“I think we’ve reached the point, Joaquim.” The woman’s leather shoes clicked in an orderly fashion across the wooden floor. It reminded him of the metronome sitting on top of his grand piano, except he hadn’t played the instrument in many years.

“Would you mind elaborating, Commander?”

“The temperature. More and more natural disasters. Crime rates have quadrupled in the last five months—Joaquim, I think you know what I mean.” She stopped a few strides in front of him and clicked something on her smart watch. A blueprint projected itself onto the air, a city.

The man scrutinised the blueprint. Three edifices were at its centre, positioned relative to each other in the shape of a triangle from his bird’s eye view. Other dome-like structures named research facilities were scattered around the edifices.

“And what is the meaning of this?” the man pointed to the edge of the blueprint. “A wall?”

“A wall,” Commander Rose affirmed. “A wall, sky high. It is both our protection and our duty. To protect those inside the wall, to have our own system of living.”

The man was incredulous. “You want to separate us from the rest of humanity? With a wall?”

“It is not a prison, Joaquim. I will not stop anyone from leaving—though I doubt anyone would want to leave. You and I both know how corrupt the world is outside; it is humanity’s punishment.”

“You’re crazy.”

Commander Rose smirked. “Dinosaurs roamed the world for two hundred million years, yet there are none of them left now. How long do you think humanity can last? We don’t need an asteroid to end us, Joaquim. We’re already ending ourselves.”

Joaquim was at a loss for words. He tried to muster strength in his speech, yet the words came out frail and unstable.

“But…we’re—we’re not at that point—”

“We are not far from that point, Joaquim. We need to form our own sanctuary, away from the chaotic world. We will have walls, Watchmen, an education system and homes of which our children will dwell in—we need to preserve humanity.”

She removed the smart watch from her wrist and snapped it tightly around his. “Have a good think about it. I’ve gathered a lot of partners already.”

Then, she turned and headed towards the door. Click, click, click, click, the sound of her shoes seemed to harmonise with the turning of thoughts in his mind.

“Nirvana,” the woman paused at the door with his back to him. “The name of our sanctuary.”

The fat man was here again today. It was as if such a practice had been embedded into his muscle memory, and subconsciously, when it had occurred too many times to ignore, became a routine of Ronan’s too.

He was drumming his fingers on the smooth counter surface when the familiar shadow lumbered into view. The pack of cigarettes lied ready for pickup, and Ronan looked up just as the fat man’s dishevelled figure appeared at the door.

There were predominantly two types of people nowadays; the ones who fought against nature to grasp onto the last inch of sanity, and those mastered the art of letting go.

The fat man was the second. He was happily a strong amalgamation of all sorts of sickly odours; mostly a rotten pang of nicotine, a smell capable of making a half-dead man grimace in his sleep.

He grumbled something as he trudged through the store. Ronan couldn’t discern it, but there was no need to. It was a familiar drill.

The fat man rummaged through his pocket. The momentum brought out a bunch of meaningless litter. A beer cap, a lighter, scrunched up pieces of paper, mouldy parts of food. The fat man knotted his brows together and dug his hands into the other pocket.

After another thirty seconds of rigorous searching, he slammed two packets of matches down on the counter.

Ronan took the matches and pushed the box of cigarettes towards him. The fat man’s eyes lit up like a toddler seeing candy.

Ronan’s eyes followed the fat man as he joyously sauntered out of the store.

Nicotine dependence—the fat man showed high levels of compatibility. It was a physical curse, a terminator of life, yet a paradoxical blessing to be able to experience ecstasy from one single stick of nicotine in days of doom.

Ronan produced the fluffy pink journal from beneath the counter. He’d picked it up from an abandoned stationary store down the road, a memoir of the first thing that caught his eye amidst a tousled heap. It was originally meant for Annie, but during these days when clock hands ceased to tick and reporters fled their jobs, a children’s diary was mandatory for staying sane.

May 19th, 2445, Ronan's Journal 

Sourdough (packets): 16

Packaged foods full of preservatives: 22

Packaged foods not as full of preservatives: 27

Water: 32L

Chocolate: 31 bars

Matches: 30 packets, now +2

Note to self (if any): Fat man came again today. Annie complained about the light. Try to get more candles at work.

There are two months left (approx.)

“Weather in Oceania has risen to hit an unprecedented fifty-seven degrees Celsius today with a severe weather warning of level six. Meteorologists say such extreme weather warnings will last for about another three days or so, possibly leading to bushfires and droughts, particularly in the outback regions. It is strongly recommended that citizens remain out of the sun. Aimee, let’s move onto international news.”

“Thank you for the update, Laura. It’s raining cats and dogs here in Korea, not extremely pleasant at all but I’m nevertheless thankful to be sheltered from the unforgiving sun, so well wishes to you and be sure to keep the ventilation going. Now moving our attention across the globe. Those in Philadelphia were quite literally—pun intended—blown away this morning at the disastrous striking of Cyclone Nancy, and, grim news for those in the West Coast, it has been forecasted that there are plenty of Jessicas, Rebeccas and Lydias to follow. Many supermarkets have been swept clean by citizens who plan to ‘hibernate through Nancy’ and supply simply cannot keep up with demand. The economy does not look good for other countries either. National debt of developing countries continues to rise today, and superpower economies are experiencing their six hundred and fiftieth day of recession—The World Bank has resorted to only giving out substitutes to those in absolute poverty. Back to you, Laura.”

