Chapter Text
Now an adult, Seff walked along the dark forest road. Her steps rang out through the woods yet alerted no one; they left faint tracks behind her in only the lightest top layer of snow. She hoped to see lights ahead somewhere; she hoped to be able to navigate, but only the moon and her lantern lit the way ahead. She came across a tall, bent street sign, rusted over, and though she knew it had been in this condition for years (she had seen it, after all, countless times) she thought of the world now as having been in this state for just as long. Perhaps she had slept a hundred years; nobody was around to tell her otherwise. Perhaps she was the only one left.
She turned her head and watched the bend in the road shrink away. Her breath formed clouds in front of her; they sparkled in a way that gave her the impression that they instantly froze upon leaving her, though she couldn't be sure. There was little left for her to do but walk forward. She would, with any luck, still have footsteps to follow when she turned back around, though she couldn't be certain. She knew the way well, or had once, but with the area blanketed in snow and dark and devoid of cars the landscape was alien to her.
The lantern swayed gently in her paw as she walked. Her night vision was not terrible, not in the slightest, but she held it out in the hopes that it might be some sort of beacon. She swung between paranoia and loneliness moment-by-moment, afraid first to hold the lantern and then to douse it, though ultimately she decided the thought of malevolent figures lurking out in the forest was less disconcerting than the dawning sense of utter solitude that pressed in on her from all sides. She could confront an enemy; she could bare her teeth at it and tear it to pieces. She was strong and broad. She carried a knife; it had been sharpened shortly before the sun vanished, hadn't it? She had butchered elk before (the kind on four legs, but not all that different, really). She could break a threat like a twig (most threats, at least). She had the sort of excessive confidence one has for entirely hypothetical situations. She could follow a monster to civilization; she could follow it to salvation or at the very least to food.
If she truly was alone, though, if the world was truly over, and if she was merely running out the clock to starvation, she could not confront a thing. She could only sit and languish in an empty cabin and wait to die.
This was a decidedly unhelpful train of thought, and she had no sooner begun to confront it than had shoved it out of her mind. It was pointless, anyways: though she could see a short way in front of her, the shadows seemed to devour the light from the lantern so that it was not much more helpful than moonlight alone, and wouldn't make for a good signal at all.
She came to a bend in the road where it cut sharply uphill, and shuffled off to the grassy shoulder that had now died off almost completely. The roots from the trees lining the road, she hoped, would hold the soil stable as she climbed, even as the trees they were attached to lived out their final days. They smelled of rot. Heavy air gathered around them and drifted off towards the road; she knew it was only the smell of dead plants, though it still cut sharply through her nose.
She leaned over the rusty barricade keeping out the forest, snapped off a heavy branch, and planted it firmly in the earth, then made her way up the hill. She recognized the hill and the curve advisory on it, recalled it to be (or have been) a vehicular graveyard for all but the most cautious drivers, and for the first time felt relief at her car's inoperable state, particularly given the ground conditions, slick with snow and ice.
On foot, she surmounted the hill and tossed the stick away, surprised at how easy it had been despite the frozen ground. She had turned her feet sideways to keep from sliding too far, and planted them in the ice, forming little frozen steps, until she reached the top. The elevation she reached was not really all that beneficial, despite her unfounded hopes to the contrary; there was little but dead forest visible through the trees, even with the light of her lantern.
The commerce center, as she liked to call it, was close by, though like everything else it was closer by car. Really, it was just a congregation of shops and restaurants, loosely connected by large parking lots and slightly but not significantly friendlier than a strip mall. Thinking of it as the "commerce center" lent it some legitimacy in her mind. It was her best link to civilization, particularly at the moment, and her best chance at finding others. She considered this fact multiple times as she walked, and then briefly questioned if she was losing her mind.
It was possible she really was. She had heard and questioned the veracity of stories regarding people dreaming up years of their lives: fake wives and brothers and children all gone with a morning alarm. There had been a surreal quality to things for a long time, she noted. It was most obvious when the world went dark, but nothing had felt real for years. She closed her eyes and pinched herself and furrowed her brow when she opened them to the same familiar darkness. Her lantern flickered, but held steady.
A shadow dashed across the light it cast.
It took Seff a moment to process what she had seen, and a moment longer to notice the rustling of bushes and realize it had not been a trick of the light or of her own mind, and all of a sudden she was real again.
"Wait—" she barked, taken aback by the hoarseness of her voice, rarely used for some time except in quiet song; she had grown unfamiliar with its harsher tones. She ran to the shoulder of the road and leapt over it, and jumped into the bushes. The sharp scent of someone unfamiliar cut through her nose, layered pieces atop each other: fur and blood and terror (she could smell fear; she could not describe it), and so she doused her lantern and tucked it away and trusted that to carry her, a stark trail cutting through the cold. The figure was clumsy, clumsier than her even as she ran on ice and carried two hundred pounds of misaimed muscle, and so they soon stumbled over a dying fern and fell, and the trail became overpowering. Seff grabbed hold of them and spun them around.
