Week one.

Cathy woke up before the sun rose. Everything was dead quiet, dead still. Lisa was still asleep next to her. Cathy quietly slipped out of bed and stepped into the bathroom. She came out fully clothed in an old sweatshirt and tracksuit lowers from her highschool. She carried her shoes downstairs. Erik was waiting for her in the living room, his lean muscles bulging through his gray T-shirt and black shorts, old fading scars covered whatever bare skin he showed.

"Ready for your training?" he said.

Cathy nodded. The two of them put on their masks and strode out of the manor.

"Why do we have to wear masks when we don't need them?" Cathy asked as they began to jog down the road.

"To keep a low profile," he said. "Gemma trusts her townsfolk a little too much. But I won't put it past them to snitch on us for a pint of beer or a can of fresh meat."

Cathy raised an eyebrow. "You stole a damn truck from the government right in front of them. You're scared of a few snitching commoners? And besides that, aren't you and Gemma providing them stuff like food already?"

Erik snorted under his gas mask. "Yes we are providing them with the basics. But they are still people. People can get greedy. Also, I'm not afraid of getting snitched on. But I'm not alone in this thing. The plan also involves Gemma. And she loves this town that she is building. I don't want it all to come crashing down because of my actions. I'd want her and her dream to survive even if I die or get arrested by the government."

Cathy kept looking at Erik for a bit before looking ahead. They kept jogging down the road. They passed by an old man in a gas mask and a rifle on his shoulder. He waved at them in greeting. Erik waved back. Cathy just nodded.

"Who was that guy?" she asked.

"Some guy with a gun."

Cathy rolled her eyes. "Oh, of course, I almost didn't notice the big ass rifle on his back."

Erik grinned under his mask. "I don't remember his name but I know that he is assigned the morning watch duty."

Cathy nodded as they kept jogging. On a bend down the street, a woman in overalls was opening the shutter to a big garage. A fire truck stood inside.

The woman called out to Erik and said that she would be done with fixing the truck in a while and he could take it back by evening. Erik called out a thanks and they kept moving.

"I don't really get it," Cathy said, frowning-ever-so-slightly. "How do you guys keep running this place? Do these people just do these things cuz Gemma has let them stay in this town or are you guys still using money to pay each other?"

"Not really." Erik shook his head. "But the duties for everyone are clear cut. People with specific skills like fixing automobiles or medicine are assigned to be mechanics and doctors. Adults who aren't really good in any essential survival skills are trained to be scavengers by Gemma herself. In the end, food and resources are rationed for everyone equally, not counting those who need some special supplies like insulin and such."

"So whoever works for the community gets to have two meals a day and a place to live?"

"Pretty much." Erik shrugged.

"What about an adult with no essential skills and also sucks at scavenging?"

"They become assistants to someone like a mechanic or the maintenance crew."

"Maintenance crew?"

"They are the team of people that maintain the solar systems, the desalination plant and the hydroponics farm. That's the best thing about Gemma's idea for this place–everyone who lives here gets to contribute in some way or the other."

Cathy nodded as she listened. "Sounds like a nice system."

"On the surface, yes," Erik said. "But it won't work in the long term. Barely more than sixty people live here. It's a close knit community of generally civilized people. But just because no one is gonna kill each other over a can of beans doesn't mean that this place will thrive as well as an actual city rather than the small village that it is right now."

"Why wouldn't it?" Cathy frowned.

"Because Gemma won't be able to involve herself with everything and everyone like she is doing right now," Erik said. "We'll need to expand boundaries to accommodate more people. We'll need more leaders to manage the larger group. I don't trust anyone except Gemma or myself in the leadership role. It all comes back to the point of greed. All it would take is one greedy person to get greedy and build his own faction to take over the entire city."

"That's quite cynical," Cathy said. "You sound like you don't really trust your sister to run things."

Erik sighed. "I know I sound like that. But Gemma is too optimistic. She believes too much in the kindness of people. I'll admit, she is a natural at mediation and she can solve problems without letting things escalate to violence. But peace and talking can't resolve every conflict. We don't have enough fighters on our side to maintain peace without instilling a fear of punishment in the minds of people."

They jogged down a quiet boulevard. Cathy had to take a stop to catch her breath. She leaned against a lamp post on the sidewalk. A few meters down the street, a bunch of little girls were playing hopscotch in front of a shattered building. Their laughs and giggles were muffled and hissy under their gas masks but they were still audible in the desolate silence around them.

After her breathing was back to normal she said, "You're right, Erik. Peace can't solve every conflict. And Gemma's right to believe in the kindness of people too. But I think what really matters is however we live, we need to stop every once in a while and just watch the birds."

Erik frowned. He looked up at the purple sky, even though he knew he won't see any birds. "Did you forget that the dandelion fever killed everything that didn't wear a face mask?" he said. "There are no birds in the sectors anymore."

"You're wrong." Cathy smiled as she watched the playing children. "There are still birds. They still fly."

Erik scoffed. "Let's get back to training now."