“And that is once again a reminder for citizens in Oceania to please refrain from overstocking—it is unfavourable on both economic and moral grounds. That is all for CBD News today and…oh! On a more lightened note, we’ve just received a video submission of citizens who are ‘making the most out of bad times’ and utilising natural scorch to make a sustainable barbeque. Let’s take a look—”

Albert Steel switched off Effervescent Laura as soon as the screen shifted to show a bunch of lads giggling hysterically at sizzling meat on a slab of metal under the sun.

All the curtains had been tightly shut to keep out burning rays of sun. The air conditioner was ramped up to its highest and had been running for hours. Everyone said saving electricity was crucial, but cold air blowing out of a plastic machine was the only remedy to the sickly humid air which threatened to suffocate the life out of him.

He lied silently on the couch and tried to find comfort in slumber, yet one of his eyelids kept on twitching and the maddening beat of his heart refused to cease.

Restless, he got up on his feet and peeked through the curtains.

In the distance, grey smoke levitated up from a cluster of forest like a punitive curse.

“You’re late,” Constantin frowned as Ronan came into view.

“Sorry,” Ronan muttered as he redid his tie. No more needed to be said—Constantin wasn’t a fan of excuses, regardless of validity. He removed the oxygen tank from his back and set it aside and tightened his military mask. Constantin slammed the iron door shut behind them.

They stood at the beginning of a dimly lit corridor. Constantin handed him a stack of cards before heading towards the tall mahogany doors opposite them. Ronan used both arms to push open the heavy doors.

Hysterical laughter flooded into their ears immediately. The once pretentious auditorium was long gone—instead, round tables replaced the rows of chairs and a bar stretched from one corner of the hall to another. Situated upon the central podium where female sopranos once sang their hearts out, a long chestnut bench demanded all the attention.

Ronan led the way through mobs of drunk gamblers who cursed a string of blasphemies upon being shoved to the side. As if unbeknownst to his troubles, Constantin sauntered behind him like a self-indulgent swan.

An empty beer bottle came sailing down from the balcony, splattering into shards of green a metre away from Ronan.

Above them the gamblers broke out in a cacophony of laughter, whistling and cheering like uncivilised monkeys as Ronan dodged another three bottles plummeting down from above. Oblivious to their zealous gaze, Ronan ignored them and proceeded to his duty.

Ronan advanced onto the podium, making his way through the impatient gamblers who muttered offensive slurs as they shoved him along to the centre of the chestnut table. He gently swung his arm and scattered all fifty-four cards across the chestnut surface so they lied face up in a row.

Instantly, the gamblers crowded around him like a herd of sheep, eyes perusing over every single card in search for the tiniest sign of deceit.

A minute passed and no objections were made. Ronan swiftly swept up the cards into his palm and began shuffling; spiralled the cards from one hand to the other repeatedly, smothered them around the smooth table surface before gathering all cards together in a neat pile on his hand.

“Whose turn is it?”

A man and woman stepped out from the crowd and took their places at opposite ends of the table.

Ronan briefly scanned the two behind his mask. The woman was a pro player—she had made her ‘fortune’ from scratch, built up a whole band of stocks from gambling. The man he did not recognise, but judging from the callous grin on his face, he was here purely to have fun. Win or lose, he did not seem to care.

“Please present your stakes.”

The man produced a grey carry bag from the floor beside him and smiled politely at Constantin who took it from his hands. The woman pushed a sealed cardboard box across the ground with her feet.

There was orderly silence as Constantin crouched down and slipped on his black silk gloves to examine the products.

“Twenty apples and fifty alkaline batteries,” he held a piece of both under the light. “The alkaline batteries have approximately two years left before expiration.”

A few seconds later, he placed the battery back into the grey carry bag and tossed the apple back towards the woman.

“Four of your apples are rotten,” he mimicked the woman’s mannerisms and manoeuvred the cardboard box back across the ground. “The deal is invalid.”

“Well aren’t you the paragon of perfectionists,” the woman spat out her words and took a bite from the apple nonchalantly. “Archie, grab the suitcase.”

A young boy slipped out from the crowd, tugging along a suitcase far too big for his frail body, muttering ‘sorry’ to the gamblers he bumped into.

He laid the suitcase down before the woman. She unlatched the lock holding it in place with a silver key.

“Three tanks of oxygen,” she said, raising an eyebrow at Constantin. “Someone like him would want this.”

The man smiled and said nothing.

Constantin felt the tanks in his hand for a few seconds before nodding at Ronan.

“Three F tanks of oxygen, fifty useable alkaline batteries, the deal is locked.” Pertinent to the game of poker, Ronan distributed five cards to each side.

“Three plays two wins,” he stepped back and announced to the crowd. “The game starts now.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Fiftieth time, Mei. I’ve done my research,” August turned down the volume on her wireless ear pods. It was one of her sixteenth birthday presents, and she’d advanced its features to enable connection up to thirty kilometres. She tightened the strap of the oxygen tank to ensure it wouldn’t fall on her way out. All the Wanderers who went out were equipped with one—she didn’t intend to be a Wanderer, but nevertheless there was no wrong in being more prepared.

She had used the drone to survey Nirvana both internally and externally. There was a blueprint of the entire elliptical building in her mind, and she knew every single floor inside out. Two weeks of observing had also helped her to figure out The Watchmen’s routine—five in a group, twenty groups patrolling inside and forty groups patrolling outside. The pattern was closely compacted, but she had cracked their code.

“And where are you headed at this time?” the doorman asked her as she exited the edifice.

August smiled awkwardly and rubbed her stomach. “On a walk, Tom. I ate a bit too much at dinner.”

Tom nodded and briefly saluted her. “Back before the curfew, eh?”

“Of course,” August answered behind her back. The inviolable rules set in stone. Nobody would get it wrong, forget.

