I took my sweet time on the way down. Sat myself just inside the front doors, hiding between two of the windows. In my hiking throughout the city I'd scavenged up probably fifteen packs of cigarettes, so I just sat my ass down and read an only-mostly burnt copy of The Search for Delicious, which, I can genuinely say is the worst block of shit-on-paper I've ever read. But, as I'd been doing since I got left on this Hell-rock, I persevered through the terrible novel right through to the end.

When I reached it, I was pretty sure I was going to cry out of relief.

By the time I finished reading, I could hear people's voices. There were survivors, there were people here. I started going through my thoughts, trying to orchestrate them. How would I ask if they knew where Callum was? Would I ask? Or would I just ask if there was a spacecraft to get onto to get to Elan? I didn't know, and I was concerned that if I didn't say the right thing I'd get a bullet between the eyes.

I lit up another cigarette and stepped outside of the building, sat on the front step and continued to think of what to say.

Finally, out from between two of the buildings across the street from me, I saw a group of about five men. At the front of them all, was a cookie-cutter image of my father. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't have recognized him at all, 26 years had not done him well. He looked haggard and old, even for a 57-year-old man, and I had to admit to myself that I was surprised. Behind him were some men who looked to be approximately the same age, but were all either slightly older or younger in their appearance.

The group approached me, I noticed the man to Callum's left who was scrawny in comparison to the others. He was taller than the rest of them, but so much slimmer he looked like he'd never hit puberty. I was pretty sure Lara had wider shoulders. The way he walked alongside my brother indicated to me that they must have been quite well acquainted, which told me that chances were pretty high that there were no more crafts.

He came right up to me, taking my shoulder in a death-grip, and shaking my roughly. The men that were with him swarmed around me, like they were Callum's cronies, the scrawny guy getting in behind me as if he intended to keep me from getting away. I had to force myself not to laugh at the thought of a skinny guy like that trying to fight off someone as big as I was, or better yet, trying to wrestle me into submission.

"Well, well, well... little brother. It's been a while." Callum's grip didn't ease. I tried to roll my shoulders to get him to let me go, but that only seemed to make him tighten his hold. He'd always been bigger than me, three or so inches taller, broader through the chest and back. A huge, bulky man who was well aware of his strength. "What brings your puppy-begging ass to my doorstep?"

Immediately I regretted my decision to seek him out. I remembered exactly why we'd had our falling out, and exactly why it'd ended the way it had.

"I was looking for another craft to get on, and figured your back porch would be a good place to stop and take a shit, actually." I grunted. "I missed the craft from London and Damian's dead. You weren't exactly my top choice." My brother stared at me for a second, narrowing his eyes to slits, glaring into my soul.

"If you weren't so insufferable with your childish comments, I might have even felt bad for you. But, I don't. And you're too late anyway, not that they'd have let you on." a pessimistic scoff came through Callum's nose. "Only the rich got to go to Elan. Everyone else got to stay here and starve to death. It's been six months."

I didn't know what to say, beyond failing to be surprised. The States had always been notorious for favouritism of the wealthy, and this was just another attempt of the government to exploit the working class one final time. "Sucks to be us, then." I shrugged. "Guess you didn't exactly move to the land of the free, now did you?"

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" he sounded angry.

"You used to talk constantly about how much better America was than England and look at you now. In the same situation I'm in, but there was nothing you could have done to fix your situation. You got fucked over Callum." I shrugged, trying not to wince as his grip tightened on my shoulder to the point where it was getting to be quite painful.

"You really have no idea how or when to shut your mouth, do you?" he shook his head, snickering at me. "Reminds me of why I used to beat you up as a kid." It was taking every muscle in my body to restrain me from telling him I could take him down now. He laughed, clearly able to tell I was holding back from hitting him.

"You talk big for someone who ran away to the other side of the world to hide from an ex-fiance." I retorted, still doing my best to restrain myself from cracking him right in the jaw. The sneer across his cheeks faded, and the first punch flew. He hit me in the cheekbone hard enough to have knocked teeth had he not missed my jawbones. It was on. The fight was so fucking on.

The instant I recovered, I snapped up and uppercut him. Gave him a knee to the waist, he keeled back and fell over. "I'm not fighting you, Callum. We're not fourteen." I said, starting to walk away.

