d

As we enter the tank, I catch the scent of many, many cats on my nose. Hmm… that’s interesting. I wasn’t prepared for that many. “Er, how many cats are there?”

“Only ten or so. By the way, what is your name?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Interesting… I’m Myrtle, youngling.”

“Nice to meet you, Myrtle.”

As we open another hatch, I see around ten cats chatting and sharing prey. There’s a small fire lit in the center, the smoke drifting through a vent. It looks… well, homey.

I like it. Every cat’s head turns to face me, making me shrink slightly. But it’s all okay. I straighten back up, and say, “Hello.”

There’s a general mutter of greetings, then everyone turns back to their own conversations. Interesting. They don’t seem to… care. Well, okey-dokey, then. I don’t mind. Probably better that they don’t, anyways.

“A lot of cats pass in and out. These are the ones who’ve stayed. And then there’s Styx.”

“The Ashclaws mentioned a cat named Styx.”

“Well, there he is. Cats who don’t know him call him a loner. Cats who do know him know that he spends most of his time here. And most of that time is spent talking to Blue Moon.” She flicks her tail towards a white she-cat. “If I were to have a ‘deputy’, it’d be her.”

I look at Styx. He’s jet-black. He would probably be invisible at nighttime.

It’d be a great experiment… no, no experiments right now. I’m new here. Why would I do that?

“So, why does he talk to her more than everyone else?”

“He likes her, I think.”

Well, how nice! “Does she like him?”

“Oh, yes. She’ll take any chance to talk about him. Cute but bordering on annoying, and all that.”

I dunno what she’s talking about, that sounds adorable! “So, what about the other cats?”

“Well, there’s Juniper Leaf, he’s a bit of a healer… Lucky Light and Lion’s Paw, brothers and our best warriors… Drifting Wood, a good scavenger… a few temporary members… Blue Moon, the organizer… and then there’s Styx. Best at everything, here a lot. Either completely silent and fixing things, or talking to Blue Moon. Nothing else.”

“Okay, then. Do you know anyone else?”

“Not really. Most cats ignore us.”

“Huh. Okay, then.”

So it’s just a refugee camp of some sort? Are things really that bad?

Hmm… what happened, really? Myrtle just said ‘fire rained from the sky’. What kind of fire?

“I’m kind of… tired…”

Myrtle smiles softly. “Of course. We’ll dig you up a pillowcase to sleep on. And you could do with some food, too.”

“Okay, I guess.”

She gets to her feet and begins walking towards a minifridge that I assume has no power. I am correct. I suppose it’s just… efficient storage. I do appreciate efficiency. Also, I mean, you could still *dream* that it’s keeping food fresher… couldn’t you? I wish it *did*. Maybe there’s still a way to get power. I wouldn’t bet on it, but nevertheless; maybe if I could take a battery out of a car… it might still work… we would need to actually keep the battery *going*, however, which would require an engine, which would require gasoline or some kind of fuel source.

We don’t have that, to state the obvious.

Nevertheless, inside there are five mice, one single rabbit, and some canned meat. I take one of the mice. I hate canned meat. With every. Single. Fibre. Of. My. Being. Why, I have asked myself, would anyone make meat into that and put it into a can? It isn’t even meat anymore, just some sort of… paste!

Ranting aside, at least the prey is still mostly fresh, but…

I still want to know what happened here.

“Myrtle?” I ask through a mouthful of mouse.

“Yes?”

“What happened? Really? I’m not just some kit. I can take whatever it is.”

“It’s not that I don’t think you can *take* it, it’s that… we don’t really know. We believe, as I said, that the humans caused it in the course of their war, but we never have found out. Most computers that contained information were either inaccessible or just destroyed.”

So… we don’t know anything?

Unacceptable!

“There must be some way to get into those places…”

“Well, yes, there is, but it takes months, possibly years to do. We have to break into the doors.”

If only I’d already existed! I know how to get into those doors in 36 hours’ time! “I could get through those much, much faster. I know how.”

“Really? How?”

“They always have hidden ventilation shafts. Cats’ll fit in ‘em. I’ve explored a bunch of them.”

“Then how did you never escape from that place?”

“When I say ‘hidden’, I mean ‘buried’. There are little slits that allow air through, but the vent itself is six feet into the ground.”

“But you know where they are?”

“Yeah. Always in the same place. Never, ever changes, for whatever reason. Humans have- had- no ingenuity right before the end of the world.”

“Sadly not. You should get some rest. Really.”

“I’m not that tired.”

“Y’know, when you get older it becomes easier to tell when someone is lying. Go get some sleep.”

I suppose that’s fair. I am quite tired…

I go scrounge up a ragged pillowcase and lie down on it. I drift off to sleep in a matter of moments.

When I wake, the air is quiet. Everyone else is fast asleep. So I rise as quietly as I can, take Gerard out of my backpack, and climb outside.

Now snow is falling across the city, dusting everything with a layer of soft, crystalline white. A little flake lands on the bridge of my nose and instantly melts.

The sun is still far below the horizon, but the snow clouds cause the world to brighten. I gaze across the entire cityscape. Most buildings are destroyed, parts of them crumbled, windows shattered. A soft light glows far in the distance.

Until the sun rises, I simply sit there, watching the soft drift of snow.