August briefly scanned her surroundings. Spherical transporters travelled to and fro many metres above her, transporting people between all three main edifices which together constituted the heart of Nirvana. Numerous other dome-like research centres were scattered around the heart. The idea was derived from igloos’ stable catenary curves. Those kinds of white domes were so scarce that they pretty much only existed on The Web, and have always been accredited by Nirvana’s architects as an ingenious concept. Sturdy, simple, stable, made up of a white solid called ‘snow.’ The white particles were fleetingly tiny and softer than infant skin, yet pieced together you get something that stands firm in the harshest winter gale.

Not that she’d experienced winter—there was only one season left—but she had experienced being knee deep in white ‘snow’ and been sent tumbling down to the ground by bellowing blizzards in the man generated simulations. The sounds and animations were a bit too intentional, but nevertheless she understood the extremities.

She hid herself behind a research dome. A group of Watchmen lumbered past her a few yards away. The precise stats of the Watchmen were top-secret, but it was no secret that they were superior in all five senses. Their sonar-like audio detection gave them at least tenfold the hearing capacities of men, and their iron bodies easily made them prominent fighters—there was no chance of winning against one of those things. August waited for them to disappear out of range before speaking. Ten metres in front of her, a mini-flying Watchman patrolled in circles. A barely detectable red dot embedded in its pupils flashed every three seconds.

“Now, Mei. Hurry up.”

Simultaneously, ninety floors up in Nirvana’s Alpha edifice, Mei-Linh activated the code on her screen. Meticulous combinations of letters, numbers and symbols flooded her eyes as she typed away.

“I got it,” Mei sighed exasperatedly after a few seconds of silence. “Twenty seconds. God, please hurry up.”

On cue, August began sprinting to the walls, the ineffable walls that stretched beyond the sky and into the clouds. A mechanical whirring sound signalled the activation of her drone. A small metal sphere popped out from her bracelet, and the drone unravelled itself, augmenting in size it hit the ground. Two auxiliary arms stretched out from its metallic body and it zipped ahead of August like a massive black tarantula, slicing through pieces of random garbage which blocked the way.

“Fifteen, sixteen…”

She dove through the cleared path and into the small hole in the wall that had taken her months to find. The raw dirt sent a burning pain across her skin, but soon physical pain was overpowered by the wild, frantic pounding of her heart.

“Eighteen…”

The drone compacted itself back into the tiny metallic sphere, finding its position on her wrist.

“Twenty. August! You made it?”

She lied panting on the dirt centimetres away from the walls, face buried in her palm.

“August!”

Above her the scorching sun had just begun to set, a sickly vomit of blood across an already scarlet backdrop, a sinister premonition of the tomorrows to come.

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I made it.”

“Breaking news today as HALF of the Oceania country New Zealand has been officially submerged by rising water levels. Let us take a snapshot at images captured by the satellites…now the question is, will New Zealand be the new victim after Malaysia and Indonesia?”

“Thank you Laura, I hate to dilute our cheerful week leading into Christmas, but with the exponential increase of forests and ecosystems dying, there have been unprecedented, stringent restrictions on deforestation set. Following that, the United Nations are strongly advocating for an international ban on the cutting down and selling of trees for festival purposes—Oceania countries have codified such a ban and, currently as stated by our leaders, ‘no Christmas trees this year!’

“No Christmas trees?!”

Albert Steel almost jumped at the unison interjection of his two children. Spinning around, he faced two pairs of watery, disappointed eyes.

“Where are we going to hang our mistletoes?” his daughter asked.

Albert switched off the Tv and crouched down to pat his daughter’s head. “There are many places we can hang the mistletoe, Annie. We can hang all the Christmas tree decorations around the house.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Things just aren’t the same, darl.”

Albert stood and looked for the remote again. The wood-framed collage beside the remote caught his gaze for the briefest of seconds. Two young teenagers, a boy and a girl, both too young and too happy for his remembering. They were clothed up heavily from head to toe, the girl blushing shyly as the boy gently dusted away the drops of white in her hair.

“What are we going to do without a Christmas tree, Dad?” his son asked.

“We could build a snowman.” The words slipped from his mouth.

“A snowman? What’s a snowman?”

A blank look of confusion washed over Albert’s face before his conscience plummeted back into reality.

He turned to gaze at the boy, opened his mouth but no words came out. The boy glanced back, bewildered.

We don’t have that here anymore either, for some reason the words stung his eyes.

“You got more candles yet?” Annie mumbled.

Ronan glanced over from the desk.

She was hunched over a notebook, scribbling vigorously into its blank pages. The fluffy pink pom-pom attached to the end of her pen jiggled with the momentum of her wrist, an ornament way too big for the skinny tube of ink. He had walked into one of the stores across the street on her tenth birthday, dug around the mess and found the pink thing.

“Not today.”

“I wanted more batteries, Ronan. So that we can use the damn battery-powered lamp and actually see something at night instead of walking around like blind idiots.”

“I’ve told you many times—they’re on a shortage.”

“We have a whole box of them in the shop,” Annie snapped back. “Lying there collecting dust.”

“And I’ve also explained that to you. You feel the air outside? Feel the sun? What do you feel from it? Heat. Nothing but heat. So much heat that you can have a goddamn barbeque on the bare concrete. The heat erodes the generating capacity of power plants. There’s no electricity. No more non-renewable energy sources left. Only batteries that have an expiration date. They’re scarce goods, our only bargain in a messed-up time like this—” he inhaled and paused, as if digesting her overwhelming ignorance— “do you know how much one single alkaline battery is worth?”

She did not know; he was the one who worked, he was the one who was keeping them both alive, tediously attempting to nurture a somewhat protected childhood for his sister in times of chaos.

