Darkness has come.
Nothingness shall follow.
Void is where we must find our selves.
The blast had not left anything at all. Nothing but an infinity of empty space.
"Is this the world I have fought for?"
Nora had always been afraid of being alone. Now realizing that the world had died not only scared her to death, but paralyzed her. Unable to even think about her situation she stared at the horizon and the gray, cloudy sky above her.
She was still weakened from the battle against the brotherhood and was still bleeding from several wounds, but she did not feel the pain. Only the pain of the loved ones and friends she lost.
"John.?" she whispered into the darkness.
Silence.
"Danse, Nick, Is there anybody?"
She was close to tears of desperation.
No one was left. She was all-alone. Could it be that she was the only one who had survived the blast? Had she truly helped her son kill those she loved?
Slowly Nora got onto her feet and turned around.
The empty wasteland seemed endless. Wherever she looked there was nothing but gray destruction under a gray sky. "No salvation", she whispered to herself.
A dark mist encased her and made her feel like floating.
Perhaps she was already dead.
She closed her eyes.
"I can't stand this."
When she had been a child, she had always had nightmares about being all-alone.
"Please.", she whispered.
When she opened her eyes again, he was standing in front of her.
He seemed exhausted as if he had fought for a very long time. His red coat was torn up into pieces and his face was bloody from fresh wounds.
"John?"
Nora raised her head higher and stared at him.
The ghoul looked at her with an expression of disbelief and mistrust.
"Where are we?"
Nora turned around and stared at the destruction again. "We are..."
Suddenly a tear ran down her cheek and along her throat. She quickly removed it with the back of her hand.
"At least we are still alive", Nora said slowly.
John turned around. "There is no point of being alive when everyone else you know is dead Nora!"
Nora shrugged. "Perhaps they survived it. Perhaps not. We will find out soon enough."
"Of course you don't care!" John yelled at her.
Nora remained silent and stared at the ground.
Growling with frustration John glared at Nora. "Let's just find a way out of this mess than"; breaking the silence again.
Nora shook her head. "There is no way out of here. The wasteland is endless."
"That's not true", John disagreed. "I woke up on a shore and started walking until I found you."
"And did you find anything else on your way? Any signs of life?" Nora wanted to know.
John shook his head. "But we can't stay here. I'll walk on until I find a way out of this wasteland and you can either come with me or stay here."
Nora nodded and picked up her gun that was lying next to her feet on the sandy ground. "So what are we waiting for?"
Hour after hour passed while John and Nora walked through the wasteland towards the empty horizon.
The farther they walked the more they started to realize the futility of their effort and more than one time they had to stop and rest for overcoming fatigue. Yet neither of them wanted to give up searching for life and John nearly started to be surprised by the tenacity Nora was able to bring up. It was almost as if he had his love back. Then he remembered how she broke his heart when she chose the institute over him so many years ago.
Finally it was him, who brought his thoughts to the point and said: "This is senseless."
Nora stopped walking. "What do you mean?"
He didn't look at her, but stared at the ground. "Your right Nora. There is no way out of this desert."
Nora frowned. "But you said you came from an ocean shore. So there must be something else than."
"That was a lie", John interrupted her. "I woke up in the same wasteland under the same sky and with nothing but emptiness around me. There is no ocean. No life. And no hope. And that is the reason we will never get out of here. - The only question that strikes me is: What could I have done to end up here in hell with you?"
Nora looked at him unable to say anything.
Suddenly her whole energy disappeared from her body and she broke into her knees.
With one fast step John was next to her and caught her fall.
Lying in his arms she could not hold back the tears that were coming and finally started to cry.
John felt uncomfortable, but held her tight feeling that she needed someone to comfort her. Even if he didn't care for her any more.
He never had expected it to end like this. All he had wanted was to protect a woman and fight for her - but now he had ended up in this endless deserted wasteland with no way out and no one left but a woman, that had abandoned him, was now lying in his arms crying.
He looked up at the sky.
Suddenly he saw something small and white moving through the clouds. He narrowed his obsidian eyes and stared at it making its way through the mist as if it was searching for something.
It was feather. A white feather carried by the wind along the sky.
"Nora", he whispered. "Nora, look."
The woman in his arms stopped crying and looked up. John pointed at the sky and Nora raised her head further.
First she could not see anything but gray, dark clouds. but then suddenly she started to smile slightly.
"A feather.", she whispered. "A sign of hope."
John looked down at her.
Without even really noticing what he was doing he raised his hand and softly removed the tears that had run down her cheeks with his fingers.
When their eyes met they looked at each other in the same way they had when they had been young and Nora was still her self.
Slowly John bent down and kissed her.
After a first moment of surprise Nora could do nothing but kiss him back.
He was the first ghoul she had ever kissed, but the touch of his lips on hers made her forget everything.
All the pain, fear and desperation seemed to melt away in pleasure.
And suddenly John realized that he had not failed to a woman.
All he had ever wanted was here in his arms. The woman he would always be able to protect, the woman who needed him as much as he needed her. Nora who had not cringed at the sight of him. But had always looked at him with love in her amber eyes.
Even death could not scare him anymore for he had never felt more complete in his whole life.
He finally found the Nora he had lost years ago.
And while they still kissed each other.
In a distant mile away from them.
A feather landed on a small patch of green grass.