The Waning Fire
The boy extended an offering toward the child, loosening his wrench grip around the rusted can of rotting peaches. The child slowly raised his rawboned arm to receive the boy's gesture of compassion. During their search of several grueling days, the peaches were among the only sustenance discovered throughout the local ashen landscape, a can of fetid meat being reclaimed as well.
Take the rest. My papa would have let me have them, I'll let you have them.
The child looked up at the boy, facial expression displaying utmost gratuity. The group had consumed the meat prior, and now all of the rations that they had were depleted. The boy and the child were given relatively generous portions, at the veteran's and motherly women's dire expense. The child ate the remainder of the peaches quickly, inhaling the remainder of the can.
Slow down, you won't hold it if you do that. The boy warned the child.
His warning was in vain, as immediately after his advice was given, the child heaved forth the meager meal back into the can. The child looked up, disappointed.
At least I caught most of it.
He then drank the spew from the can slowly, resting shortly after each self-inflicted sour flinch.
It's time to leave.
The veteran approached the two boys, extending a ragged coat arm toward his child, death grip on his shotgun with the other hand. The child took his free hand, the veteran raised him from the ground, his guardian. The boy looked at the two of them and with the encroaching emotion of dismay, shifted his gaze downward to oblivion, footprints that had displaced the ash. He remembered the time he spent with his father, the man who had shown him how to survive and carry the fire. The man had continued onward, he carried the fire until he could no longer, being absorbed into such oblivion himself. The boy then thought about the footprints before him, he had been the one who had disturbed the ash, defying oblivion actively. He grinned and looked up, readjusting his focus onward and further up the road. The motherly women walked with the veteran, the boy with the child, heading to some end of an endless blasted space. A forest of absence and lack was to the right of them, all trunks blackened and branchless, jutting from the grey world like hairs standing on end as if to utter caution of danger too late. To the left, various burned out buildings caked in decay stood hauntingly, the ruins longing to be discussed by archeologists who would never come. Screaming silence. What light that managed to penetrate the atmosphere was dulled by dreary looming clouds. Never fading and never sharing the gift of water, spread across all of what was the sky. Trapped above like the ground was trapped below, grey ash constituting the barrier. They walked for what they could deduce was the remainder of the day, keeping tired vigilance for any possible bastion of sustenance that posed minimal noticeable danger. The veteran stopped. The child had fallen down, now unconscious. The motherly women scooped him up from the ground, his emaciated limbs swaddled in rags dangled limp.
I'll search the buildings.
The veteran pointed towards a very large, but no longer impressive building. The maw of a shopping mall lay before the group, once a glorious cathedral of consumption, now a monument to man's sin.
I'll search too, I can help.
The boy offered his assistance. The veteran reluctantly agreed.
Stay close to me, don't wander out of my sight.
The group scanned the area for threats, and after they determined that there was only nothingness around them, the motherly woman took the child to a vacant van. The vehicle was sunken deep into the ground, enough that the doors could not be opened. The passenger window was either rolled down or missing, the woman climbed in first, the veteran then carefully passed her their son who was breathing very faintly. The veteran handed her the shotgun and she pulled herself and the child to the back of the cab. The veteran turned to the boy, a forced grin on his face.
I guess we'll have to rely on that pistol of your papa's huh? If we run into any bad people, I won't tell them that you don't have any bullets.
The boy forced a chuckle, considering the severity of the course of action they were soon to embark upon. They started toward the building's nearest entrance, a shattered hall of glass and misfortune, the double glass doors were now only brown rusted frame. The broken mirrors of man's past crunched beneath their feet as they descended into the starving maw. The area was lit, albeit through the unintended benefits of structural damage to the ceiling. They could see fairly well, ever on the alert for threats.
Here we are, this is us.
The veteran blew off the dust and placed one of his finger stumps on the mall's directory.
It looks like a map. Is it?
The boy had not seen a map like this before, only familiar with the yellowed paper maps his father had used in their journey south.
It is, this marks where we are, we need to go here.
Fo...o...d...cor...court. Food court?
The boy had been slacking in his efforts to learn how to read, however he remembered most of the letters his father had taught him.
Yes, food court. There might be food there. Might.
