiders. And then you get into the wilds...There was a lot of fallout, from the impact. Nuclear reactors destroyed, weapon stockpiles. Animals have mutated."
"What do you know about the Hammer of God?" I ask her. "We have our own stories, but they might be different."
"I don't have any stories," Lara says. She pops her neck, then settles on the bed, resting her hands in her lap. "But I know the truth, because I was there."