Epoch of Desolation

“No one wants the luggage of another while they’re vying for their own life,” Alice said, her words annoyingly sincere and without filter for the child she’d taken into her custody. Rain listened carefully, though, quickly grasping what the adult woman meant. Despite how it sounded, she was right. “Let’s take up an example. I’m being chased by a beast, and while I’m trying to defend myself I come across someone else who is in a losing tussle with a beast of their own. If I was in my right senses would I risk my life to help that person and have two beasts after me?”

“No,” Rain answered. She was rubbing off on him with this explicit sincerity of hers.

“Of course.” She shot a glare at Rain then. “So that nonsense you did with me, saying you would like to know of my journey, try it with some other person and you’ll regret not keeping your mouth shut. You’re basically giving yourself up to be manipulated. Don’t go around hoping on another for your own survival. They can leave at any time. And that ‘leave’ would not be in a pleasing manner.”

‘Try it with some other person’? Am I to take that as: ‘Thank your lucky stars that I’m different’?

Rain sighed exasperatedly. “Now, it's not that I don’t understand what you’re saying, but… Do you think of all humans this way?” Alice didn’t say anything. Rain nodded in return. “I thought so. For one, you are a human, aren’t you? And Sean is alive because you took on his own beasts. Your actions contradict your words.”

Alice narrowed her eyes with a pinched expression. She turned away from Rain and Sean and unzipped her bag to resume her equipment sorting. “Sean’s a child. If it had been you in that car I would have left you there.”

That hurts, but a valid response. Rain felt a tender hand touch his knee cap then, and he turned to his side to see a pair of wide brown eyes looking up at him.

“I would save you,” Sean whispered with a smile, and Rain couldn’t resist ruffling the boy’s hair in a giddy manner.

“You’re my hero,” he responded before turning back to the indifferent Alice. “So, where are you headed from here?”

“Back,” she answered after two seconds.

“Back?” Rain’s eyebrows squished together. It was at this moment that he recalled previously asking her if she’d been in this city all this while, and she had responded with “No”. He had not been able to find out where she’d come from then, since she had shifted the discussion, but now he had a chance. “Back to where?”

“GEF.” After answering, Alice paused what she was doing and turned around to look at Rain who had a befuddled expression. She had answered in such a manner when she knew he was not yet informed of anything substantial. With a sigh, she added, “The Great European Faction.” Faction?! “It’s basically a place most people would refer to as a safe haven; the biggest in the world currently.”

Safe haven?! Rain’s face softened at those words.

“Wait. There’s a place like that?”

Alice raised a brow. “Why wouldn’t there be?”

Rain was beyond overjoyed. His heart was beating so fast that he felt like he could faint. Finding a safe haven was one of the things on his to-do list, and he had just now heard about one? Although, he put his joy on pause a second later.

A faction meant humans were present, in large numbers, that is; with all Alice said, why is she talking about going to a faction?

“You… Didn’t you say to avoid humans?” Rain questioned. “Why are you heading to a faction then?”

Alice did not turn back this time. “Well, because I’m a part of that faction.”

Rain’s brows fell. “You’re in a faction but you ask me to avoid humans?”

Alice made a tsk sound. “When did I ever tell you to avoid humans?” Huh? “I told you not to go hoping on another for your own survival, I never said ‘avoid humans’. Travel with another for all I care. Join a faction for all I care. But the day you think someone is obligated to save your life is the day you will lose that life.”

Rain’s frown disappeared. He had apparently misunderstood her earlier. Now, he was sure of what she meant.

“In other words,” he began, “make use of others, but do not let others make use of you.”

“If that’s how you interpreted it, then live like that.”

Wariness was good, he would always be wary of another from now on due to all Alice had told him. But making use of others for his own benefit? He wouldn’t do that. He still wanted to trust people, and if one could prove that they could be trusted, then he would try to trust them.

“Alright.” There was no point arguing, so he just went with the flow as usual. After which he turned to Sean and whispered to the boy, “Don’t live in such a way.” They both smiled at each other.

Rain gulped down the rest of his apple juice to prepare his throat to continue engaging in the task of talking.

“Where is this GEF located?”

The candle illuminating the spot occupied by Alice, Rain, and Sean was now melted halfway, but it seemed like Alice was already done with her packing. Although, she left one thing away from the confinements of her bag. A second glance at it caused Rain’s brows to shoot up. It was a map.

He was yet to go scavenging for one, but it seemed like that wasn’t necessary any longer. All he needed was a good enough look at it and his Photographic Memory would do the rest.

“Manchester,” Alice answered as she spread the map on the floor. “Why do you ask?” Rain moved in closer to her with a smile that made him look no different from Sean. Funnily, the boy had leaned in too at the same time as Rain. “What are the both of you doing?”

“Looking at the map?” Rain answered.

“Why?”

“Huh? Because I’m coming with you to Manchester, of course.”

Alice tipped her head to the side as though trying to get a better look at Rain’s face. “With me?”

Rain jerked backward. “Yes? How else am I supposed to get there?”

“Did all I say just fly over your head?” Alice was evidently bamboozled.

“Not really,” Rain said. “Just think of it as me using you.”

Alice’s eyes widened for the first time; then after a while she scoffed. “You’re a weird one.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

It wasn’t, Rain knew. He had also thought of himself as weird, and it was not for a good reason. After all, how many people would come across a Jaguar intending to take their life, and instead of killing it, they feed it and release it? Oh, and that was not the end. Then they went and became companions.

This thought of Rain’s caused his attention to shift from the map he was looking at and into the darkness clouding the store.

That J, has she eaten the chips? She does not really intend to starve herself does she?

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” Alice’s flat voice snapped him back, though, not fully.

“You said you were coming to Manchester, didn’t you?”

“Yes-Yes,” he stuttered, his mind still divided between where he currently was and his previous location.

“Then listen. I’m going over the route I’m going to take.”

Rain couldn’t take it any longer. “Go on without me. I’ll be right back.”

“...I’m only going over it because you claimed to be joining in,” Alice said; her words didn’t stop Rain from rising to his feet though.

With a stiff neck, Rain added, “Please put a pause on it then; I have to check on J.”

“J? Your Companion?” Alice asked.

“Yes.”

“Did something happen to her?” Sean inquired, his voice full of concern.

“No. No. I’m sure she’s fine. Don’t you worry.” There was a smile on Rain’s face, but it was a fake one with no warmth behind it.

At that, Rain hurried away from the midst of Alice and Sean, and a minute or so later arrived at the snack and chips aisle.

Upon getting there, his eyes shot up and his speed increased.

J was still at the same spot where he’d left her, but this time not lying on her chest but on her side. The sight caused an ominous feeling to douche his body, and it only worsened when he knelt down in front of his Companion.

“Hey, J,” he called out gently to her, not knowing where to touch to check her pulse or the like. “Don’t tell me you—” He stole a glance at the bag of chips he had opened, and they were still untouched. “You bloody fool! Why did you not just eat the fucking chips?!”

Rain was not sure what to do, so after a few seconds of frantic worrying he decided to do the only thing he felt he could.

He opened his crossbody bag and pulled out his knife. Since his blood had regenerative abilities then it should be able to serve as a bit of hunger repellent, right? Even if for a little while.

Placing the knife in the middle of his left palm, Rain looked at his Companion, clicked his tongue, and bit down on his lower lip. “This better work.”