There once had been a very well-known religious saying that had passed gracefully into common vernacular.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
The human story began several centuries ago. The human story began before humans even realized that they were making a story, and so the prologue became a bit muddled and probably Very Inaccurate, but they figured it wasn't half-bad work for a quick job.
"In the Beginning…"
In the Beginning, the world was a whole lot of ash and dust. History's authors decided to sculpt Man from the ash and name him Adam. From Adam came Eve and she was a rather naggy thing, but as the First Wife to the First Man, you had to learn quick how to shame him into getting things done. It was a particular strain of genetics that had passed on to women just as the DNA pre-coded with asinine foolishness was forever coded into men.
But you were told that so that you could be told this.
In the Beginning, the War had only been in a single country, one that had been concerned primarily with its own affairs since its institution as a nation. Isolation had been par for the course as far as America went, but then the economy had become globalized and this war caused the United States to close off its ports; nothing in and nothing out.
For the first time, the Peace Arch was bolted shut and framed in by balustrades of barbed wire and steel. The children of a common mother, brethren dwelling together in unity were separated.
But you were told that so that you could be told this.
The War leaked past the closed American ports and invaded Europe and South America with the unsettling force of a particularly stubborn strain of viral infection, squirming past the shoddy defense of politics, igniting passions and old prejudices that hadn't died even over a century later and forming them into a cesspit of patched-together coalitions that were an eerie mirror-reflection of the same alliances that had been part of the last World War. Those that tried to be neutral could not manage it fully, rebuffing would-be invaders by force or falling. And they were all overrun eventually, except for the northernmost sector of the continent, Scandinavia.
The War was already over in the American continent, the country split into confederations and haphazardly pieced into place and renamed the American Commonwealth. The barbed wire was removed and the Peace Arch was opened again, though the war still raged on and grew past its European borders to slip into the Middle East and Africa.
As suddenly as it had begun in Europe, it was over. The history books refused to record why. It was probably because they couldn't. There was nobody left to dictate the Way Things Happened, nobody left to write it down, nobody left to publish it.
There was certainly nobody left who cared to read it when they were all preoccupied with trying to scrape a living out of the dust.
The old might and splendor of Europe was gone. Downpours of acid rain mixed with ash and soot took the place of thunderstorms, the cities were burnt-out shells of former majesty, and the people had almost reached the epilogue of the human story. They could only keep hoping that there would be a sequel and with it, a new prologue.
Genesis, chapter one.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
"We're going the wrong way."
"We are not going the wrong way, so just shut up!"
In the beginning, Humans created the ash and the dust. And the earth was ripped asunder, and dead; and poison was on the face of the oceans. And the Spirit of Humanity moved but made nothing.
Humans said, Let there be light: and now they wait for the candle to be lit.
If the human story could be all about ash and dust, it's likely that it would be. However, this story is not the human story. It is a story, and it is about humans, but it is not omniscient and all-knowing, and nobody knows how it will end.
But they could probably make an educated guess.
"Liz, you're holding the fucking map upside-down!"
"I am not! If you're so worried about, then you should've listened to me and let me ask for directions in that last town!"
"Tch! I'm not stopping to ask for directions-"
"Then the sooner you shut up and let me read the damned map, the sooner we can get to Vienna."
"...I'll start singing that song you hate again."
"I'll roast you alive if you try it."
They were picking their way south from Znojmo, navigating carefully through the rocky outcroppings, avoiding the main roads that still existed (highwaymen by the highways...it made a great deal of sense), and taking refuge in abandoned buildings when night fell and the temperature beneath the ever-present gray cloud dropped. The days were blisteringly hot, the nights were mercilessly frigid.
The two travelers had crossed what they imagined to be the border between Austria and the former Czech Republic, meaning the old capital of Vienna shouldn't have been too far away. It was a place to replenish their supplies and move onwards into Slovakia. Elizaveta fell behind Gilbert's land-devouring stride as she stared down at the map, trying to plot the proper course to Vienna-
And then she ran straight into Gilbert's back, bumping her nose and making her eyes tear up in pain.
