There were Others in some time. There were children, some adults, some SeeDs, some known and some strangers, but they were there and were as decrepit-looking as their surroundings. There were no wounded.

"We should head to the mainland," someone said nearby.

"The town, no, the town," someone else spoke up.

"Stay out of towns," someone else added.

And so it went. Zell and Xu stayed together that day, by the craters and the ruins and were mostly silent. The handful of others left when the sun disk behind the wall of clouds dimmed. When darkness was total they were again alone.

"What are you thinking?" asked Xu, sitting down cross-legged on a blanket she had found some hours earlier. Its owner no longer needed it. They were situated in an area that was relatively ice-free and dry.

Zell was silent. He only spoke when Xu nudged his arm. "I'm afraid to know," he said quietly. "I'm afraid .. The cures don't work."

"I know they don't work –" she started but was interrupted.

"No, you don't know shit." There were tears in his voice. "My mother lives in Balamb." He covered his face with his hands, smearing the dust and dirt. His shoulders shook and he made sounds like a small child who no one understood.

Xu had never before seen a man cry in such a manner. She said nothing at first and was even afraid to look up and thus focused her eyes on the darkness directly in front of her feet. But then a thought came to her, and it was a natural thought that should have come to her sooner, she realized, and she conveyed it thus: "Tomorrow we will go down to Balamb and find your mom. She is probably hiding in her basement. Balamb was built well. Maybe they evacuated. They probably evacuated." She said this although in her heart she knew this was not the truth and that no building in Balamb had a basement due to its proximity to the ocean.

"Fuck off," he answered her and frantically wiped at his eyes. He was afraid and he was afraid because he knew. Somewhere in his heart he had always known there was nothing but a crypt awaiting him in Balamb. He would see many crypts in the time to come. They all would. He lowered himself from the cement pillar he was sitting on and down onto Xu's blanket. He did not apologize.

Xu did not know Zell's mother. She did not know how she loved to bake, how well she played cards, or how she would wait in line for hours, weather be damned, when a new martial arts tournament came about to secure a competitors' spot for her son. So naturally, Xu was very offended that her good intentions were rejected and signaled this by turning her back to where she felt Zell would be for the night, rolling on her side, and going to sleep. She could sense him shifting on the blanket behind her back. He said nothing more.

The morning was lighter than the one before it had been. The sky was a violet shade of gray, the kind of shade rich men paint their cars to appear even more rich and in which some computer equipment is made. It was not unpleasant. It felt like normalcy. There was a breeze and it was warm despite the mounts of ice on the ground in places where the hail had been particularly thick. The craters seemed larger and even more moon-like with the new light. But now that felt like normalcy too and no Others elsewhere and not even the couple on the blanket thought much of them.

They had been sleeping back to back, their respective edges of the blanket wrapped around their legs for warmth. It was very much like sleeping in the field during SeeD exercises, except they had no air mattress and no hooch. Zell was the first to open his eyes and awoke Xu by the sudden movement of his rising. She did not mind.

The Garden was now deserted and only the dead kept a steady vigil over its decapitated halls. They did not smell. They were slow to begin the decomposition process. All insects were dead.

"It's nice today," said Xu for the sakes of making conversation. They had cleaned themselves up in what once had been the cafeteria and were currently in the process of gathering baggies of chips and many varieties of child-safe candy bars from a vending machine that had miraculously survived the storm. They gathered two backpacks full. The backpacks came from those who no longer needed them. They were free.

While Zell dug a few cans of pop out of the rubble, Xu emptied out the purses of what girls she came across. At first she would pick up the purses by the straps, with two shaking fingers, and open them likewise. After a while she no longer bothered with the delicacies and plucked them out of stiff hands without a second thought. They were dead and she was alive and she was a woman. She gathered what she needed quickly.

"Hey," started Zell as Xu picked through her findings. "I'm sorry .. About last night, I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she answered but did not look up.

"I'm not usually like that." His tone was indeed apologetic.

"It's alright. It's alright .."

"We can't stay here, we have to go," he was suddenly full of energy and jumped up, kicking an invisible opponent. "We'll go see my friend," he announced with a smile on his face that showed off his teeth. "We'll go, and then .. Then I'll go to Balamb."

Now Xu looked up, her eyes wide. "Your friend ..?" she mumbled. "But .." She did not have the heart to state what he must have surely have known.

"No," he laughed and kicked the air again although his knees had hurt. "I know he's alive."