“Two boxes of apples. Three loaves of bread. Ten litres of fresh water. A week of living, Annie. Batteries are our jewels. It’s been like this for five whole years, Annie Steel. When on earth can you grow up?”

His missel-like words rendered her speechless. Her lips quivered in response, yet no comprehensible speech came out.

Seeing her ashen face, he shut his eyes and willed the tempestuous emotions to go away, to disintegrate into the hot air just like everything else did.

Slowly, he placed both hands on her shoulders. It was impossible to discern whether which of them were trembling. Perhaps it was both.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just tired.”

Her mother and everyone else in Nirvana had always sung a limerick warning against leaving the sanctuary of the walls. Monsters, bombs, tsunamis, tornadoes—it included all sorts of things to scare curious kids off. They’d stopped telling it as soon as August’s batch were old enough to logically decipher the world, old enough to obey the simple rule of ‘don’t leave the walls’ without an accompanying ‘or else’ part.

But the people in Nirvana—her mother and everyone else—weren’t oppressive, despite how dictatorial sealing a group of people within sky-high walls may seem.

Truth was Nirvana was big enough for someone to spend their whole life in without being bored. Yet there were exceptions, namely the curious ones within a batch—there were always one or two. When that happened, when someone’s curiosity extended beyond the walls despite ceaseless warnings, they were set free.

The curious ones, or the Wanderers to coin the official term on them, were supplied with a month’s worth of food, two tanks of oxygen, a hazmat suit and an abundance of well-wishes during their farewell ceremony.

Then the Wanderer would trudge through a dim passageway—the only official exit of Nirvana—and the enormous pair of interstitial metal doors would be tightly shut behind them.

The shutting of a door was by no means a permanent goodbye. All Wanderers were welcome back, but no one ever came back.

That ugly truth itself was able to stifle many curious minds who thought of continuing in a Wander’s footsteps. The thought of joining the list of never-returning Wanderers never crossed her mind. Until she saw the small hole in the wall concealed behind a patch of debris and dried grass.

It was small, fit for her size, inviting—two hours outside was not detrimental.

Her mother and the instructors had shown them projections of the world beyond the walls to ensure their batch didn’t feel like ‘fenced up sheep’. Hundreds of metres of blue lashing waves surging towards houses and explosions of lethal constructions called ‘nuclear plants’ were the kind of things presented to them.

Now she was finally outside, beyond the walls that she had called home for seventeen years.

The outside world before her eyes did not exhibit any of the malignant phenomena she’d been shown.

No fatal fires, no destructive waves, no bellowing wind that whisked houses and people hundreds of feet high.

Grey fog clouded the place. People lumbered by in big, bulky black masks that covered them from head to chin with tanks of oxygen strapped to their backs. She examined the passerbys, studied their stride and listened for their conversations, but everyone was worryingly skinny and strode about their own way silently.

A disorientated landscape of lost souls, the words flowed naturally into her mind.

Cracked windows, crooked signs and remnant pieces of debris signalled past raids of shops and homes.

Loud cacophonies of hysterical laughter echoed from somewhere down the street. She followed the source of the sound. A group of men and women slammed cards on a small wooden table before them, flailing their pale limbs into the air, cheering madly before they choked and gasped for air like patients tormented by severe asthma.

They were a complete antithesis to the silent masked citizens on the street, yet somehow not a single bit better.

A fat man with strode past her slowly. Puffs of grey smoke sailed from beneath his tattered mask and was carried behind him in a gust of wind, hitting August face on alongside with a mix of repulsive odours. Her stomach immediately surged in response.

“So what is it like?” Mei-Linh’s chirpy voice cracked through her ears and made her jump. “I want to know all the details.”

August took in the sight before her.

No monsters or ghosts like the limerick said, but still every part of a doomsday.

The aftermath of nature’s punishment, the ghost town of an apocalypse.

“Humans have exhausted the last drop of consumable water on the planet. Consumers have ravaged every remnant bit of food and water in the market. There will not be enough meat for everyone this year. Guys, stop taking everything. Global warming is too hot. Farm animals are rapidly dying of dehydration. Crops are dying of dehydration…I KNOW I’VE STUFFED UP THE SCRIPT. I CAN’T FOCUS, I HAVEN’T EATEN PROPERLY FOR DAYS—”

Effervescent Laura’s screeching was replaced by an advertisement. Thirty seconds later, Aimee’s face popped up on the screen, except she looked noticeably skinnier and there seemed to be violet under her eyes.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light. Albert Steel reached for his glasses.

“Global warming has struck its heaviest since the beginning of mankind…it is currently sixty degrees in Saudi Arabia. The healthcare and ambulance system has shut down—they are bombarded with workload…”

The reporter’s words disintegrated softly in the air as she slipped to the ground.

“Aimee! Are you o—”

The advertisement came on again. It was about brown rice. Ironically, there was no point in advertising anymore. People weren’t picky anymore. Brown rice jasmine rice—now they gratefully took whatever was on the shelf and did not waste a single bit.

Five minutes passed and no reporter came back.

Albert switched off the Tv.

The girl came two minutes before he was about to drag down the shutters and close the store. She was talking softly to herself as she lumbered past. Then she stopped in her tracks, peered inside the store, scanned every crevice and item, eyes lingering on the packet of ramen as if it was some sort of rare product.

Ronan’s first instinct was that she was one of those hit, steal and run thieves. But then her gaze met his and he trashed that idea immediately. He was familiar with thieves—they came and went all the time. She didn’t show the same desperation, didn’t have the same bloodshot eyes.

