Chapter 13: It was a germ. A weapon that got loose
The world snapped back into existence not with a gentle dawn, but with the pressure of Nate's hand on her shoulder, shaking her none too gently.
"Up," his voice was a rasp, cutting through the fog of her sleep. "Now."
Skylar groaned, every muscle screaming in protest. The hard ground had left her stiff and achy. "What time is it?" she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.
"Time to move," was his only answer. He was already packed, the heavy backpack secured, the rifles slung. The ashes of their fire were cold. He tossed her the same breakfast as the night before: a piece of hardtack and a strip of tough salted pork. "Eat while you walk. We're behind schedule."
She forced herself to sit up, the cold morning air a shock to her system. She chewed the bland, dry biscuit, washing it down with a sip of water from her canteen. He was a whirlwind of grim efficiency, and she felt slow and clumsy in comparison. As she shouldered her pack and bow, he was already moving, not checking to see if she followed.
The pace he set was brutal. It was a fast, ground-eating walk that brooked no conversation for the first hour. Skylar's lungs burned, and her legs felt like lead. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on not stumbling over roots and rocks.
Finally, as the sun rose higher and warmed the forest, she found a rhythm and a sliver of breath to speak.
"This cabin of yours," she panted, catching up to him slightly. "What's it like?"
He didn't slow down. "It's a cabin."
She pushed, frustration edging her tone. "Yeah, but is it safe? Comfortable?"
"It's safe because it's remote," he explained, his eyes constantly scanning the terrain ahead. "Backed against a rock face. One way in, one way out. Small. Easy to defend. Easy to hide. No comforts. A roof, a fireplace, a stream nearby. That's it."
"Once again… sounds… lonely," she said, the word slipping out before she could stop it.
"Lonely is a roof that doesn't leak," he countered, not missing a beat. "Lonely is a door you can bar. It's better than the alternative."
They walked in silence for another half-mile, the only sounds their footfalls and their breathing. The grim practicality of his existence was settling over her. There was no romance in this survival, only a stark, unending series of tasks.
Her mind, seeking distraction from the physical strain, wandered to bigger, more terrifying questions.
"Nate," she began again, her voice quieter. "What do you think started it all? The… Rippers. The outbreak."
He let out a short, humorless breath. "Does it matter?"
"I don't know. Maybe. If we knew what caused it, maybe someone could find a cure."
This time, he did stop. He turned to look at her, his expression one of pure, undiluted cynicism. "A cure?" He almost spat the word. "You think there's some lab out there, with guys in white coats, mixing up an antidote? The guys in white coats are probably Ripper chow. The labs are burned-out shells. The government's gone. The army's gone. It's all gone."
He started walking again, his pace even more forceful. "It was a germ. A weapon that got loose. Some experiment that went wrong. A punishment from God. Pick a story. They all end the same way. The world is a graveyard. There's no cure. There's no going back. The only thing that matters is the next step, the next meal, the next sunrise. Thinking about cures and causes is a luxury for people who aren't starving."
His words were a door slamming shut on a hope she hadn't even realized she was still clinging to. He wasn't just a survivor; he was a man who had fully accepted the end of the world. There was no future in his mind, only an endless, precarious present.
She had no rebuttal. What could she say? He was right. The sheer scale of the collapse was something she had witnessed from the gilded cage of the compound. Seeing it through his eyes, from the outside, made it feel even more vast and irreversible.
So she fell silent again, saving her breath for the grueling march, the image of his remote, lonely cabin now feeling less like a sanctuary and more like a tomb they were racing to reach. The hope for a cure shriveled and died, leaving behind the cold, hard reality of Nate's world: you kept moving, or you died. There were no other options.