"Gilbert, what the hell?" she hissed, covering her pained nose with a hand and glaring at the pale man with watery eyes. He stood like a statue in the middle of the brokenly-paved road, staring at her over his shoulder with an expression that seemed to speak a "Now Look What You've Done" sort of sentiment. Wordlessly, he lifted an arm and pointed with all the authority of God at a singed and ancient sign posted a bit ahead, barely upright.
"Wien. 20 kilometres," he read for her, as if she wasn't capable of doing so herself. She stared back at him blankly.
"What's your point?"
"What's my point-the sign says Wien, not Vienna!" Gilbert exploded, whirling to face Elizaveta with a furious expression, "We're probably nowhere near-"
A folded map whacked him across the face.
"Vienna and Wien are the same damned city, you idiot."
Gilbert silently stared at the sign, then peered at the map, then back at the sign again.
"...no shit?"
Elizaveta rolled her eyes and continued walking, allowing him to turn that over in his head for as long as he needed to. "I told you, I know where I'm going," she muttered and stuffed the map in her back pocket. "It's a straight shot from here if we just keep following the highway." She sighed and tried to block out the dulling ache in her feet as the unforgiving terrain continued wreaking havoc on her body, and they were almost out of aspirin. She didn't say anything when she noticed Gilbert tripping more often over potholes or chunks of concrete and instead focused on keeping her own self upright. Vienna was close, and soon they'd be able to rest, stock up on supplies, and most importantly, rest.
As they soldiered on in silence (mainly because their throats were too dry to bother speaking), they eventually noticed someone in the distance walking towards them in the opposite direction on the other side of the highway. As they got nearer, Elizaveta could begin to make out his face, and she guessed he wasn't much older than she or Gilbert, judging by his slim frame and the roundness of his cheeks beneath his thin glasses. He also appeared somewhat wealthy, if the outfit he wore was any indication of his earnings: tailored pants that were spotlessly clean, leather boots, a gleaming watch fastened to his left wrist by a thick silver chainlink band, and a polo shirt.
A polo shirt? You couldn't find one of those anymore if you tried. Elizaveta and Gilbert watched curiously as the young man passed them, glancing down at his map every few seconds, then looking around at his surroundings with a frustrated expression.
Gilbert snorted under his breath and grinned. "Feel sorry for any poor bastard walking down this godforsaken strip of land." Elizaveta elbowed him; his grin disappeared and he slapped her arm in retaliation.
"We should at least see if we can point him in the right direction; he looks really lost," Elizaveta said, watching the young man's retreating back as he wandered farther behind them.
Gilbert groaned. "Come on, Liz, we're almost to Vienna! Just leave him alone, I'm sure he'll find his way... uh, eventually. Or get robbed. He's practically asking for it." But the young woman had already turned around and was making her way closer to the stranger on the other side of the road. Gilbert's face fell dramatically. "Oh, for fuck's sake..." He didn't bother following her, but stayed put, his arms crossed in annoyance.
"Hey!" Elizaveta called, and the young man turned around immediately. "Are you looking for something?" She lowered the volume of her voice as he strode across the street, and as he got closer, Elizaveta noticed with a faint glow behind her ears that he was also rather handsome. His expression was far too serious for someone who appeared to have much less to worry about than she and Gilbert, and Elizaveta found herself becoming unusually flustered. "U-um, you just looked a little lost is all. Are you looking for something?" she repeated.
The young man adjusted his glasses and consulted his map once more.
Elizaveta mentally amended her previous assessment to very handsome.
"Yes, I'm trying to reach Vienna," he replied distractedly as his eyes wandered the map's terrain, "but I can't seem to find any road signs leading in that direction. They all seem to have simply... disappeared." He sighed and folded his map, shaking his head as if resigned to his fate of walking the Earth forever lost.
Elizaveta brightened. "We're actually heading to Vienna right now," she informed him, jabbing a thumb behind her at Gilbert, who was still standing crossly a few yards away beneath a sign that had supposedly disappeared. "It's that way. You can tag along with me and Gil if you want."
The brunet man's face softened in relief. "I would appreciate it greatly, Miss..."
