"Thank you Corey. That was... heavenly." Simon patted his stomach in satisfaction, then stretched out with a groan. "Meat! I love it!"
Corey laughed, and glanced at Matt who was similarly satisfied, but her eyes seemed dark as she stared at him.
Matt's eyes met her, and both their eyes were dark with desire as they looked at one another.
Simon cracked open an eye, then waved his hand. "Shoo love birds! Haven't you heard? This is my house now!"
Matt gave a small laugh awkwardly as he broke eye contact, rubbing the back of his neck as he went to grab his bags.
Corey gave a small bow to Simon. "Lovely to meet you, glad you enjoyed my hunt and cooking! I look forward to speaking once again."
Simon lowered his head as a small kinda-bow in response to her formal bow, bemused by her strict manners. "Yes, it was delicious. Apologies, I'm not the most serious person, so if it's annoying just let me know, I try to limit myself when people ask."
Corey smiled, teeth showing. "Don't worry, you're family now. May you live to see me again."
Simon blinked as she stepped out, waiting for Matt in the open area of the cluster.
Matt and Simon both traded a look. "Did your partner just... threaten me?"
"I think it's a blessing €;@ there."
"Huh? Right... yeah..." Simon tried to put aside the confusing garble-word and focus on what mattered right now.
"So uh... try to make a good first impression tonight?"
Matt blushed. "Oi! Shut it!"
He turned to the door, lifting his comm to open it, and paused.
"...see you later, alligator."
Simon blinked, squinting against what was surely dust in his eyes. "In awhile, crocodile." His voice was a bit raspy, perhaps from eating too much.
The door slip open with a "Sht!" and Matt stepped out, the door shutting behind him.
Simon looked around the room, once filled with so many little designs of handmade cloths and other such items made for Matt by his students, or things that Matt had bought.
Gone.
He stepped through the door-less doorway to the bedroom, and saw one bed folded out of the wall, the other so tightly folded into the wall it looked as though there was barely even a seam.
Simon slowly sat down on his bed, sheets threadbare and faded with a single blanket and a pillow without a pillowcase.
Alone.
And the raspy voice and wet eyes came back, and he hiccuped as his body shook slightly, a shaky sob.
The world changed forever when the Extinction happened. The world is still here, it hasn't ended... But the old way of life is extinct.
Life keeps going, keeps changing, growing. And hurting.
Life still hurts.
~ ~ ~
Wrapped in a plastic sheet, someone walked beneath the heavy rain.
The ground was black, with a shimmer of green to it, as though green sparkling dust had been scattered on the black earth.
"How much farther?" The person, a woman, turned to her companions, another woman and a man.
"The map says 2 kilometers, but it is a roughly drawn one." The other woman responded, lifting a part of her plastic poncho to look at something, presumably a map, underneath.
"We need to find shelter fast, the longer we stay out in the Transparent's rain, the higher the risk we make a mistake!" The man shouted, anxiety clear in his voice!
The land was empty, no trees, no plants, just black earth with a green shimmer to it, and the rain.
The girl in front began to move up a rise of the black earth, moving forward bit by bit, making sure her face was covered and protected from the deadly rain.
As she came to the top, she turned around excitedly. "There's a ruin!"
The other two looked up in surprise. "What?!" They picked up their pace, and crested the rise as they looked down the other side, where the first girl was already moving to.
A large rectangle of stone and metal rose from the earth, like a building that had been half-consumed by quicksand or something... else in the ground.
"Does it provide proper shelter or it the roof broken too?" The man shouted questioningly.
"Try to have some positivity Ty."
"Will positivity magically make the roof perfectly fine so we don't get killed by the rain of the Transparent God?" Ty shot back.
"The roof is good!" The girl in front shouted excitedly at that moment.
Ty looked forward studiously, ignoring the looks the woman next to him was shooting him.
"So what do we doooo?" The woman drew the word out.
"Shut it Jess."
"Come on. What kinda attitude should we haaaaave?"
Ty closed his eyes and sighed in defeat. "...a positive one."
"Thank you!" Jess exclaimed in satisfaction, speeding up her walk to help the girl find a way into the building.
Ty shook his head, readjusting the large pack on his back. He felt a pain in his gut, a cramp in his stomach from hunger. He was used to ignoring his hunger. Food was never guaranteed, not by any means.
The food and water had been split among them, but he couldn't take any out without shelter, as the organic material of the food would be destroyed in the rain of the Emerald Wastes.
'Materials like rock, plastic, and metal are unaffected, thank the Prismatic Gods.' Ty drew an arc over his heart, a sign meant to represent a rainbow, and drew an upright triangle below the arc, a prism below the rainbow.
His hands were gloved in black plastic that had been melted together into crude gloves, once a trash bag he had been lucky to scavenge. After some cleaning, it became 5 pairs of gloves that reached the elbow, 3 of which they kept and 2 were traded to other scavengers.
Ty was awakened from his inward cursing of the Emerald Wastes as he saw the other two slip into the building through a broken window that was now ground level thanks to its sunken state.
Ty picked up his feet that had sunk a half-inch through the soft-foam like top layer of soil. If the ground didn't get denser and firmer after an inch or two, the entire Emerald Wastes would be like a giant, deadly rain-filled sinkhole of quicksand.
He came up to the window, carefully maneuvering himself as he entered so he wouldn't rip and of the plastic suit he wore to protect himself.
"So found a place to lie down Jess?" He looked up, so focused on getting in without ripping the plastic he hadn't yet noticed what the inside looked like.
He froze, staring right at a stranger standing within the dark structure, lit up by an electric lamp on the ground.