Miki woke up to find shadows flickering across her face. The sun was already high enough to shine down sharply through the RV's windows, occasionally being blocked by the buildings that lined the road. She rubbed her eyes, trying to understand why things were flickering, and realized that they were already on their way.

"Oh, you're up!" Yuki poked her grinning face in front of Miki's. "I was wondering how long you were going to be out!"

"Why didn't you wake me?" Miki asked with a yawn. "You always wake me up before we start driving."

"Kurumi said that didn't sleep well last night." Yuki held out her hands. "Do you want trail mix or a granola bar for breakfast?"

"So we don't have any more freeze-dried oatmeal?"

"Um… we probably do, but…" Yuki stuck her tongue out and grimaced.

"I'll take the trail mix." Miki took the bag and stumbled over to the table.

"You sleep okay?" Kurumi asked from the driver's seat.

"I wouldn't say I slept well…" Miki rubbed her forehead. "But I think I'm okay for now." There was more emphasis on the last two words than she meant to have. She took a seat at the table and started picking the good bits out of the trail mix. "What are we doing today? Playing more of Yuki's game?"

Yuki shook her head. "I'm fixing some of the rules. Right now it's way too easy to get gold points, and it takes too long to reach the end of path 3."

"Obviously."

"We're making very good time today," Yuuri said as she sat down beside Miki. She began to unfold the map. "For whatever reason, this road here has been relatively clear. In fact, it's a relatively straight shot to our destination. Assuming it isn't blocked up completely anywhere, we could be there in a week, give or take a few days."

"Really." Miki swallowed. The idea of where they might be in a week… that they might possibly be… she refused to let her hopes get up too high.

Yuuri nodded. The lack of excitement on her face indicated that she felt the same way.

"What about the university?" Yuki asked. "Weren't we going to stop there?"

"It is on the way." Yuuri pointed at the map again. "Depending on what's there, it might only add a day or so to the trip."

"And maybe we'll find someone who could come with us!" Yuki added.

The other three girls shared silent glances.

"What? Someone might want to come with us!"

"Why would someone want to come with us?" Kurumi blurted. The RV wobbled slightly as she clamped her hand to her mouth, but it was too late to take back the question.

Yuki thought for a moment and looked out the window, watching the buildings fly by with a blank look on her face. Yuuri and Miki glanced at each other, silently asking what to do. Neither one of them got an answer.

"Maybe… maybe they'd want to…" Yuki put her hand against the glass. "They might be lonely."

"Lonely," Miki repeated.

"Yeah." She turned away from the window to look at Miki. Her face seemed oddly downcast. "It's no fun being lonely."

Miki nodded. "I know."

Yuki smiled. "Want to help me figure out how to fix my game?"

"Sure. As soon as I finish my breakfast."


"So you really think she's getting over it?" Kurumi asked, keeping her voice low. Miki and Yuki were preoccupied by some sort of activity that had started with trying to fix the game, but had somehow resulted in the two of them drawing a large and very complicated-looking diagram.

"How else do you explain her answer to your question?" Yuuri answered.

"Maybe she just couldn't think of anything else that made sense."

"Maybe, but back at school, I don't think she would've even said something like that. And did you see the look she gave Miki?"

"No, I was driving, remember."

"Oh, right." Yuuri glanced back over her shoulder to make sure that Yuki was still occupied. "It was like Yuki knew what she had gone through. Like she recognized how lonely Miki had been before we found her, and that if anyone at the university is still alive they might be in a similar situation."

"I can't imagine that," Kurumi said, half to herself. "Even with you and Yuki with me, it's been… I don't know. Did I ever tell you what I found in the bunker under the school?"

Yuuri shook her head.

"In one of the storage closets… it turns out we weren't the only ones who survived and hid in the school. I'm not sure exactly who it was. Maybe one of the teachers, a janitor, one of the administrators… whoever it was, they must've thought that they were the only one who survived. I don't know how long he was there, or how long he lasted. But it wasn't them who got him."