"E-Elizaveta Hedérváry. And this pain in the neck is Gilbert Beilschmidt."
The young man scooped up Elizaveta's hand in his and brought it to his lips in a display of chivalry that probably hadn't been seen since the last century. From where he was standing, Gilbert watched the scene unfold with a deep scowl and finally stomped over to join them just as the other young man was introducing himself.
"-Roderich Edelstein. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss El-"
"Okay, Liz, we really should get going now!" Gilbert interrupted him loudly, grabbing Elizaveta s free hand and tugging her back in the direction they were originally headed. "Just point Specs in the right direction and let's get a move on, okay?"
Elizaveta frowned and pulled her hand free. "Actually, I told Roderich he could come with us, stupid," she replied. "He's going to Vienna, too." Gilbert glanced over at Roderich, whose expression had returned to its former stoic expression, and sneered.
"That's some ass-backwards map you got there! Any farther and you probably would've walked right into the Atlantic Ocean!"
Roderich bristled. "That's completely ridiculous. For your information, we're nowhere near the ocean." Gilbert stared at him blankly for a moment, then turned to Elizaveta and sighed with a long-suffering look.
"Can we just get going before my ass literally falls off?" He hitched up the canvas knapsack on his back that was nearly empty by now, and began trudging back towards Vienna.
"Don't worry about Gilbert," Elizaveta said quietly as she and Roderich trailed a few feet behind him. "He's just a dick in general."
"Hey, I heard that!"
"Just shut up and walk, Gil. Let me finally enjoy some new company in peace." Elizaveta sighed and waved a hand at Gilbert's back dismissively. At her gesture, Roderich's face surreptitiously crossed the line between its customary stoicism and a state of mild amusement. Gilbert caught the action in his peripheral and tossed a faintly venomous "fuck you too" over his shoulder. Roderich stopped dead at the vulgarity, staring mutely at Gilbert's back. Elizaveta growled angrily and stomped forward at a quick clip, pushing forcefully past Gilbert so that he stumbled to the side and stared after her in bemused shock as she strode onwards at an increasingly quickening pace. The albino glanced over his shoulder at Roderich.
The quietly judgmental look had changed into blatantly judgmental. Gilbert almost wished the stuck-up prick would just come out and say something to him instead of bombarding him with glare after disdainful glare- he found the quiet disconcerting.
Elizaveta whipped her head around; the two young men had finally begun walking again, though Roderich was traveling at a decidedly slower, almost leisurely pace, and she wondered for a moment exactly where this guy had come from- he appeared well enough off that he certainly couldn't have been from anywhere that wasn't within a ten kilometre radius of Vienna. Simply satisfied, however, with the fact that they were all on the move again, Elizaveta focused once again on the deadened highway in front of her, carefully avoiding the debris littering their path.
Once, she got her foot caught in a deep, spidery crack that ran across nearly the entire road, and she went down almost instantly, letting out a whirlwind of obscenities as she fell.
"Nice one, Liz!"
"Shut up and help me, you jacka-jerk." Elizaveta amended quickly, ears becoming tinged with pink as Roderich brushed past Gilbert and hurried to her side (somehow making it even look graceful), offering her his hand. He pulled her to her feet with strength that was not immediately obvious, given that at a first glance, Roderich gave off the impression of being slender and reedy like a conductor's baton and just as fragile. He bent slightly to brush the dirt and debris from her front in a manner that was purely clinical and impersonal, but made her flush red and had Gilbert rushing up to the two of them with a thunderous expression. He shoved Roderich aside and seized Elizaveta by the shoulders as if she had almost taken a dive over a cliff and not simply tripped.
"My God, Liz! Are you okay?" he demanded in a voice that was too loud and devoid of any real worry, sans the concern that Roderich would not be watching Gilbert metaphorically piss on his territory. Elizaveta's eyes narrowed into slits as she pushed Gilbert's hands away.
"I'm fine," she spat quietly. "Now can we please get a move on before it gets too dark? We don't have anything left for tinder and I want to try and make it into Vienna before the temperature drops too low."
