After having fired everything into the space between each other, Ava shuffled closer to Nathan along the rough bark of the fallen tree. "What was your life like before the meteor came?" Head tilted and eyes unfocused, Ava watched her own childhood play out before her.

Re-positioning himself and shivering once, slowly, with rolling shoulders, Nathan left the question with the wind.

Turning her head away from the whispering enquiry, Ava climbed off the log and grinned to herself. Stumbling over nothing, she put her hands down to catch herself and brought them back in fists. Slowly, she walked behind Nathan, stepping one foot onto a flat outcropping stone in the river. After putting both fists together and squeezing hard, Ava threw the snowball at Nathan's back and burst into laughter.

Nathan's thin mouth opened slightly on impact and he turned to face Ava, whose giggles, after seeing his impression, ended abruptly. "Why?"

Ava simply shook her head with a frown and climbed over the log to slouch back onto it. Swinging her legs, she started to pick at the bark with her dirt-filled nails and flick the bits over the edge, into the water. Her gaze swung lazily over the surrounding trees, 'Brown tree. Brown tree again. Oh, look! Slightly greyer brown.'

She straightened her back with a deep breath in, and the heaviest sigh that she could muster sent the air straight out again and re-folded her spine. Then, her eyebrows raced each other down the bridge of her nose. "Are you not bored?" It came out more demanding and a little higher in pitch than she had meant it to.

After having refocused his eyes on Ava, seeming to finally remember she was there, he shook his head. "I like it here. Calm. Peaceful. Feels... safe." He said the last word straight into her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," Ava muttered, jumping off their bench again. "But what's the point in safety if it's not fun? I'd just die of boredom then," she span around to finish her sentence towards Nathan, "Which means it's not actually safe."

"You'd never die from boredom," Nathan pointed out, looking downward, his shoulders growing out from where they'd hidden in his neck.

"Technically, if I die out here, it'll have been because of boredom. If I hadn't been bored," Ava almost sang, walking along the snow, touching each heel to the toes of the foot behind, arms pointing slightly downward out to each side, "Then I wouldn't have come out here."

Nathan's eyes glazed over with worry as he turned his head away from her. "Maybe you would survive Dursley," he whispered to no one. Turning back towards Ava, he nodded sadly, though she wasn't watching. He repeated his words exactly and Ava perked up immediately.

A while later, they lay on the powder snow behind a cover of bramble bushes. They peeked between the spindly, winter-bitten branches, staring at the family of metal giraffes, turning necks made of crossing bars growing into the sky, conveyor-belt legs unseen below the lip of the hill. Together, they worked like ants to build some sort of framework of floorboards and steel rods. Skyline full of tall creatures and a wooden canopy, the whole city felt alive.

Ava imagined herself roaming around the safari of Dursley, riding the giraffes herself.

Beside her, Nathan shivered. "I'm not going any further."

"Classic book character," Ava said, rolling her eyes. "Take the main character, which would obviously be me, somewhere dangerous and ditch them to save your own skin. Not that it's any better out here."

"You read?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ava shouted, springing to her feet. Her eyebrows dug further and harder into her nose as her eyes set fire to the snow. "Yes, I read! I'm very good at reading for your information." Flinging her arm out to point down the hill, she added, "Whether you're coming with me or not, I'm going into Dursley right now!" She dropped her small plastic bag and grabbed his rucksack from its space beside him. Her footsteps reverberated through the woodland and down into the valley she was charging towards.

"Quiet!" Nathan called after her softly, still crouched behind the brambles. Ava turned once to look at him, found herself scowling, and quickly turned back to the city. Though she started ducking behind trees and shrubs just off to the left of the wide, old trodden path.

Only a hundred metres or so from the nearest building, Ava crouched and hid behind a wide tree, hoping she wouldn't be seen as she scoured the area for a quick and easy food source.

Despite the large number of machines moving around the city, and the sea of tall architecture, the silver-black shine of the buildings she'd read about that had brought Dursley its fame before other cities had copied it, and the works in progress she'd seen from the top of the hill, Ava could never have imagined the thousands of people filling every inch of the ground. Ava struggled to tell what colour the roads even were, unable to see it through the mass of bodies swarming around the machines. Ava finally understood why Nathan had run away from such an active place.

The people were badly clothed, covered in splashes of mud, water and blood. Everyone was either carrying metal rods, planks of wood, piles of rope and buckets of nails and screws, or hurrying to collect more. Expressions of pain and fear were painted over every person Ava could catch the face of.

Worst of all, was the church, peeking out from between two buildings a little way back, and the growing pile of grey mass in the garden that only a small group of men seemed to be able to add to. It was only when the next man added to the pile, throwing the awkward shape halfway up the pile, and seeing it roll down to settle on the grass as he walked away, that Ava realised what she was looking at.

Dursley was working its people to death.

Ava had to slap her hand to her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Turning away from the horrors of Nathan's old life and the nightmare they now both shared, she slid down the trunk of the tree, unaware of the rough bark tugging on her coat, unfeeling of the frozen snow she sunk into, unknowing of the figure heading straight for her.

Hand still over her mouth, Ava let the tears run over fingers and drip onto her knees. Not a minute later, she swung her head back against the tree, wincing at the slam and the thudding of pain that followed. She'd heard something - the person behind her. Suddenly aware she wasn't alone, her breath competed with her heart beat for attention, filling her head, drowning out the crunching footsteps right behind her...

"No one here, Jack," came a brisk voice, dangerously close to her tree. As Ava wondered who Jack was, a deep panting sounded from her right, heavy breath pushing into her ear. She turned her head and found herself facing the muzzle of a German Shepherd. Ducking its muzzle slightly, the dog allowed its eyes to find Ava's. Before she could prepare herself for capture, she felt a wave of understanding pass between them and the dog tottered away back to the man. A whistle later and the padding of the dog's paws sped up.