"Wardle! Kill him." his tone was rough like splintering wood. I looked over my shoulder to see which one of them was supposed to kill me and almost had to stop and laugh when the skinny guy ripped a steel pipe off the side of the tower. He took off running after me, which scared me and sent me running for my fucking life to avoid the wrath of the gangliest man on the planet.

He chased me to the harbour, where I was able to spin fast enough to catch Wardle and wrench the pipe from his grip - which was far stronger than I was anticipating. I let him go and poised the pipe against his neck. "Not cool, man. Not cool. A dude tries to end a fight and the other guy says kill him, you let the fight end. You don't just chase people with pipes to kill them." I panted, watching over his shoulder to see Callum coming after us, along with his other three guys.

"Don't kill me, man. I'm just following orders. Ackerman doesn't take well to not being listened to." he said, holding his hands up by his head. Getting a moment to look at his face, I felt kind of bad for the guy. He had a lazy eye so bad it looked like he was watching over his shoulder, trying to look at me. A huge birthmark on one cheek, and an enormous scar on the other. His grey hair was just longer than shoulder length and was stringy from not being washed. He didn't look like a smart guy, but the tone of voice he spoke to me in begged to differ.

"I'm not a fucking savage. But if he wants a fight he's going to get one." I said, holding the pipe to Wardle's throat until Callum approached. I swung at his side with it and tackled him. There was a loud crack and blood flowing all down my shirt when he punched me in the nose. A thud when I hit him in the chest. Pain in my head when he threw me over onto my back.

He kept me pinned to the ground, none of the blows with which I hit him shaking him as he poised to crush my skull with the pipe. As a last resort, I gave him a shot to his windpipe, which knocked him headfirst onto the ground. He rolled over the edge from the asphalt and into an old shell crater that sloped right into the ocean. Before I had a chance to react, and Callum being unconscious, he rolled right into the water of the harbour.

Wardle nor the other three made any moves to save him. I just watched, wondering how it had gotten to this point, why he'd gotten so angry, and remembering just how he'd thrown me into the harbour the last time I'd seen him. My legs were dangling over the edge of the crater. I was in no shape to go rescuing him, not after he'd broken at least two of my ribs, my nose, and quite likely given me a concussion. But, after taking a moment to regain my breath, I hopped down the slope and ran into the water to save his stupid ass.

I was a good swimmer, but with the water in the condition it was in, it was hard to see. Green sludge, rotten flesh, dead animals all in the sand. I caught a glint off of something on his person and swam over, throwing his body over my shoulder and swimming back to the surface to get some air in my lungs. Breaking the surface made me realize how cold the water was, which urged me back to the shore right away.

I shrugged him off of me, laying him down on the pavement and checking for a pulse. Not a whisper of a beat. "You there, with the stupid hat," I barked, pointing at the shortest of the men. "Get me towels. And your friend with the gold tooth, come here. I need you to help me with CPR."

The two men stared at me in confusion, but the last man who wasn't Wardle barked at them to get on with it. Wardle watched me cautiously, disappearing with the hat guy to find towels. Golden tooth guy and I worked at CPR, and by that I mean I told him what to do in a bitchy tone because I was in a lot of pain and couldn't do it myself.

Several minutes later, we were having no luck. He was dead. The hat guy chucked the towels at me and I wrapped myself in one, sitting back on the asphalt ledge.

"Who the hell are you?" I could hear Wardle behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see him holding a gun to my head.

"I'm Callum's younger brother. Name's Shay." I muttered, paying no mind to the gun very literally pointed between my eyes. "What's it matter? I'm out of here at dawn."

"No you're not. We need a leader, and we have no way to choose one, so you're coming with us." the last guy said. "I don't care if you lead, but we need someone to take Ackerman's place."

"Johnson, just take the others and go back to camp. I'll deal with this one." Wardle spoke, his gun unmoving as he directed the others. They all just shrugged and retreated back in the direction they'd come from, where I assume their camp was. "What brought you here?"

"I already told you; I missed the spacecraft to Elan from London and came here in the hope of either finding Callum and actually getting along with him long enough to bear the inevitable end of the world, or to catch a craft and reunite with my family." I shrugged. "Now he's dead and I'm SOL."

"My name's Warren." he responded, completely irrelevantly, lowering the gun. "Warren Wardle."

"That's nice." I nodded.

"And they were right. We do need a leader. You look the brawn to play the part." Warren said, nodding and sitting down beside me. "You're welcome to come back with me, but you're going to have to agree not to kill anyone else."

I didn't even intend to kill the last one, I thought to myself. I just nodded.