The dust clouds that painted the sky red and trapped earth-scorching heat by day also served to sieve away the warmth by night and turn the landscape into a grotesque study of frost and death via overexposure. Elizaveta and Gilbert had seen its effects too many times already since they'd left Berlin; twisted corpses bloated with rot and seized up with pre-mature rigor mortis, oftentimes two or more bodies intertwined together in a desperate but failed attempt to produce enough heat to survive a night without shelter. Life had retrograded back into a primordial form by the time night fell.
You either had fire and a roof or you died.
Elizaveta's nature prevented this from ever truly concerning her, but it was a very real danger to Gilbert and their new traveling companion (albeit temporary, if Gilbert had anything to say about it and he definitely would) and the sky was quickly fading from the ruddy brown of cloudy dusk into a dark greyish-blue that bruised the sky in patches. Glancing upward, Elizaveta sighed ruefully and readjusted the pack slung over her shoulders.
"Quittin' time," she sang with mock cheerfulness to Gilbert. He grinned back wryly and made his way to the rusted guard rail, whistling loudly as he broke branches off of twisted, petrified trees. Roderich, for his own part, looked mystified. Elizaveta smiled reassuringly and pointed at a burnt-out building further up the highway that looked like it had been a section of tenement housing in a previous life.
"Provided we don't run into anyone or anything too particularly unsavory in there," she said, "that's going to be our home tonight. But you're the only one we've seen for days and days, so I don't really bank on us running into anyone else."
"I see." Roderich was staring at the building with a peculiar expression. "I don't believe you'll be running into anyone else there. I stayed there last night and it was only myself and...one other person, but I imagine he is well on his way north by now."
"Meeting up for a secret lovers' rendezvous or something?" Gilbert drawled from behind them. "I mean, it would explain why you're packed so light for a traveler. Just daytripping out for a pleasant stroll of the gardens, princess?"
Roderich went slightly pink and cleared his throat. "It was nothing like that, I assure you. He was just ill-prepared for along journey and I was still very close to home, so I thought it prudent to simply be a bit generous with my supplies-"
"So it was a rendezvous?" Elizaveta asked in a voice pitched slightly too high to be natural. When the newcomer glanced down at her, she was staring back at him with metaphorical stars in her eyes that made him feel...somewhat uncomfortable.
"...no," he said at last. "It wasn't. He was far too interested in finding his fiancé's brother to proposition me. Not," he said emphatically, "that I would accept or had any interest in him beyond basic facts."
"Well, in case we come across him or what's left of him-" (Roderich went slightly pale) "-you mind telling us what the other half of your torpid love affair looks like?"
The dark-haired man glared at Gilbert and began to protest until Elizaveta placed a hand on his arm and gave him a small shake of the head and sardonic smile; not worth the argument. Roderich sighed and lifted his eyes heavenward, as if asking for patience.
"He was about your height. Dark hair, tan skin, green eyes. I think he was a Spaniard, although he said he was coming from Napoli."
"From Italy? That means he had to pass through the Tarviso border somehow," Elizaveta said. She glanced ahead and noted with relief that they were nearly to the building that would become their shelter for the night.
"Is that a problem?" Roderich asked curiously. Gilbert gave an annoyed sigh from behind them, juggling an armful of dried tinder.
"You should at least know that the Vatican took over Italy after the war ended there. They set up these massive walls from Venice all along the northern border to...ah...I think it was Imperia. But nobody gets in and nobody gets out. Napoli's the only open port, but it's monitored by the polizia from Rome so closely that it's rare that anybody can get in without the proper documentation."
"So perhaps he had the proper documentation." Roderich shrugged. Gilbert gave a loud derisive snort.
"Nobody has the proper documentation to get out of Italy. Not the Pope, not even God himself! Your Spaniard had to go through Tarviso to get into Austria and to do that without the help from one of the higher-ups means a bullet through the head. If you're lucky."
A branch fell from Gilbert's grasp to hit the cracked tarmac with a sound like a gunshot.
"I think that's enough of that," Elizaveta announced with a surreptitious look at Roderich's paling face. "Don't be such a jerk and make me nauseous before dinner."
