The back room of the convenience store was in shambles; anything that was breakable had shattered or spilled or fallen, and I had to pick carefully though the mess, in the dark. The shelves had fallen and practically nothing was left untouched.

"Is there anything back there?" Mr. Travis called from the front, his voice sounding loud next to the otherwise dead silence.

"Most of this stuff's fallen on the ground," I called back, "Where did you find the flashlight?" I jerked in surprise as the sensitive skin on the top of my left foot rubbed against something painful, and I felt something warm trickle down my foot. "Shit..."

I moved my foot away and eased it down carefully into a safe spot, though I winced at the feel of something squishy and wet laying against me, which stung slightly when it met the new wound. The muscles in my arms and legs ached, and I stood still for a minute to regain myself.

"Up front!"

"Were there any more?" I asked, and reached up to hold my pained, glass-torn shoulder. "I can't see back here!"

He didn't answer for a moment, and I stood still, letting my eyes adjust to the light. I could see the whip and pull of a flashlight in the darkness in the front room of the convenience store, and I merely waited, knowing he heard me. I heard noises of movement, of something tearing, and then Mr. Travis appeared at the door.

"Catch!" he said, and tossed me a flashlight of my own.

"Thanks."

He gave a grunt and turned away to do his own job, whatever it was he'd assigned himself.

I fumbled with the switch and shined the light around the back room. I spied a frozen, curled hand sticking out from behind a fallen wooden shelf, and I swallowed.

It was a flaw in me, I thought, that a dead body itself had really never scared because it was dead. Not even the corpse of my grandfather at his open casket funeral had done anything more than make me think how different he looked than in life—my grandfather, who died just when he was getting interesting. He was cold, and rather stiff when I reached into the coffin. But not particularly scary, no. I understood the fact that he was gone, beyond my reach, but it hadn't made me afraid.

No, I thought to myself, I'm more worried about what killed him, not the fact that he's dead.

I picked my way through the back room, glancing around. I stepped over the body, refusing to glance at it after seeing that it resembled the girl in The Exorcist, with the wide, psychotic eyes, the discolored skin, and grotesquely grinning mouth—I knew it wasn't a grin, it was an awful grimace of pain, but I couldn't help it.

Steeling my nerves, I threw an angry glance at the shadowed, twisted body in an effort to squelch my irrational fear of the unknown. Death didn't frighten me, murder did. I took a deep breath, and then swung the light in front of me. I felt my heart thudding anxiously in my chest, making me tremble just the slightest.

"Hey! There's bottled water and canned food back here!"

There were at least ten cases of bottled water, of a brand called Tain—one I hadn't heard of, but that was a mundane observation. Next to it were a bunch of cans of vegetables strewn all over the floor. I toed at one with my bloody left foot and read the label. Creamed corn.

I glanced up, and looked at the walls. They were scorched, and...I turned around, and shined the light at the back wall—a wall which was no longer there, and instead a great hole was in its place, like a focused ballistics explosion.

I was no expert, by any means, at looking at things like that, but it all seemed to have been pushed outwards, like someone had stood where I was standing now and whatever explosion it was had gone outwards from me, through the wall and through the other buildings, making a dark tunnel.

Creeping towards it curiously, sidestepping the man's dead body, I stood in what had once been the wall, and stared out. It penetrated quite a while, and the light of the flashlight couldn't see to the end.

"This is weird," I murmured, touching the destroyed, blackened brick with my index and middle finger. It fell away like powdered chalk as I touched it, and it stuck to my fingers like dull, jet black soot. I tried to rub it away with my thumb, only to find that it stuck to me relentlessly and quickly got all over my hand. Irritated, I smudged it on my pants to get rid of it, only to find that it left a big black smear on my thigh. I scowled at it.

"What killed you?" I asked almost dreamily, staring down at the body, at its twisted, possessed features.

"What killed him? The same thing as was at South City."

I looked up sharply, my ears catching on those two words, South City, and a question bubbled up quickly in my mouth only to be cut short when Mr. Travis continued.

"We'll take a box of bottled water back and some food. We're all starving and need to eat something. Is something wrong?" he peered at me questioningly, shining the light in my face. I stared at him with a mix of confusion and hesitation.

After a moment I snapped out of my stupor.

"What? Oh—okay!" I said, and struggled to reach the piled cans and bottles.

South City? That's from—

"Can you carry the food with one arm?" Mr. Travis asked, and handed me an empty cardboard box without a top. His eyes strayed to the bloody stain at my shoulder.

I nodded. "I should be able to. My arm isn't really affected if I don't hold something too heavy." To tell the truth I was amazed at myself for holding on this long. I felt more tired than I could ever remember feeling in my life, and the combined strengths of the injuries I'd weathered was crippling. But I wasn't special in this, as all five of us were bad off. I suppose it was that knowledge that kept me going: That if they could do it, I could too.

We packed cans of food and microwaveable cup-things of instant chili into the box, along with trail mix bags and two full boxes of cigarettes and some lighters for Carl and Mr. Travis.

I hefted it under my arm, balanced it against the jut of my hip, and felt it begin to slip almost immediately; I'd need to readjust it a lot to get it back to the Station. Mr. Travis himself shouldered a heavy box of water, and we left the convenience store, heading back towards where we came from in silence.

