The woman's laughter was blood-curdling as it echoed, shrill and hysterical, across the darkness of the night sky. It lasted for a full minute, before transforming in a violent coughing fit and then an ear-splitting scream before the noise was abruptly cut off, like a turning off a radio.

Ivory pressed the end of her handgun against her chest, pointing the barrell out towards the town, towards the noise. Her hands trembled. She could feel her heart hammering against her chest without touching it. Making as little noise as possible, she grabbed a handful of sand and chucked it over the flames of her small campfire. She was camped on the outskirts of the town, outside an abandoned house, but she would never risk being discovered. Not when the town was full of Cranks way past the Gone.

The last flames flickered and died, plunging Ivory into darkness. Not even the moon, stuck behind a cloud, provided decent light to see by. Ivory relaxed a little as silence passed and the threat of discovery disappeared (for the moment). She slouched back against the wooden structure of the old home and grabbed a bottle of water from her backpack. The water was lukewarm as it ran down her parched throat, but it was refreshing nevertheless. Ivory scraped sweat from her face and groaned silently. She realized how hot the campfire, combined with the scorching, humid air, had made her. She dropped the gun into the sand beside her, and fell asleep.

 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☣ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

There was a boy sitting next to her when Ivory woke up. He was around 14 years old, and flipping the squares of a Rubik's cube with bloody fingers. Ivory jumped, instinctively reaching for her gun.

"Morning, Ivory," the boy said casually, not looking up from the cube. 

Ivory sighed with relief and rubbed her eyes, letting go of the weapon. "Hey man," she replied. It was only Moose.

She sat forward and chucked her smoky brown hair up into a messy bun. The sky was pale, the first traces of hazy light glowing on the horizon. Ivory checked her watch; it was 4.46 am. "How long have you been here?" she asked Moose. "I must've fallen asleep at around twelve or something."

Moose kept his eyes on the cube. "It was probably an hour after that when I got here," he replied.

The kid had left their small camp after dinner last night, in search of supplies. Ivory had no idea why she let him go, but she knew he could handle himself. Moose had been a fighter since birth, or so he'd said. When Ivory found him he was full of anger, but all he had was some food, his Rubik's cube and no weapons. He wouldn't have survived much longer if Ivory hadn't taken him under her wing. Now, after more than a year of surviving together, he was like a brother to her--even if he'd never told her his real name. 

Ivory stared at him for a moment, and then snatched the Rubik's cube out of his hand. "Dude, face it, you're never gonna solve that thing," she said with a laugh. 

Moose seemed to freeze, his hands still wavering in the air where he'd held the toy. And then he snapped. He scrambled on top of Ivory, his brown eyes wild and almost deranged as he lashed out to grab the cube. Ivory shrieked and struggled to push him off. "Moose! Moose, what are you doing?" she cried. Finally her hands gained purchase, tightening around his shirt, and she shoved him back into the sand. 

Moose collapsed in a heap, clutching the Rubik's cube to his chest. He eyes were squeezed shut as he panted, the sudden madness visibly draining out of him. Ivory tried to catch her breath as she stared at her friend in horror. "Moose..." Ivory bit her lip. She knew what this was. She'd experienced it, been expecting it happen to him, to her. She shouldn't be surprised but...after meeting Moose, she'd pushed the thought as far back into her mind as it would go. 

This was the Flare. 

Ivory slumped into the wall of the house, letting out a quiet sob and closing her eyes. She heard Moose moving up into a sitting position. She looked at him.

Moose was staring at her. His face was grim, but tears welled in his eyes, and all dread Ivory had of him turned into compassion. Then they were hugging, Moose crying into her shoulder and Ivory trying desperately to stay calm. She squeezed him hard, rubbed his back. She didn't care about infection; after surviving years in a world driven mad by disease, she knew she had the Flare by now.

"I'm so sorry, Ivory," Moose whimpered. "I just...something just snapped inside me...I-I don't know—"

Ivory shushed him. "Dude, it's fine. It...it was bound to happen. It's happened to me." It was true. There had been times before where Ivory grew angry over the smallest things, had constant mood swings and her brain often felt as though it was being eaten by tiny creatures. All were symptoms of the Flare. She'd read about it in hundreds of warning posters for years.

Moose pulled away, sniffling and wiping snot from his nose. His eyes were bloodshot, but had no sign of insanity anymore. He looked miserable. 

Silence passed between them, heavy and foreboding. Ivory looked out into the dusty wasteland behind Moose. Dead trees were scattered everywhere, alone or in clumps, with several devastated homes interspersed between piles of rubble, rusted vehicles and power poles and roads hidden beneath sand. Sand. Where had it come from? After the sun flares, as temperatures skyrocketed until minutes under the sun would give you second degree burns, the dust and sand had just appeared, smothering everything in its path. Ivory frowned. It must have been the abnormal weather patterns, that had also suddenly formed after the sun flares. 

"Um, we should probably get going soon," Moose said gloomily, snapping Ivory from her thoughts. "The sun's almost up and by seven it'll be too hot to go anywhere, you know?"

Ivory nodded. "Yeah." She sat still and quiet for a moment, before sitting up and grinding the ash of the fire into the sand with her boot. 

It was the deranged voice of a man that finally dragged Ivory from her trance. As mad accusations that someone had stolen some food echoed from the town, she and Moose rushed to pack away their supplies and get away as soon as possible. 

The voices rose higher and became fiercer, until the unmistakable sounds of a fight reached their ears. As the thumps, groans and growls grew louder, Ivory suddenly realised the fight was approaching her and Moose. Two cranks appeared on the edge of the town, yanking on each other's arms, trying to throw each other to the ground. It only took one glance at their torn clothes, scorched and scarred skin and bloody faces for Ivory to know they were way past the Gone. They'd passed the last stage of the Flare; there would be no return to sanity for them at all. 

As a small crowd of cranks followed the brawl, Ivory swore under her breath, took Moose's arm and dragged him round the side of the old house. "We should wait here until they leave," she whispered, peeking round the corner to see what had happened. The cranks probably hadn't noticed them, they were too involved in the fight. She noticed most now brandished weapons, and were screaming and wailing as the fight continued. A boy around her age, one half of his face burnt and dried with blood, threw a dagger at one of the struggling cranks. Ivory gasped and turned away as the crank caught it, and buried it deep in the side of his opponent's neck.

"Okay, forget waiting," she told Moose. "They're not gonna leave anytime soon."

Moose nodded, biting his lip. His hands were trembling. Ivory sighed, and pulled him into another hug. "You'll be fine. We'll be fine. Let's just get out of here. The sooner we leave, the better. Come on." Then she stepped back and the pair turned and snuck past the house, keeping to the shadows of other homes that at one stage could've held loving families and elderly couples. Now they were destroyed, looted and abandoned. Their occupants were probably dead now, or worse. Ivory chewed the insides of her cheeks, fighting away tears as she and Moose weaved through the outskirts of the town, avoiding any signs of life. Couples, families, friends. Love. None of it existed anymore, not in this world. And even though life may be restored in the future, Ivory knew she wouldn't live to see it.