She seemed startled to see someone sitting in the corner of the room staring right back at her. Perhaps it was the awkwardness of being caught peering around, perhaps it was curiosity about the ramen—she nodded in greeting and gave Ronan a fiddly smile, the type that translated to ‘please ignore my existence, I’m just taking a look’ as she disappeared amongst the shelves.

He chuckled and looked away, going back to his business.

The dusty map was sprawled out on the counter. His father had unearthed it from a pile of ancient documents in their home. Now, years later, he had excavated it again. Yellow strips of annotations were attached to various locations on the map in a crammed, convoluted manner. Ronan had a headache simply staring at the miniature letters.

“How much for these?”

The girl held a packet of spicy ramen and packaged sweets.

Ronan rubbed his eyes. “What have you got?”

The girl frowned and gave him an inquisitive look. Ronan replied with the same look, and she rummaged through her pocket.

“Uh…fifty bucks?” she held up a scrunched up green bill.

Ronan almost did a double take. The silent staring resumed once more and Ronan wondered if he had travelled back in time, whether him taking out the old map had triggered some sort of unearthly spell or broken a curse…

“Excuse me?” she waved the dollar bill in front of his eyes. “Is fifty not enough? I—”

“You’re not from here,” he cut her off. His tone was gravely certain, yet the next second his lips lifted to a cheeky grin and a smug look clouded his eyes as if he was a detective who cracked the case.

“Excuse me?”

“Lemme guess,” he arched closer on his chair and the seat below him let out a nasty creak. August glanced into his eyes, which were the shape of crescent moons from grinning. “First time outside?”

Now August was genuinely perplexed—did she do something wrong?

Seeing her face, he burst into laughter, a full-on type of laughter that shook the old wheely office chair beneath him, shoulders trembling and all.

“This,” he took the green bill from her and held it between his fingers when he finally sustained the laughter, “we don’t take anymore. We haven’t been taking this since 2437, Miss.”

“What?”

“Fire, food, electricity, hygiene, education materials,” he said slowly and patiently, “any products under those categories, you can exchange. But my business is a supermarket—I prefer to have things apart from food. Haven’t seen a dollar bill since like eight years ago. Nobody uses those things now.”

He scrunched the bill into a ball and threw it back in her direction. The plastic slip didn’t make it the full trip and fell onto the ground beside her feet. August didn’t bother picking it up.

“You’re from Nirvana?” An interrogative sentence, but the assertive look in his eyes said there was no point in denying.

She nodded. No one had every told her to keep her belonging a secret, but that was because no one thought she would step out of home.

“That explains it,” he murmured. “Why you’re such an alien.”

She could not help but crack a smile.

“Well,” Ronan looked down at the items laid before him. “You can take the stuff anyway. I won’t bargain with the alien. First time seeing someone from Nirvana.”

She didn’t deny the offer and gratefully took the items into her arms. “Thank you.”

A few seconds of silence stretched on amongst them as neither knew what to say.

“Well…then I guess I’m out,” August flashed the boy a final smile.

“Hold up,” he spoke just as she turned to leave. She stopped in her tracks and turned around.

“Want me to show you around?”

Her eyes widened in response, half due to surprise and the bigger half due to unsurety. Please be quick, Mei-Linh’s voice reverberated in her mind. Looking up at the sky, the enigmatic vermillion had been completely overtaken by darkness.

Ronan immediately chided himself for his abruptness upon her hesitancy. The words had slipped impetuously from his mouth.

“Well, forget what I just…”

“Next time,” August hugged her items to her chest. “It’s too late. I’ll be back next time.”

She had lived up to her promise, though clearly the boy didn’t expect her to. He seemed completely taken back in surprise when she strolled into his shop a few days after their first encounter—the way he choked on a few strands of noodles said it all.

“Hey,” she grinned and wagged her eyebrows at the boy who squinted at her complexion. “Remember me? You said you’d show me around.”

The boy stared at her blankly for a few moments. Then he made the action of dusting his pants, though August didn’t know what there was to dust. Standing up from the creaky old chair, he wiped his mouth with a tissue and gulped down a few mouthfuls of bottled water before averting his gaze back on her.

“Uh, yes…” his voice was slightly coarse. “I’m Ronan.”

“August,” she extended her right hand and he shook it.

“August,” he repeated, letting go of her hand. “Like the month?”

“No,” she shook her head. “Like the animal.”

Seeing his genuine bewilderment, she broke into laughter.

“Like the month,” she assured. “There’s no other August, is there?”

“You had me for a second,” he made his way around the counter and extended a hand out towards the door. “You first. Just a sec.”

He unlocked some sort of storage room in the corner of the store and went inside. A minute later, he came out with two thin masks in hand.

“Here,” Ronan had already put the thing over his head. His voice came out slightly muffled. “Put this on first, then put on your oxygen mask and tank.”

“What’s this for?” she asked as she slipped the thing over her head.

“To block out the air pollution,” Ronan answered. “It’s a filter between you and the air you breathe in. A few years ago a nuclear plant blew up eighty kilometres away—people are always saying there are remnant bits floating in the air.”

The instructors and her mother had told her about something like it. Temperatures wouldn’t stop rising, and nuclear plants began losing their coolant pressure—she didn’t expect the effects to last for years.

“I see,” she muttered.

She walked out in front of him and he pulled down the shutters behind them, crouching down on the ground to lock the store. Then he stood up straight to walk beside her.

“Nothing too interesting around here,” his eyes darted around the street as if trying to find something of notable importance. It was the same as usual, people going about their usual business, wasting away their life until the end strikes.

“What’s the sign up there for?” August had a feeling, but she still pointed towards the sign which read ‘59’ in big block letters.