A rabbit sat before her, bathed in the moonlight filtering through what was left of the undergrowth, eyes wide, frozen in place. They were young: she guessed maybe eight or nine. There was a small bag slung around their side, crafted from light fabric. Their fur was a rich tawny color. Seff wasn't sure if that was typical: whether the sun vanishing would have spurred the rabbits' fur to turn white. Was it the cold that triggered it, or was it some sort of biological clock? She guessed it would probably be a bit rude to ask right now. She sat back.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." She paused to catch her breath and spoke too quickly. "It's been months since I've seen anyone else. Where are your parents?"
The rabbit shook their head and tried to stand. Seff could see now that their leg was injured, and more acutely smell it; it reminded her of working the cash register in high school. The gash was small and clean for now but threatened infection. They stumbled over a twig and fell back again.
"Wait. Wait. I'm not going to hurt you. I swear. If you're scared, I'm scared too, okay? Let me just help you find your parents, and maybe they can help me find some other people. You shouldn't be out here alone."
They were shaking, even under their clothes: they were wrapped in a thick winter coat and snow pants. Their hood covered everything but the front of their face. She guessed that was probably wise, with so much for frostbite to take. A coat could only do so much, though. It wasn't unreasonable to assume they were just cold.
Her yellow eyes bore down on the rabbit. She reached out a thick paw and presented it, palm-up.
"Please," she said. She took a breath. Thin clouds drifted out in front of her.
"I can't find them," the rabbit said, hardly above a whisper. Their voice was lower than Seff had expected, and she wondered if she had misjudged their age. She supposed the rabbit was probably a girl, though she also guessed neither party here was particularly concerned with making that clear, and she was fairly sure assuming wouldn't do her any good. It wasn't as though that was anywhere near her largest concern, anyways. "I'm trying to find civilization, so piss off."
Seff sat back. Her tone solidified, sterner but not harsh. "Kid, I don't know you, but I'm not leaving you to die out here. Clearly something's happened."
"Fine. If you want to help, then when they come for me, rip them to shreds. Don't let them touch me. Then let me go, and we'll never have to speak again."
She narrowed her eyes. "Who're they?"
"About three of them. Foxes, I think. Didn't get a great look. Too tall. Starving, if I had to guess. Goddamn monsters. Separated me from my parents. Chased me in here." The rabbit continued to tremble.
Seff kept her paw outstretched. She considered the rabbit's words, as well as her own form; had their parents survived? More likely, they had been eaten without a second thought, same as any other animal, on four legs or two. The thought alone horrified her; to eat another thinking being, someone who could, if nothing else, plead with you not to do it, was unspeakable. It had always been. Then again, she considered, perhaps the foxes the rabbit talked about had thought that too, when there had still been a sun.
She rarely took it upon herself to question the ethics of her biology, but what were monsters, anyways, if not large and frightening things with sharper teeth than those they chased? Seff looked into the rabbit's eyes and resolved herself. They avoided her gaze.
"If anyone comes for you, I won't let them hurt you. But it's not safe for you to be out here alone. You're hurt and you'll freeze."
"That's the least of my concerns." They narrowed their eyes. "You. What have you been eating?"
Seff hesitated, weighing again the rabbit's words. "I had some meat tucked away from before. Beef and venison, largely. Some elk. I live alone, and I usually don't have the time to shop, so I tend to stockpile. I'm running a bit low, but I'll live, especially since I had a little canned food here for emergencies. I assume there are ranchers somewhere, maintaining enough to survive on. If nothing else, some forsaken grocery store probably has some cans I can take." She took a slow breath and watched the condensation. "That's why I was out here. I wanted to see if I could find anyone."
"You're not going to hurt me," the rabbit said, with more uncertainty than a declaration but not so much to make it a question.
"Of course not." Her breath condensed in the air between them, and glittered in what little light there was.
Slowly, the rabbit extended one paw and placed it on Seff's.
"Then I trust you," they said. "I don't think I have a choice."
"Yeah?"
"If you were going to kill me, you would have by now."
"I'm not going to kill you," Seff said, with some indignity. "You're just some kid. I mean, I wouldn't if you weren't, either."
There was a moment of silence. The rabbit took a few breaths, trying to steady themself. "You suck at reassuring people." Their ears perked up. "But you look strong enough, and you're not with those foxes. I can tell. I don't think they'd bother to trick me like this, if nothing else."
"Will you let me fix your leg, then?"
"Do you have supplies?"
"Not on me, but at my cabin."
They scoffed. "Freakin' swell," they replied. "The wolf is taking me back to her creepy cabin in the woods to get murdered." There was some disingenuous note of humor in their voice.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I said that already. You don't have to come if you don't want to. All I want to do is help."
"No, I'll come."
"May I carry you?"
Another moment passed. "You're serious?"
"Yes."
They blinked, then nodded.
Seff scooped up the rabbit and held them close to her chest. She made her way back down the slope, sliding on her back this time and holding them. They stayed in her arms the entire way back to the cabin, with little protest; the sound of Seff's heavy footfalls and labored breaths rippled through the air, with nothing to interrupt them, and gradually, the shaking slowed.