"You mean… he…"

"Yeah. When I first saw him, I thought he was a coward. He had food, medicine, a safe place to hide… all sorts of things that we wished that we had, and he still couldn't handle it. But now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't about that. Maybe he wasn't afraid. Maybe he was just lonely. Maybe he thought that everyone else was gone. That for the rest of his life, he'd never have anyone else to talk to, or to… to... I don't know if I'd have done any better if I hadn't had you. I still don't know how Miki managed to survive on her own for so long."

Yuuri smiled. "Maybe she was just too stubborn."

"I guess that's not always a bad thing," Kurumi said. "I couldn't imagine being alone in a time like this. The last time I was…" she absentmindedly scratched at the bandage on her shoulder. "I hope none of us have to be in that kind of situation again."

"I understand. The last time I was alone, I" -her mind flashed with the image of her trembling hands trying to maintain their grip on a knife- "...I never want it to happen again."

"Hey!" Yuki's voice echoed from the back of the cabin. "We don't have an twelve-sided dice, do we?"


The RV ground slowly to a halt and the engine cut out. Kurumi slumped back in the driver's seat and sighed, twirling the keys around her finger.

"Looks like as good a place as any to spend the night. We probably could get a little further, but this spot is pretty much as good as we're gonna get. Or do you want to keep going?"

"No, I think we've gone far enough today" Yuuri answered as she consulted the map. "It looks like we should be able to reach the university tomorrow regardless. How much gas do we have left?"

"A little over half a tank. We should probably refill tomorrow, but it's not like we're about to run out or anything." Kurumi stood up and wobbled her way towards the back of the RV. "Ugh, my legs fell asleep. We should really switch drivers more often."

"Can I drive next time!" Yuki started bouncing in her seat. "I haven't gotten a turn yet!"

"We'll see," Yuuri answered. "Maybe if we find somewhere where there isn't anything to crash into."

Yuki snorted in frustration. "I'm not going to crash!"

"Everybody thinks that before they actually start driving," Miki said. "So have we stopped for the night?"

Kurumi nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I'm sick of driving anyway, and we're at a good spot." She stretched, and her back popped. "Ugh, I wish we could get out of here and stretch a little."

Miki glanced out the window. "Well, why don't we?"


Kurumi pulled her jacket closer around her collar, trying to keep the breeze off of her neck. She rubbed her hands together. They were cold. Then again, they had been cold for weeks. Maybe they were a little colder now, but she couldn't tell if that was because everything was colder now. She decided not to think about it.

Instead, she glanced over the edge of the overpass where they had stopped for the night. The road that passed beneath it was empty except for the abandoned cars that filled the city. She hated that. Partially because they were always in the way, but mostly because they had been a constant stream of reminders of everything that had gone wrong.

She turned away from the road and looked at the sky. It was the only thing that was still the same. Even though it wasn't quite dark yet, the thin sliver of the moon was still clearly visible hanging in the sky.

Why does everything familiar have to be so far away?

"Feeling better?" Miki came up beside her, gazing into the sky.

"Not really," Kurumi kept her eyes fixed on the moon. "I thought maybe it would help get my mind off of everything, but all it does is make it even harder to forget how screwed up everything is. I just want to be able to get away from it. Just for a little." Her knuckles began to turn white as she gripped the edge of the railing at the edge of the overpass. "I'm just so sick of… of… ugh!" She kicked the guardrail and then slumped against it, breathing deeply.

Miki took a step toward her, then stepped back. She chewed on her lip as she tried to decide whether to say something, or just go back to the RV. Neither option really seemed right, so she shuffled her feet in place, rubbing her hands together to keep them warm. Kurumi stood almost entirely still, except for the slight shift of her breathing.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"Huh?"

"I said I'm sorry. I didn't mean…" She finally straightened up, still staring at the sky. "I shouldn't have…"

"It's okay." Miki stepped beside her. "I think we all feel that way."

"Maybe, but I shouldn't take it out on you. Especially not with everything that you're… you know. If you're going through that, then-"

"It doesn't meant that you aren't going through anything," Miki said. "Do you think that just because I'm sad doesn't mean that you can't be sad too? You don't have to pretend that you're fine because of me. I know that you managed to get back to your house, and… You told me once that if I needed someone to talk to, I could come to you. And you should know that it goes both ways."