They started slowly down the hallway, passing relics of frailty and futility, merchandise missing from past onslaught of looters, leaving only naked mannequins behind. The boy tightened his grip on the pistol, uneasy of the lifeless eyes that watched them. He understood that his grip meant nothing without ammunition, however it alleviated his anxiety. They walked and stopped, and looked into a parched fountain. Two bodies within embraced one another, shriveled husks of cracked leather lay fused to a crusty crimson stain. The veteran shook his head, and the boy did not question the scene as he once would have. He knew why. They turned and walked toward another hallway, this one darker than the previous. The darkness no longer bothered the boy as severely as it once had, he utilized his father's lighter to cast orange haze outwardly into the unknown. They rounded another corner, revealing an open space, ceiling three stories high. Once a clear skylight, now an incomplete puzzle. A majority of glass had fallen to the floor, the rest held up the ash, dulling the light like a neglected lens filter. Tables and chairs had all been shoved to one side of the cafeteria. There were cots set up in an organized fashion in the center. Some were covered in dust, most were fused with a mummified corpse. Various crates wrapped in nylon straps were organized on the opposite end of the room, a portable barricade of chain link fence once guarded them, now toppled to the ground. The crates, illuminated by the cruel grey light, read MRE. The veteran started for the crates, a knife drawn to cut the straps. He stepped over a face down dried soldier wearing kevlar that served no aid in preventing his demise, now weighing the corpse down into the mess of dried blood beneath his body. The boy scoped out the rest of the room. All the counters of the food court were thoroughly cleared, only holding up a thick layer of dust, say except for one counter directly across the cafeteria from the crates. The boy walked closer to the countertop, it was caked as well, but a small area about the size of two dinner plates was clear, as it blown off by something.
Are you ready to help with this?
The veteran had cut up the vertical straps and was attempting to pull the straps from the crate. The boy joined him and together they peeled off the net from the top down, however removing it completely instead, revealing that it had been cut previously on the back side. Plastic wrapping caked in dust had covered the frayed netting. The veteran opened the vacuous crate, revealing emptiness and hunger.
There might be something in the others.
The veteran turned to look at the next crate, the boy noticing something about the opened one the veteran did not. They had revealed a source of light within the crate, two holes through the side of its walls, previously covered by the straps, burred inward. The veteran's chest opened with a hole of its own, but light did not shine through, only crimson liquid spewed forth. The boy in response to the loud crack dove behind the other crates, the veteran spraying blood from his mouth trying to speak to him. Hands encapsulating his ears, the boy was frozen, with his gaze locked on his collapsed caretaker. The veteran reached for his knife, and upon picking it up rose to his knees. Another shot was fired, hot gases escaping the weapon's muzzle evicted the dust from the countertop, brief yellow light penetrated through the grey overcast and shadow. The veteran fell, and became one with the ground. The boy lowered his arms and listened. The shooter remained behind the counter, another man commanded him.
Don't kill the boy. They won't keep if they're all dead.
Emitting from the black hallways, the screams of the child and motherly women attempted to warn the veteran and the boy. The boy stood alert behind the crate, he dashed to the veteran's corpse and secured his knife. The shooter vaulted over the countertop, and barrelled toward the boy with melee ferocity. The boy darted back behind the crates, and climbed over a countertop. He entered a decrepit kitchen through the stainless steel door, no longer immune to neglect. There was nothing to hide behind or in, the room was barren of appliances and furniture. The room was dark, lit only dimly by the grey haze travelling through the shattered window of the door. Only a pantry shelf remained, toppled over at an angle against the stained wall next to the door, whatever it once held long gone. The boy pulled down on the shelf, straining with all of his might, and heaved it flush against the wall. He then scaled it to its peak, and readied himself with the blade. The shooter slowly accelerated the door, his gaze first taking in the lack of the room, then noticing the shelf against the door. His gaze rose, the boy fell upon him. The shooters eyes no longer served him, gouged by the ragged blade. The boy was thrown to the ground, the shooter shouldered his rifle. Three shots were fired blindly, and in vain. The boy drove the blade into the shooter's abdomen. Retaliating with a crushing kick, the shooter forced the boy's lungs empty and cracked several ribs with a brutal blow, soaring the boy midway across the room. The boy could not move, but the shooter could not see. Feeling around with sensory punts, the shooter approached the boy, rifle at the ready. In one last release of strength, the boy lurched up and lunged for the shooter with guant arms raised high, driving the blade into his neck. Hot crimson spew expelled from the wound, and the shooter fell backward with the boy on top of him. Covered in the warm red liquid, the boy rolled off of the shooter's neutralized body. He began to cry, having not taken life before. After remaining stagnant in red tears briefly, he rose and brokenly made for the food court's exposed exit, heaving his shattered self over the soaring countertop. He arrived at the empty double doorway. Facing the barren landscape before him, the boy began to run. Not to go anywhere, he sought only to go. He fell, coughing up the red liquid he was becoming more and more familiar with. He looked back upon the mausoleum of his violence. He rose. The boy stumbled back toward the door and after crossing through and over the barrier, he painfully returned to the battlefield. He parted the neglected door and looked upon his handy work, his magnum opus of innocence lost. The boy stooped down and raised the rifle from the bloodied corpse. Scaling the countertop and once more lowering himself down, he planted his feet upon the ground, firm. The man, now wielding the rifle, stormed into the unknown of the black hallway. Darkness and certain horror enveloped him, however his path was lit, as he was carrying the fire.