“Countdown until the last day,” Ronan answered swiftly, almost too nonchalantly. “I don’t know who calculates that stuff and puts it on there, but it counts down every day. Thirty days until all supermarkets run out of all their stock, twenty days of raiding and scavenging for food after stock is gone, nine more days for most in the town to die out. Fifty-nine days in total, give or take a few days. That’s how many other towns around here died out, so the countdown’s pretty trustworthy.”

She heard a light buzzing in her ear drums and felt her eyes sting upon gazing at the ominous red numbers. Silence clouded over them; August did not know what to say.

Sensing her dejected spirit, Ronan chuckled and nudged her shoulders. “It’s the reality. In the past we squander everything, so in the future there won’t be enough. But hopefully, if all works out, we’ll be out of this place before everyone becomes feral and fights for the last bit of food.”

“We?”

“My sister and I,” Ronan answered as they took a right. “We’re leaving this place after about two weeks.” He couldn’t help but laugh when her eyes lit up. “You didn’t think we were gonna sit around and die here, surely. A lot of people are leaving. Taking all the remaining food and resources they have, going to another town. When all the resources and food in that town gets used up, we move to another. Until there’s nothing left. Then that’s the actual end. Kind of like nomads, if you know what they are.”

They stopped in front of a pretentious 19th century style town hall building, similar to the type she saw in class when the instructors taught English history.

“Here.” Ronan steered her towards the side and they turned into some sort of alley, almost too narrow for one person to walk through. She held her breath as the putrid stink of garbage seeped into her mask and attacked her nostrils.

An iron door was situated at the end of the alley. Ronan produced a silver key and opened it, ushering her inside before shutting it tightly behind them.

August began removing the suffocating mask to breathe, but Ronan quickly stopped her.

“Don’t take that off,” he said sternly, “you wouldn’t want them to notice you’re not from here. They’ll ravage everything off you, those bloody gamblers.”

August frowned behind her mask. “How would they know I’m not from here?”

“You can tell,” Ronan shrugged. “You’re too healthy. Too carefree. Too alive, to sum it up accurately—none of us here are like that. To us every day is a bargain.”

The news didn’t come on again and Effervescent Laura’s whereabouts would forever be a mystery—that was when Albert realised things had finally spiralled out of control.

They’d used up the last bit of freshwater and trees and crops were dying at an unprecedented level.

Powerplants were experiencing failures under the scorching sun. Supermarket shelves were no longer restocked—only the higher society could access such necessities.

They could no longer turn lights on at night—some of the neighbours fractured parts from walking in the dark.

Eventually someone smashed their window. He had heard it, of course he would hear it—the thief was an amateur and had no expertise in thievery whatsoever. It was one of the young women living down the street. Her eyes were frantic, wild, pleading as she hugged the loafs of bread closer to his chest.

What could he do? He didn’t know. He knew she didn’t have a job and had just had newborn twins of her own and her husband had run off in an affair—there was nothing he could do.

“Get lost,” he muttered.

Tears slid down her cheeks and when she realised he didn’t snatch the bread off her she stood and ran out the door—the pale moonlight cast a ghostly hue upon her frail being, and her fragile voice was diluted by the sound of her foot soles smashing across cold concrete.

Nevertheless, Albert caught some of it—something like thank you, thank you, sorry.

So why are we going into a casino, August thought for the thirtieth time as a random guy cursed in her face. To worsen things, the cacophony of discordant guitar strumming and piano riffs which blared through the loudspeakers felt capable of deafening her. Ronan pulled her through the crowd, muttering ‘sorry’ to every single person they pushed in order to get through.

The place had the arrangement of an auditorium, but all sorts of round tables for gaming and gambling replaced the place for an audience. The centre stage where a soprano would’ve sung housed a long, rectangular table where two people played poker face to face.

“I bet you’ve never been in a place like this.” They stopped in a quiet corner, though it wasn’t much better. August couldn’t see Ronan’s face, but she knew from his intonation that he was grinning. Smugly and proudly, like a child who impressed a parent.

“You’re right,” she answered. “But I don’t see how this is fun.”

“Just wait,” Ronan pointed to the centre stage where two new players took the spotlight. “See? They’re playing a new game.”

Standing behind the centre of the rectangular table was a man. He wore the identical mask and was resplendent in a black tuxedo vest, white sleeved shirt and black pants. Behind him stood another man dressed identically.

“That’s Samuel,” Ronan introduced. Then his fingers moved to the side, aimed at the man standing behind Samuel. “And that’s Constantin. The manager.”

“You know them?” she asked.

“I’m a croupier here,” he answered. “I run fast, I can fight. They want someone like me to chase after the gamblers in case they try to steal something and run.”

August was speechless for a few seconds before she gathered her words. “…Why?” The casino, all it’s raucous atmosphere and callous gamblers—she couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to work here.

“For the pay, of course. Jobs like this pay well.”

“How much is that?”

“Five packets of candles a week, eight boxes of matches, a box of fruit, few litres of water and some clothes if there are any,” Ronan replied. “I told you we don’t use cash anymore.”

“…and how do your hirers get all the resources? I thought everything was scarce.”

“They’re the rich ones,” Ronan chuckled. “Apocalypse or not, there’ll always be rich and poor. This casino is their business. They provide a fair avenue of trade to the gamblers, and they get a portion of both players’ stakes. The players feed the casino, and in return the casino feeds them. It’s a mutually dependent relationship.”

August opened her mouth to ask more, but Ronan held up a hand to stop her.

“Shh,” he muttered. “Game’s starting.”

Constantin began slipping on a pair of black gloves with such a poise which immediately distinguished him from the chanting crowd. He was patient and collected, and seemed to live in a completely different universe to those surrounding him.