As we were walking along the side of the overturned train, Mr. Travis said, in a grave voice: "I haven't seen any rescue vehicles or helicopters." The world around us was mostly silent except for the hollow, metallic dinging of our steps on the hull of the train. There was no light except for distant, halfhearted remains of billboards, and our flashlights, which guided our paths.

"I don't know...I thought for sure they'd be here by now," I said, biting back a cry of pain as I landed weirdly on my weak ankle. "What could have happened?"

This is all too weird. South City? No rescue people yet? In mainland America? What the hell's happened?

I couldn't help myself but glance out over the field of dead bodies, reminding me of pictures I'd seen of WWI no man's land, or maybe even Civil War dead. The memory Mr. Travis' mention of genocide brought to mind images of the concentration camp dead. The air smelled strangely, embittered by the night breeze.

I swallowed hard, and returned my focus to stepping carefully and not slipping. My grip on the box was tenuous, at best, and I had to shift it again, hiking it further up on my side and wiggling my fingers into a securer grip. My teeth grit together and my mouth hardened into a line. I felt my injured arm start to pulse with blood, a sign it was getting tired, and soon it would start to ache terribly.

The rest of me was crying out for rest, and for a moment I wavered on my feet, uttering a slight cry as my left shoe dug viciously into my little toe. I paused for a moment to regain my balance and shook my head resolutely, telling myself that I couldn't sit down and quit now.

Mr. Travis, too, was showing signs of weariness, and I watched him stagger just the slightest ahead of me.

With my little finger I hooked my hair and pulled it out of my face, smoothing it behind my ear, and realized that we had made it back to the Station.

The three who had remained at the Station had made a little fire, and, seeing the beams of our flashlights, Lolita and Carl quickly came to take the boxes out of our hands and to the side of the camp fire.

"Did you get any blankets?" Vera snapped demandingly, peering at me, who sat down slowly, inching myself into a seat, with critical, beady eyes. "It's cold out here!"

I looked up at her with an icy glare. "Be grateful that you're even getting food!" I snapped, roused to anger by her ungratefulness.

Mr. Travis was short in forcibly shoving Vera from the box of food, and when she gave a huff, he scoffed at her, and then passed out food. I took a bag of trail mix, a bottle of water, and a can of beans, which we pried open using a knife, which took some doing. Only our ravenous appetites gave us the strength to saw into the steel cans with that pitiful blade, and as we ate, we slowly got sleepier. Carl and Mr. Travis set to puffing on their cigarettes.

"We saw what was on the other side of the train," Carl said darkly, as I was leaning back and succumbing to sleep. This roused me and my eyes slid open, and focused on Carl's corpulent, ashen face. He was staring at the fire.

I was filled with sympathy for the man. The memory of his horrific screaming, begging his wife to answering hit me in the face like I'd been slapped, but I made no motion to betray this. I frowned just a bit.

Even Vera went silent, and turned a little pale. Lolita made a spastic motion with her trail mix, and some spilled on the ground. Her face was white, and she was trembling.

"It's the same thing that happened at South City, isn't it!" Vera suddenly cried, her shrill voice piercing all our ears. It echoed back at us in the silence.

"At South City, or at the island nine miles southwest of South City?" It poured out of my mouth before I could stop it. It was such a tedious detail, many fans tended to ignore it. Subconsciously, I prayed that they would say no island was involved.

The group turned to stare at me strangely at my outburst, and even Mr. Travis paused.

"Yes, at Domino Island, but generally the island is considered part of South City," he said slowly.

I felt sheepish at my outburst and ducked my head, as color rose to my cheeks. "Sorry."

"Why is this happening?" Lolita asked, from where she sat, her eyes empty and sunk in with weariness.

The androids hate humans, was the simple thought that sprung to my to mind, so familiar, though I was chewing a mouthful of trail mix and thankfully had no chance to mistakenly spit it out. But as soon as the thought issued in my mind I shoved it away in a near panic; that option meant things I didn't even want to think about, things that scared me.

For the first time a real sense of cold dread started to take hold, set off by the chill of the night creeping into my bones.

"You look sick," Lolita said softly, leaning forward and peering at me with a concerned look.

"I'm just tired," I said shortly, and rolled over onto my side, curling into a fetal position and slipping my hands between my thighs to keep them warm. My injured shoulder stung like someone had poured alcohol on it and even my hair ached inimically.

Where am I?

It occurred to me that there was no train near my home, much less a train that so closely resembled Japan's Shinkansen. I shut my eyes tightly, trying to drive the thoughts from my head. The buildings weren't like the ones back home, either. It was an observation that had slipped unbidden into my thoughts.

I shut my eyes tightly, and felt the cool concrete floor of the station seep into me as my cheek lay against the ground. I knew what lucid dreams felt like—I had them often enough, and this wasn't a lucid dream.

Though I badly wanted to think on that, I couldn't, since I was so tired.

If I wake up here tomorrow, I'll have more than enough time.

With that thought, I let the grip on my consciousness slide, and I fell dead asleep.

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