the ash

[ As it turns out, remembering the end of the world isn't the worst part of waking up.

The headache splits his head before the stringing sound is dulled out, but the dullness still presses in his head. All those links connected to him. Things he can't understand because he's barely been awake to even try. Chances are he won't be able to do that long after he has.

There's enough strength in him to know - to know that this is preferable to what he left behind. He wouldn't have been corporeal, just - ash. Fine ash, so fine that it seemed like another world had ripped through and replaced Earth. All that was replaced was the certainty of how the world would keep spinning and that society would follow. Until the invaders came and ash was all that was left.

He remembers seeing it crawling toward him, right before he said yes. And now he's here. ]

small comforts

[ A small comfort is finding that he has all his contents in his pockets: cigarettes, lighter, tissue paper, and two small blades in a matchbox. Even the small containers with his blood are intact. If nothing else, he'll be able to use them for trade. This isn't a place for money, he can tell that much, and secrets are probably not going to be valuable anymore. That's what worries him the most, that he can't keep secrets.

In any case. He can sacrifice at least one cigarette for his own indulgence. ]