Kurumi hung her head. "I guess you're right. It just gets to you after a while, you know? I thought maybe the driving would help distract me, but that really didn't work. Every time I take a turn, I have to wonder what's going to be there. I wish I could get a break, but that's impossible. Yuuri drives sometimes, too, but still."

Miki thought for a moment. "If you want, I could take a turn driving. We were planning on doing that at some point, weren't we?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't really think that you'd want to. Because, well…" Kurumi shrugged.

"I think I should be fine for a little while, especially if it'll help you out."

"Thanks. Tomorrow we can give it a try." She stood and stretched her arms out. "It really does feel good to get out of that thing." She glanced up and down the highway. "Want to go for a walk? Not far, obviously. But just to stretch a little bit?" She lowered her voice. "And maybe… talk a little more?"

Miki smiled. "Sure."


"So then to decide how many spaces to move, you have to flip three coins."

Kurumi's eye twitched as she examined the game board, which seemed to have grown quite a bit since the last time she had played. In fact, it seems to be in the process of reproducing via mitosis.

"Which path is this on again?"

"The one with the star!" Yuki pointed at one of the paths, specifically one that snaked around the entire edge of the board, weaved in and out of the other paths, and looping out onto a second board that Yuki had taped to the first one.

"If you can only move three spaces at a time, it's going to take hours to get through the whole thing!" Kurumi dropped her head to the table and mumbled under her breath. "No wonder Miki wanted to drive."

"You can totally move more than three spaces!" Yuki playfully bonked Kurumi on the head. "See, each coin flip actually represents one digit of a binary number-"

"Since when do you even know what a binary number is?"

Yuki shrugged. "Because Yuuri taught me that. I figured if I have to know what that is I might as well use it for something."

Kurumi turned around to glare at Yuuri. "Why would you teach her that?"

"It was the in the book!"

Kurumi snorted. "How's Miki doing at the wheel?"

"All things considered, I think I'm doing okay." Miki answered. She giggled. "I haven't hit anything yet, at least."

"That's good."

"What about you?"

"I'm… doing fine," Kurumi answered. "Or at least I was, until Yuki started trying put binary numbers into her game. As if it wasn't complicated enough already."

"What's wrong with binary numbers!?" Yuki sputtered indignantly.

"It's too complicated! I know you want to try out different types of stuff, but it's just too much. It's not that I haven't had fun playing it, but I think I'd enjoy it more if I actually knew what I was doing more than half the time."

"Hmmmmm." Yuki examined the convoluted mass of cardboard and scribbles on the table. "Maybe I should try splitting all of this into a bunch of different games."

"That would be a great idea." Kurumi tried not to sound too enthusiastic. "I mean, your game is fun, but it's already pretty much like half a dozen games stuck together. I think that's probably why we had such a tough time understanding it."

"I didn't think it was that bad," Yuuri said.

"Well, of course you didn't. You already know how to count in binary or whatever."

"Maybe, but that's not why I- Oof!" The RV jerked to a sudden stop.

"Hey, what happened?" Kurumi asked. "Are you okay up there?"

"Um, we're fine," Miki answered. "Could you come up here for a minute?"

Kurumi looked down at the tangle of games that Yuki had produced. "You okay if I help them out for a second?"

"Sure!" Yuki said, not even looking up from whatever it was she was working on. "Miki probably needs help going around a corner or something."

Kurumi nodded and scrambled to the front of the RV. "What's up?"

"Well, there's good news and bad news," Yuuri said, keeping her voice low. "The good news is that we're getting close to the University and will probably be able to get there by tomorrow morning."

"And the bad news?"

Miki silently pointed out the window. In the distance, in the gap between the buildings, a dark smudge crept into the sky like a pillar. Kurumi bit her lip as she glanced at the map on Yuuri's lap. There was no doubt that she was looking towards their destination.

"That can't be good," she muttered.