A single white dove sits perched on the edge of a chain-link fence, wings rustling and preparing for flight. The stark white feathers stand out against the murky skies. Dust clouds and blackens the air. After all that's happened, it seems the wind has set itself eternally still. The fog hangs suspended. This may be one of the few surviving birds left.
Of course it is.
This is the apocalypse.
From behind two dirt-encrusted upturned trash cans, an archer with red curls knotted back in a bun waits. Poised, patient, lethal. The sturdy wood on her bow creaks lightly as she extends the bowstring, and she curses silently to herself because the sound could scare away the target. Her shoulders relax when she sees the bird still balanced peacefully on the fence. Right elbow draws back slowly, carefully. The arrow is held firmly between two fingers and she's licking her lips because she hasn't had a kill in at least three months. In one swift, smooth movement, the slender fingers release and arrow is spinning gracefully through smoggy air. Electric blue eyes are squinted and bitter as the stony blade sinks into white feathers.
Merida heaves a quiet sigh and a tiny triumphant smile grows on her face for the first time in weeks. Worn, brown combat boots leave footprints in the ash that covers every inch of ground. She examines the kill, delicately thumbing over the feathers. She plucks her arrow from the blood-stained white. They would eat a real meal this afternoon.
She takes the dove to the river and cleans the bird. Blood leaks into the water along with the remainder of white feathers. The water was too dirty for drinking anyway. Merida pulls a cloth from her satchel – though stained and still a bit dirty, it's the cleanest one she has – and wraps the meat in it. The meat goes in her satchel, along with some dried berries, a few edible leaves, and rarest of all – some shortbread cookies Merida found in an abandoned baker's shop. They were obviously stale, and a little burnt at the edges, but they looked still very edible.
Walking back to the shack Merida keeps her fingers wrapped around a small metal blade in her pocket. She's rarely had to use it, even less so as survivors are thinning out, but there's always something trying to kill you in this world. That's been her mantra since…everything, and it's been keeping her and her friends alive so far. She comes to what looks like another decaying building – moldy wooden beams, splintering door frame, wet and musty air. A somewhat large piece of charred cloth falls over the doorway, and Merida lifts it carefully and shuffles into their home.
She guides her hand along the cool cemented wall. The crack on the left side is growing larger. They'll have to find a new place to stay within the next few weeks before this place crumbles to ground, along with most of the city.
The shack they live in is comprised of one livable room (there were two others, but the bedroom caved in about a month ago, and the kitchen's been blocked off because of the gas leak). Rapunzel is sitting on the torn couch beside Jack, both hovering over papers on the rusty card table. Hiccup is running scarred hands through his hair, pacing quietly from one side of the room to the other. He's chewing his lower lip in a way that tells Merida he's trying to come up with a new plan. She can't have been the only one of the four to notice the crack in the wall.
Jack's hand is cupped thoughtfully over his mouth as he watches Rapunzel sketch sharp, distinct lines across what Merida now sees to be a map. She's mumbling to herself while a golden strand twirls gracefully around her finger.
"There aren't many places left to go," Hiccup says after a long period of silence.
"What about that town south of here?" Jack points to one of the red dots on the map.
Rapunzel shakes her head and the blonde strand of hair falls off her finger. "Kenmore's got radiation poisoning. It won't be safe to near there for at least eight weeks."
"Even if we did, the food would all be inedible." Hiccup chimed in.
"So we're back to square one." The white-haired boy sighed, slumping into the couch.
A breeze passes through Merida as her eyes shut longingly. She remembered lazy sunny days lying in the grass with three friends who weren't so broken. She remembered the feeling of sun-kissed cheeks and blue skies and cool air.
The Scot laid a torn quilt down in the middle of the living room.
"Merida, what are you doing?"
"We're having a picnic," she replies, taking the food from her satchel and placing it ornately around the fabric.
The three others exchange confused looks. It had been so long since any of them experienced normality that they'd nearly forgotten what a picnic was.
"Like the one we had by the glen…remember?"
A silence passes over the group. Of course they remember.
The sun had been out all morning and Rapunzel insisted it was a sign that they had to eat lunch outside. The four of them had exchanged wry smiles because they had the perfect place. A tiny clearing that happened to be an equal distance from each of their houses. Hiccup had meticulously pieced together some turkey and ham sandwiches, and Merida had cut apples and strawberries and kiwi watermelon into various shapes for the fruit salad. Rapunzel had spent all morning baking and frosting tiny strawberry cupcakes with vanilla cream frosting. Jack crafted a bag to carry everything in and they spent all afternoon in the glen. The breeze whistled lazily through the trees. Rapunzel made everyone little crowns from flowers poking out in the nearby meadow. Jack had chased Hiccup up a tree, threatening to pour lemonade down his pants.
The glen was one of the first places to be destroyed in the apocalypse.
Merida still remembered things like lemonade and strawberries and grass tickling between her toes. She remembered dunking her hands in the cool clear water in the stream. She remembered how in that little clearing, everything, everything was just crawling with life.
The silence still hangs in the air. Glancing at her friends, Merida wonders if they still knew what the sun felt like. If fresh cut grass was still a smell to them. There was a time when the tiny blonde girl on the couch would have leaped up at the idea of this meager picnic, would have rushed outside to find some clover or basil to decorate the feast, would have taken their hands and led them in a dance. Rapunzel sits on the couch, staring at the meal on the floor with dull eyes. Merida had watched her spirit slowly fade away with the disaster, the way a candle melts away, inch by inch, until finally the flame burns out. There's still a flame somewhere inside Rapunzel, but she's sitting in nothing but a puddle of melted wax.
Hope was one of the first possessions to be left behind in the game of survival. When your house is burning down, you have only a few minutes to grab the most necessary items. Food, first aid kit, lighter, canteen. Nobody ever stops for hope, so it burns down with the rest of the house.
This is pitiful. There is no little clearing. There are no blue skies or cherry trees or flowing rivers. She has stopped trying to pick the dirt caked under broken fingernails.
A scrawny boy with chestnut hair sits tentatively beside her. He gives her a tiny smile when she looks at him. Rapunzel joins them, and examines the shortbread cookies. She looks cautious. Afraid to take pleasure in anything that might be taken away so easily. Loss was not an uncommon practice, after all. Jack pulls his knees close to him when he sits down. A start. A spark of life.
They eat slowly and carefully, savoring the rarity of their food. As they finish off the last of the bird, a boy with a dead spark in his eyes comes back to life and decides to have a little fun. He tosses a berry at Hiccup and it lands in his nostril. He huffs it out and shakes the dusty blanket back at him. Soon the couch is tipped over and Rapunzel is using it as a fort, Merida has Jack tackled on the ground, and Hiccup is flinging pebbles everywhere.
And for once in what must be an eternity, the tiny shack is filled with laughter. It strikes and echoes off the stone walls like thunder. The spark has a lit a tiny flame. It's small, and it's flickering, but it's still there, glowing triumphantly.
Four children play house in a shack that could crumble to the ground any day now. But the one thing that's left to hold on to is the knowledge that there is a tomorrow. That there is still a sun hiding behind grey skies, that the dust will clear.
Because the laughter is so loud, so bright, they almost didn't hear the thunder crash, or the droplets hitting the ground.
The first rainfall of spring.