So they did.

They ran for about three miles. Cathy felt a bit exhausted. The rest of the morning was spent doing push ups, squats and chin ups. And then they jogged back to the manor. This would become her routine for the weeks to come.

The evenings were spent with Erik explaining her different parts of a full-auto assault rifle. The assembly, the dismantling, the cleaning and how everything worked together.

Cathy made flashcards for it all and read it over each night before bed.

###

Week Two.

Lisa had finished two thirds of the hefty peacebringer operating manual. She had figured out twenty four different sequences that could be used in a standoff against conventional military tanks.

She spent most mornings in the garage where the armored truck was, poring over the operating manual, scribbling sequences and ammunition type into a notebook. She'd pasted about a dozen sticky notes on the dashboard inside the truck, listing different sequences and their functions.

And most evenings she'd spend inside the truck, punching sequences into the panel until she didn't have to review the sticky notes she'd put up. She'd go for hours, memorizing sequences like this. And sometimes she'd fall asleep in the truck.

###

Week Three.

Cathy could run up to three miles without feeling like she was about to pass out. Her workout had gotten progressively more strenuous. Forty push-ups, thirty sit-ups and twenty chin-ups.

She felt like she was getting back in shape again, getting stronger. Her endurance had certainly gotten better than before. Her body was mostly aching and sore. And she always felt on the verge of passing out after exercise.

Yet the hardest part of life wasn't the training. It was the nights that terrified her.

Every night when Lisa wasn't next to her, Cathy would wake up in cold sweat, breathing heavily. The voice of her father echoing in her head over and over like an ominious chant.

She would look down at her hands and find the fingers twitching slightly, feel a vibration going up her wrist and then the rest of her arm would go numb. This was the hand that pulled the trigger. She would remember the gunshot that thundered in her silent neighborhood that night and feel herself shiver at the sound of it.

(I'm your last Memory)

"Shut up!" Cathy would scream and pause for a second to see if anyone would wake up with her. If anyone would come to soothe her nightmares. No one did.

###

Week four.

"You should try to get some more rest. Cathy certainly wishes she could be with you more often," Erik said as he entered the garage that morning and found Lisa at the worktable behind the truck. Several notebooks and the operating manual were strewn over the desk in front of her. And beside the books sat something else that Erik recognized. The cube that the operative had stolen back in sector 22 during their fight, the flaming orange fluid shimmered within the transparent cylinder. Erik made no remark on it.

Lisa groaned. "I'm sorry. I really am." She rubbed her forehead tiredly. "I wish I could spend more time with her too. But whenever I'm studying the truck, she is free. And whenever I'm away from the truck, she is training. Our schedules aren't lining up."

Erik chuckled and hopped onto the edge of the desk, swinging his legs back and forth almost like a child. "You shouldn't make the revolution all of your life, Mrs. Neville."

Lisa smirked at him. "Says the guy who has thrown his own life away for the cause. Multiple times, I presume?"

"I'm different, Mrs. Neville." He smirked back. "I don't have a child on the way."

Lisa frowned and let out a sigh. She looked down at her belly. Three more months and the baby would be here. What she and Richard had always dreamt of would finally be here. At this point, there was almost no uncertainty on her part. Not just because it was too late to go back. But because she wanted to be a mother. She wanted to watch this child learn to talk, learn to walk, draw adorably squiggly drawings and throw a tantrum to stay up past bedtime.

Yes, she wanted all that. And no, there was no uncertainty of whether or not she was ready to be a mother. But there was a different problem that was gnawing at her. Before she could board that second train of thought, Erik picked up the cube and examined it. "I see, you aren't really finding new sequences today, huh?"

"Right, I kinda got bored of crunching numbers." Lisa shrugged. "So I decided to study the structure of the truck."

"You started from its very core," Erik held up the cube. "This is the same thing the operatives in sector 22 used to disable us for that short period."

She nodded. "Yeah, I've been reading up on it." She moved the operating manual towards him. The thick tome was opened to the page that illustrated the cube and its specifics. "It's a bit too technical for my brain but what I learnt is really baffling."

"Why is that?"

"That strange orange liquid." She tapped the cylindrical well at the center of the cube. "The operating manual simply called it hybrid-0 or hy(0). There's no further description of it but there are two things that are emphasized more than anything. First, even if the truck is used for fifteen hours straight in a battle, that hybrid-0 thing would only deplete by 0.01 percent. And secondly, the hybrid-0 shouldn't come in contact with the oxygen under any circumstance. The manual just states to not open the cube cuz it will be 'extremely hazardous'."

"Fascinating." Erik kept gazing at the flaming orange liquid. "Really makes you curious about just how hazardous it might get if you expose it to the air, doesn't it?"

"More than that I'm just curious about what that thing is actually made of," Lisa said. "Like we can keep running the truck for days and even then that orange thing won't go down by less than even one percent. It's just wild."

Erik shrugged and put the cube back on the desk. "Sounds like the perfect fuel to keep this war going for another decade." He got off the desk. "But again, don't stress yourself too much, Mrs. Neville. I was just here to remind you to get some rest."