"As if anything would turn your stomach, you pig."
"Shut up, Gil!"
The trio picked their way carefully up what had once been an exit ramp, carefully skirting shallow ravines in the asphault and edging around giant chunks of concrete run through with rusted steel poles that littered the area. Their breath began to come in clouds of frosty white as the temperature rapidly fell.
"Need to move faster," Gilbert muttered as he moved past her. Elizaveta silently nodded and lengthened her stride to match his. She tossed a worried look over her shoulder to Roderich, who was straggling behind them.
"Roderich, we need to hurry!" she called. "If we don't get a fire going soon, it's going to be impossible after the rain starts."
"Yeah! Shake a leg, princess!" Gilbert barked loudly.
Elizaveta could see Roderich bristling even with the distance between them and hid a giggle behind her hand as he stormed up to them, neatly inserting himself between Gilbert and Elizaveta. Gilbert looked like he wanted to complain, but they had at last arrived at their destination and Elizaveta was shoving them through a soot-blackened doorway before an argument had a chance to break out.
The former...whatever it had been felt as if it was holding its breath. It immediately set on Elizaveta on edge and even Gilbert looked tense, gritted teeth and a muscle ticking in his jaw.
"Gil," Elizaveta whispered, "is there anything...?"
The trio went silent for a moment. Roderich stared at them in bewilderment as Gilbert's eyebrows furrowed, as though he was listening for something.
"Nah, all clear. Nothin' but rats on the second floor and it looks like the little bastards found a large haul." Gilbert smirked and eyed the questionable looking stairs. "So if you'll excuse me, ladies. I'm going grocery shopping."
He'd barely stepped forward before Roderich was grabbing at his elbow and yanking him back. Just as swiftly, Roderich was pulling away as though he'd been burned by daring to touch Gilbert's bare skin. Gilbert just stared at him with narrowed eyes and a raised brow.
"Problem, princess?"
"There's nothing upstairs that's-" Roderich swallowed and adjusted his glasses reflexively. "Nothing of any value."
The albino peered at him closely, eyes narrowing into slits as his face took on that expression of listening again. A mere moment later he was recoiling away from the stairs with a look of profound disgust. Elizaveta was glancing between the two of them with wide eyes before clearing her throat loudly.
"Why don't you show us where you stayed last night, Roderich?" she asked brightly. "We'll at least know that room is safe to sleep in."
The brunette nodded and took a few steps ahead down an adjacent hallway. Elizaveta slowed her pace to fall in place next to Gilbert and peeked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. "What did you see?" she asked quietly. He shuddered and rubbed his palms over his arms briskly in the chilled air as they followed Roderich slowly.
"There's...you know. Upstairs. It's not safe to stay here more than one night, Lizzybet. It was Hunters."
She stared at him with wide and horrified green eyes before her gaze darted quickly to Roderich's back. "Is he-"
"No," Gilbert replied, "no, it caught him by surprise too. They've...been there awhile."
Elizaveta bit her lip and cast her eyes up to the ceiling. "I don't want to ask, but...could you tell who it was?"
"The bodies? Fuck no. The handiwork? Those northerners with the tacky name. They also went and painted all over the walls with their symbol, as if we couldn't already tell." Gilbert grimaced and gave another shudder. "Either way, we need to be in Vienna by tomorrow and ditch the pretty boy. The less of a trail we've got, the better. So we'll have to be discreet."
"Because you've been so subtle," Elizaveta scoffed, elbowing him in the ribs. He made a face and elbowed her back.
"M'serious. It sounds like the priss has family in Vienna or something, so he'll be fine. We'll do some poking around to get our information, restock, and then get the hell out. Shit, we shouldn't have given him our names..."
"Oh, give him a little credit. Roderich doesn't seem like the type to-"
"Liz, I know you think he's cute, but don't let a pretty face and nice ass get you to lose your head."
She smirked at him knowingly as his own words processed.
Elizaveta sped up with a laugh as Gilbert froze in the middle of the hallway with a flabbergasted expression.