Like an elegant swan surrounded by restless crickets.

“Please present your stakes,” Samuel declared. The first player, a woman whose outfit revealed too much cleavage, presented a black case. Constantin stepped forward and took it from her hands. The second player, an Irish man with a prominent red beard, presented a brown sack.

Constantin’s fingers smoothly unzipped the black case. A brand new violin lied in the case, accompanied by a bow and rosin. Constantin plucked the strings briefly before untying the brown sack beside it. He rummaged through its contents and then stood. As if on cue, Samuel leaned towards him and they began deliberating quietly.

Finally, Samuel spoke.

“Fiddlerman, one of the best brands in the world. In exchange for a bag of potatoes, seven of them in total,” he looked at the first player. “Instruments are by no means a necessity. We cannot accept it as a stake—the deal is invalid.”

The first player looked as if she was about to burst into tears. She seemed like an old player, one who was familiar with the rules. Yet the words still slipped from her mouth, a pearl swirling around in a tempestuous sea, her last bit of untouchable hope despite knowing the devastating outcome.

“Please…this is all I have…” weak, frail, August could barely make out her voice.

“You have anything else you want to put on the table?” There was no hesitation—Samuel’s voice was monotone, emotionless. Yet somehow August seemed to understand it, understand his desperation too. All eyes were on him, all people expected the croupiers to uphold the principles of trade—letting the woman get away equated to losing his job, losing his wage.

The crowd went completely silent and all eyes were on her; some empathetic, some amused, some blank and altruistic.

A few seconds felt like eternity. With trembling lips, she uttered the word ‘no.’

“Next player to fill the gap,” Samuel averted his gaze from her and declared. Constantin ushered her off the stage, and August’s eyes followed her until she was pulled away, shut outside.

August frowned. “What are your benchmarks for a stake?”

“Tangible and useful, those are the things we look for. Nobody needs a violin when they’re starving to death. Nobody needs a diamond when the world is in chaos. Fire, food, electricity, hygiene, education materials—I told you the categories before.”

Another player took the stage. He traded five bottles of water, and the deal was established. Samuel declared the game’s commencement and began shuffling the cards.

Ronan nudged August on the arm and began striding further into the corner, disappearing in the shadows as he headed for an exit beside them. She was curious about the outcome of the game, but followed him out regardless.

The iron door opened. The sickly hot air surrounded her immediately. Ronan was crouched down a few metres opposite from the exit, conversing with someone who sat in front of him. It was the original first player who was escorted out by Constantin—she was hunched over with her face in her palm, shoulders trembling as she tried to stifle her cries.

“…join the Seekers?”

Ronan was saying something, August didn’t hear the first half. Ronan fell silent because the woman wasn’t listening.

After what seemed like forever, the shaking of her shoulders calmed and she looked up with puffy red eyes.

Like a goldfish, August thought, the type of small extinct marine animal humans used to keep in a round fish tank with a few colourful pebbles inside.

He had drowned himself in books and maps, sneezed and coughed up the dust in their pages innumerable times before finishing his notes.

It had been so long—if not for the disaster cast upon humanity, the power outages and failure of all internet systems, Albert was sure he would’ve forgotten about the bookshelf in his attic.

A bunch of protestors or activists—he wasn’t sure what they were, to be honest—passed the streets, advocating about sparsely populated cities in the far, far west where crops remained unharmed and bits of fresh air could still be detected.

He had thought they were nuts. As did many others. Banana peels, litter, dirty liquid—they ended up walking through all sorts of things.

Yet when he shut the door in their face, some reflex in his body dug through maps and books to find anything, anything which testified their words.

God helps those who help themselves. He had found what he was looking for.

Two weeks later, he had packed all of the things he needed and said goodbye to his children—he knew they were confused, even hating him for the decision he had made—yet he believed with a tenacious fervour that one day they would understand.

He sided with the protestors, the Seekers—they seemed outrageously surprised and excited that a new member had joined.

Welcome, they shook his hand and Albert knew at that precise moment his fate, or perhaps the fate of countless more, was closely tied together.  

Ronan wrapped a blanket around the shivering woman and offered her an apple. She began devouring it with such an alarming speed that he had to rip the fruit from her hand and talk sense into her before giving it back.

He went to the fireplace and started a fire. August was already seated beside the woman. She tried to conceal her curiosity, but the way she perused the woman like an endangered species said it all.

Nirvana was a city for the elite and their descendants—they had all the country’s technology and all of the country’s resources distributed tactfully to every single citizen—it was natural for August to be awed by the completely different lives beyond her haven.

A few minutes later the water boiled—Ronan carefully poured some into a cup and mixed it with room temperature water. He offered it to the woman. She held it with both hands like it was some sort of treasure.

“Drink some,” he said. She looked up. Something shiny in her eyes reflected light and threatened to overflood her pupils.

“It’s okay,” Ronan sighed. As if on cue, she burst into tears again.

“I have nowhere to go…my children will die…” she struggled to breathe amidst her waterfall of tears. “There is nothing we can do, nothing anybody can do—”

“You can join the Seekers,” Ronan cut her off. She stared back with perplexed eyes. August looked at him with the same confused look.

“The Seekers are an organisation who search for resources,” he explained. “Resources like forests and undiscovered sources of water.”

“But freshwater was gone long ago,” she muttered with a dim look in eyes. “And I’ve never seen a forest in my life. There are already not enough trees here—oxygen is a scarce resource.”

“I know,” he replied. “That’s what most people believe—there are still those believing in something else, that there is freshwater, there still exists our last chance in an unpolluted place on earth where trees thrive and birds sing.”