Lisa looked down at her belly. The thoughts from earlier came back. This time she spoke them out loud. "What if we lose, Erik?" she said. "What if I bring the child into this world and the world has become a bigger hell than it already is? And what if I was one of the people who made it that way?"

Erik looked into her eyes for a long time. Then he looked at the truck. "And what if the skies clear up, Mrs. Neville?" he said. "What if the air isn't poison anymore? What if we have rebuilt entire cities from dust by the time your child sees this world? What if the world becomes a better place? What if you were one of the people who made it that way?"

Lisa scoffed, shaking her head. "Failure is never even an option for you, is it?"

Erik stuffed his hands into his pocket and started walking. "There's no failure for me, Mrs. Neville. There's just a slight delay from success."

Erik left with a smile on his face as he heard Lisa chuckling at his remark.

###

Week five.

Cathy leaned back against the chain link fence as she caught her breath. Erik smiled down at her with a proud look in his eyes. "Six miles with no stops." He offered her a canteen of water. "You've earned this."

Cathy nodded and took the canteen. She let out a sigh after a long sip. They'd run all the way up to the industrial township that was now deserted. Empty warehouses and factories stood dark and lonely as abandoned caves. "I'd been meaning to ask something." She looked at him. "Do you hear the voices too?"

Erik gave a look of understanding. He leant back against the wall next to her. "Not necessarily voices. But I still get the nightmares," he said gravely.

Cathy swallowed hard. "Nightmares of what?"

"The past."

"If you don't mind me asking wha–"

"I have memories of the war," he said. "I used to be a soldier. And now I remember what I saw back then whenever I sleep."

Cathy winced a little. "I-I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said. "I've gotten used to it now."

"I'm still sorry to hear that. I get nightmares too and it's unsettling to say the least," She said. "So, the virus just messes with everyone's head, huh?"

"I didn't have the virus," he said. "It's because of the EpiFreeze."

Cathy was puzzled. "Really? That's a side-effect for everyone?"

"Pretty much," he said. "But I believe you have it worse than me since you actually had the virus before we gave you the vaccine. That's probably why you hear the voices even when you're awake."

She swallowed hard. "Will it ever stop?"

Erik shrugged. "They gave me the EpiFreeze nine years ago. And I still get nightmares." He scoffed. "So I can't tell you anything beyond my own experiences."

Cathy's heart sank. She looked ahead at the empty buildings in front of her. "We got to study some basic viruses and stuff in high school. They never told us about the one that gives you nightmares and hallucinations."

"No one knew something like that could exist." Erik shrugged again. "Then again, no one knew there was a rain that could burn down a whole city. It was all a matter of time until they invented it."

Cathy remembered what Lisa had told her when she woke up that night when they gave her the EpiFreeze. "It rained. It's all burned down now." Burned down her house, her father's corpse, her entire city like none of it meant anything to anyone. Cathy felt like a stranger in her own memories, yes. But a part of her still belonged to that past. A part she wasn't much connected to anymore. It was still a part of her. She clenched her fist. "We are gonna stop this war, right Erik?"

He smirked. "Of course we will."

###

(Why do you keep running?)

"I don't wanna stop for you."

(Don't you want any answers?)

"I don't."

(Then why do you still carry me?)

"I don't."

(You brought me with you. You did it because you can't let me go. And now that I call for you, you don't even answer. Why are you running?)

Cold sweat, twitching fingers, the numbness. Not again.

(You want to run away yet you hang onto me. Why can't you let go, Cathy?)

She could feel it again. The jolt of the cold carbon fiber in her hand. The gust of wind. The gathering clouds.

"Give your old man a hug, Cat."

Bang!

She woke up screaming again. And she was alone in bed. The sheets were drenched. Still shivering, she climbed out of the bed and started to change the sheets.

(Stop running, Cathy.)

She winced. She tried to tune out the voice.

(You know it won't make it any better.)

"Then why don't you just shut up?"

(Because it won't make it any better)

"Then what am I even supposed to do?"

(Come find me. You know where I am)

A cold chill ran down her spine. She was expecting to find another Exit door behind her just like in her dreams. But this wasn't a dream.

She felt like she knew what she had to do next. Things made a bit more sense here in the real world.

(You know where I am.)

She turned around and walked up to the desk. Her backpack sat next to it on the floor. She dug into the bag, going through the compartments. She wasn't sure what she was looking for but she knew it was just within her reach.

Her fingers finally happened over the thing. It was right next to a photoframe with a picture of a younger Cathy with her parents. For now, she ignored the picture and picked up the thing next to it.

It was small, round and smooth as ivory. It gleamed in the moonlight as she held it up by the window. It was a bit chipped and rough in places. But it was mesmerizing nonetheless. Hollow, abyssal eyes stared back at her. The last memory, she thought.

Leaning closer to the bird cranium Cathy whispered, "Milo?"

(Hello, Cathy)