Her shoulders slumped, relaxed again, and she sat there panting for a while. Then she twisted to poke her head around the side of the thick trunk. Jack and his human walked round the side of a building, the man only once stopping, whipping a slow-moving worker. A shiver later and an angry scowl pasted over her face, Ava sprinted over to the same building, stopping in the small garden, hiding behind a black wheelie bin.

She didn't want to pause for long, desperate to grab food and get out at the earliest moment available - staying in Dursley seemed just about the worst possible option.

Running up to the nearest wall, she jumped onto her tiptoes to look through the window before falling back into a run and repeating the action. When she had convinced herself that no one could see her, she ran her fingers around the edge, where the frame met the brick. The handle was stuck, probably locked, and the hinges had rusted stiff.

Undaunted, Ava began to search through the bin she'd hidden behind and the two identical ones either side of it. She didn't find a great deal that wasn't rotting food, glass bottles and cardboard boxes. Clearly no one recycled, and despite everything else, Ava found it the most sickening thing she'd ever seen. How could anyone be so ignorant? Quite quickly she found herself shrugging the weight off her shoulders, remembering she still needed to get back to Nathan, preferably not empty handed - oh how she would hate to prove him right, to make it look difficult. No, she was going to make this look easy, even if it was the last thing she did. And she prayed to God that it wouldn't be.

Continuing down the street, behind each house and through back gardens, she eventually came to a window that had been left open. Only slightly, but enough for Ava's small fingers to fit through, twist around, and flick the lock off from the inside.

Ava pulled the window towards her and swung one leg up onto the window sill. She got a hold on either side of the window frame and jumped to pull herself up but her hands slipped and she landed, one foot on the gravel floor, one through the window and her leg aching. Physically having to help her leg out and down, she changed her approach.

With the wheelie bin rolled over and tipped on its side, contents spilling, she had a step to help her up. Sliding in sideways, head ducking under the window first, she was able to fall through, landing in a heap on the other side. Hastily getting to her feet, she noticed she'd come into the dining room, the large polished mahogany wood table stretching the length of the room, crowded by twelve leather, tall back chairs. Her feet shuffled against the patterned carpet as she traced the floral print over the heavy curtains. Resisting the urge to whistle, she hoped their wealth was also reflected in their cupboards and fridge.

Carefully and quietly, she sneaked into the kitchen, just next door. The fridge door swung open to reveal, as she had expected, a lot of food. Almost so much that Ava convinced herself no one would notice that she'd taken any. She reached in and grabbed at random things, putting them in her bag. When she felt like her hand was about fall off, she withdrew from the fridge and moved on to the cupboards, again stock piling the small rucksack she'd taken from Nathan. Rummaging through the drawers, she searched for a tin opener for the tonne of beans she'd chosen.

But the clanging and scarping of her rummaging wasn't the only noise killing the silence of the massive house.

The chandelier above her started shaking. Shaking with the vibrations of the ceiling. Vibrations coming from the room above. Vibrations that travelled the length of the kitchen before dropping off into rhythmic thudding. Still dropping. And dropping still as the footsteps charged down the stairs.

Slamming the drawer shut and wincing at the noise, Ava ran out the other door, down three tiled steps into the very, very small utility room. Dropping to the floor, she squeezed herself behind the washing machine, her heart pounding so loudly that astronauts must have been able to hear it, she thought. Placing one hand over her chest, failing to muffle the sound, she was certain it would give away her hiding place.

The memory of the man whipping the worker hurled into her eyes, filling her vision. For a moment, all she could hear was the tear through the wind as it lashed out, knowing full well she had never been close enough to hear it originally.

It wasn't long before the distinctive clipping and clopping of wooden soles on tile sounded through the kitchen, funnelling into the utility room, deafening Ava with every step. "Who's there?" the soft masculine voice called, rolling down the three stairs. "You can't honestly believe you can hide from me, can you?"

Ava closed her eyes and watched her unicorn cantering under a rainbow which was falling like a curtain of colour from a fluffy white - storm cloud. A storm cloud that grew until everything was black and she was forced to open her eyes and a man was crouched in front of her, holding her shoulder, his eyes like daggers through her own.

Cramped into such a small space, she couldn't get her arm free enough to fight back. She screamed and twisted, pulling her skin tight against the back of the washing machine. "Stop!" The harsh whisper did nothing to calm the panicking girl who had managed to push the washing machine forward slightly and was flailing her arms and legs. "Stop!" An echo of the previous command washed over her and, realising she wasn't in any pain except where she'd knocked herself in her panic, she stopped fighting. The man holding her had short black hair, a fluffy beard that climbed over his top lip too, and dark brown eyes. His skin was so pale but so was the case for most people in weather so cold.

He offered her his hand. She refused it, but did as he wanted, climbing out from behind the washing machine, out from the dust and dead-spider filled hollow. She dusted herself down and followed him up the stairs, backpack aching her neck, pulling down on her shoulders. Holding the straps, she questioned her decision to take so much.

"Let me take that for you," the man offered, seeing her struggle.

And she handed it to him.

With the bag over one shoulder, he walked upstairs, occasionally looking back at Ava to check she was following, which she was. He dropped the bag on a bed in what was clearly the spare bedroom at the far end of the corridor. "Assuming you are actually as homeless as you look, you can crash here." There was fondness in tone, wrapped around a deep questioning that ran too deep for Ava to understand.

Ava nodded gratefully, ignoring the question, and plonked herself down on the bed with a tired smile. The man smiled and left, closing the door on his way out. His smile had been so warm, so kind. And it almost made her feel sorry for what she was going to do next.

She waited for nightfall. And then left through the dining room window.