August thought of the Wanderers, the way they turned assertively and chose the outside world over a safe lifetime within the walls—what did they believe?

“And they found things,” Ronan continued, “not a forest or new sources of freshwater, but less polluted places and places where plants were able to be successfully grown again. They protect those places, instigate new life.”

“My father was one of them.”

His eyes drifted to a small photo frame positioned beside the furnace. August followed his gaze and squinted to make out the tiny, golden plated writing:

Albert Steel

The man looked about in his thirties, had tan skin and the same roguish smile which now, she realised, Ronan had inherited.

“My mother died from drowning, back more than a decade ago. But the temperatures were too high, even in winter—the lake was covered in ice but it was too thin—she didn’t know. She didn’t come back for dinner, a few days later we found her at the bottom of the lake.”

Ronan smiled at the woman who had ceased to cry, but instead was hiccupping. Her face flushed when he chuckled.

“My father was devastated and wanted to die—but he didn’t, because there was still me and my sister. Few years later, when I was old enough, he left a note on the kitchen table and left. Joined the Seekers, said it was too dangerous and too unpromising for us to come with him. He said he would try his best to come back. But if he didn’t, he believed we could look after ourselves.”

Ronan grabbed a tissue, wiped the half-dried smears of tears on her face before standing up straight.

“I didn’t understand why he would choose to leave back then, but now I kind of get it. Missing my mum was only part of it; he wanted a better future for me and my sister. For us all, really—he was a kind man. There always has to be pioneers who take the first step, to repent centuries of humanity’s mistakes.” He paused and met gazes with August with a grin on his face. “Maybe I’m an optimist like him,” he shrugged, “but I believe what he believes—maybe, just maybe—there is still a way.”

“Earth to August,” Mei-Linh waved her hands in front of August’s face. “What do you want to eat? It’s our turn.”

The food was Japanese today, sushi rolls, sashimi, ramen and miso soup. Dessert was a sweet, pale looking Japanese pudding with caramel drizzled over the top. The fragrance of the tasty broth would’ve normally had her half drooling already, but today the flavour seemed rather bland.

“I’m not that hungry,” she suppressed the hollow feeling in her chest and gave Mei-Linh a small smile. “I’ll wait for you over there.”

Two minutes later Mei came back with a full tray. August seemed to be spacing out in her own universe again, and Mei clicked her fingers to grab her attention.

“You’ve been different since you came back from the outside, August…” Mei picked up a prawn sushi with her hand and dipped it in some soy sauce. “You sure you don’t want some? The noodles are really good today apparently.”

“I’m not hungry,” August answered. Mei scrunched her lips and ate in silence. August watched as Mei chewed her meat happily, smacked her lips when she tasted something nice, frowned and complained about how the miso soup wasn’t as good as it was last week…then she remembered how, back in the casino a man traded a bag of potatoes for a few boxes of matches, the woman she’d encountered with Ronan had devoured an apple as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

“August! What are you even thinking about?” The third time. Mei was incredulous.

Subconsciously her legs stood from the seat. There was something she had to do, somewhere she had to be.

Ronan had stuffed all of the things they could possibly bring into bags. He glanced into the store for a few seconds, briefly immersed himself in the place he had been for the past few years before closing the shutters.  

“You look like you’re gonna cry,” Annie muttered behind him. Ronan laughed at that and rubbed her head a few times before she swatted his hand away.

“I’m just reminiscing,” he answered. “Nowhere near crying. We’re headed toward something better, remember?”

“Mmm,” she hummed. “That’s what you believe. You think joining the Seekers is a good decision, but Dad didn’t even come back yet.”

“Well, maybe he’s caught up in something. Most good things start with believing.” He fixed her oxygen mask and then readjusted his. They were much more durable—and much more expensive—than oxygen tanks. Constantin said nothing when Ronan informed him of his resignation. Instead he stared at him like an idiot—Ronan waited for a response, but none came. He expected that to be it, but when he got to the casino’s exit, Constantin stopped him and gifted him the masks.

I’ll be back, Ronan said when he took the masks over. Constantin said nothing again, but this time he nodded slowly before walking away.

“Why aren’t we leaving yet?” Annie tugged his sleeve impatiently.

“Wait for two more minutes,” Ronan answered. “In case someone…ah. There she is.”

A skinny woman turned into their street and slowly walked towards them. The woman he and August had encountered in the casino, the first player who was kicked out—he had later learned that her name was Ava.

She was carrying a massive backpack on her bag. Sweat beaded her forehead already, but the glow in her eyes were strong.

“Ready?” he smiled. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Commander Rose muttered as her daughter strode into the conference room. “I’ve just had an important three-hour meeting, August. I’ve no time and energy to deal with you.”

“I haven’t even said it yet, Mum.”

Surprisingly, her daughter didn’t leave like she usually would have. Commander Rose turned to face her.

“I know what you want to say.”

“There are things I want to do,” August took a deep breath in and went over the rehearsed words again. “I—”

“You saw the outside world and you feel like you can help,” Commander Rose cut her off. Seeing a dash of surprise in August’s eyes, she smirked. “You think I don’t know there’s a hole in the wall? I was too busy to attend to it. Now after talking with you, I plan to do it as soon as possible.”

Her mother’s eyes were firm and unyielding, yet somehow, for the first time in ages, it didn’t really matter.

“I want to be a Wanderer, Mum.” 

Commander Rose had anticipated something along those lines coming, but this time, her mental preparation did not prevail over the wave of anxiousness and disbelief that struck upon hearing August’s words.

“Do you know what you’re saying, August?” she squeezed the words out through gritted teeth.

“I know,” August smiled. “And I’m sure.”