Beneath the Ashes Preview | Chapters 1 & 2

CHAPTER ONE

The Passageway that connected Refuge to Wayport was said to be difficult to traverse, but not necessarily dangerous.

As the vast, dented front wall of Wayport finally came into sight at the far end of the Passageway he had been enduring for the past forty hours, Ethan breathed an immense sigh of relief and reflected bitterly that it was not just difficult and dangerous to move through, but also devastating.

He peered back the way he’d come and grit his teeth sourly as he spied what was very likely a trading caravan in the distance. Where had they been all this time? Where had anyone been all this time?

Up until now, Ethan thought that perhaps he had awoken to another apocalypse, this one inflicted on the subterranean world he and all other survivors of the first called home. He turned back to face the gate and began making his way towards it, careful to stick to the light, keep his weapon down and his movements slow.

Gate Guard could be a harrowing job and it wore on a person’s nerves. Back at home, he’d nearly shot some poor trader or traveler more than once because he was convinced one of the many lethal creatures that lurked in the shadows had come around for a visit.

How wretched would it be to survive everything that he had over the past two days, only to finally get to where he was going and end up with a bullet in his head from a nerve-worn, paranoid guard?

The great wall that sealed off the Passageway and separated Wayport from what some men and women referred to simply as the Vast or the Void, sometimes both, was riddled with bullet indents and had a few doors and windows built in.

Ethan got within about fifty feet of the wall before one of those windows opened up and a long gun barrel poked out.

“All right, that’s close enough! State your name and your business! You’re unscheduled!” a voice called out.

“My name is Ethan Lumos! I’m from Refuge! I seek sanctuary!” he called back.

A long pause. Though the barrel of the rifle remained unwavering, he imagined a frantic conversation happening on its other end.

“Is it true then?!” the voice called back. “Is Refuge gone!?”

“Yes!”

“And you’re the lone survivor?!”

“As far as I know!”

Another pause, this one even longer than before. Ethan felt more fear boiling around in his gut than any other moment over the past two days. There was absolutely nothing that said they had to let him in there. Theoretically, they could turn him away, and there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it. And anything might prompt them to.

If the gate guards were in a bad mood, if they’d had some kind of disaster or emergency of their own, if they were feeling especially paranoid, or any other of a dozen reasons why a bastion might decide to impose a quarantine, he could be screwed.

And the next nearest bastion was a hell of a lot farther away than Wayport was from Refuge.

He’d survived the underground due mostly to luck and whatever skills he possessed and it had gotten him this far. Unless he had some massive stroke of luck, he wasn’t going to make it to the next safe haven and what began in Refuge would catch up with him.

“All right, come on! Nice and easy!” the voice called suddenly, and then the rifle disappeared and the window closed.

Ethan let out a heavy sigh of relief and began walking again, this time moving a little faster.

He wasn’t out of danger yet, although that was more or less true at all times. Danger came in degrees with life today, but he was at least out of the Vast. There were any number of ways he could get screwed over, injured, or straight up murdered within Wayport, but he was too tired to care. All the tension and anxiety had exhausted him.

He reached the huge steel wall and came to stand a careful distance from the much smaller door that had been cut into it. It opened up as he approached and a pair of grim-faced men with machine guns waited for him.

“Come on,” one of them said.

“Thank you,” Ethan replied as he hurried inside.

“Don’t thank us yet,” the other said as they sealed the door back up, “Captain wants to talk to you, and he’s been in one of his moods lately. Little piece of advice: best behavior for Captain Donovan. He tends to take things personally.”

“Noted,” Ethan muttered.

Great.

Now that he was beyond the entrance wall, Ethan took the opportunity to have his first look at Wayport. Being that Refuge was perhaps a quarter of the size, (less now that he was actually here looking at it), and being that Wayport was the nearest bastion for quite a ways, he had often heard of it.

Typically there would be a journey to Wayport about once every few months. The braver and more seasoned souls would form a caravan and take the most valuable things the handful of scavengers who lived among them had discovered in the tunnels or been holding onto, finally ready to give them up, often out of desperation.

They came back with, among other things, stories.

Given how entertainment was a bit sparse in the modern day and humans had largely reverted back to telling each other stories as a primary form of it, Ethan wasn’t sure what to expect now that he was actually here.

The place sure seemed busy enough, and big enough, but he could tell right away some of the rumors he’d heard were outright fabrications.

Or maybe they had been true years ago.

“You got hearing problems, kid,” the gate guard asked, forcibly returning Ethan’s attention to him.

“What?” he replied.

The man’s hand was out. “Gun.”

“Oh.”

He thought of trying to explain that he was basically dead on his feet after surviving out there in the tunnels, but the man didn’t look like he’d actually care to hear it. Gabe reluctantly passed his pistol over to the guard.

The man inspected it, then slipped it into his belt and seemed liked he was considering something. Probably trying to shake him down for more. Something decided him against the idea though.

“Come on,” he grunted, and he began leading Ethan on.

The ingress point let on a large, busy area within the vast cavern that Wayport was built into. The area was clearly a marketplace and it made sense that they would keep it so close to the entrance. In the decades that had passed since the great destruction overhead, humans had only become more insular, and outsiders were only reluctantly let into settlements.

Beyond the marketplace, he could get a sense for the size and rough layout of the bastion. Two general pathways drifted away, one to the left slanting down, the other to the right slanting up. Beyond that, he saw tiers in the earth, rings of structures built on higher ground running most of the periphery of the cavern.

The concept seemed simple: the higher the tier, the more influence the people had.

Or at least that was his impression, given the higher up houses and buildings looked of much nicer and sturdier make.

Ethan was being led towards what looked to be a reinforced pillbox structure to the immediate left of the gate. Atop it were a pair of old but very functional looking machine gun nests, just one of them being manned by a bored-looking bald guy.

He was brought to a heavy metal door set in the center of the bunker-like building. The guard banged on it twice and a slit snapped open.

“What, Murph?” someone groused from inside.

“New meat the Captain wanted to see,” the guard replied.

A grunt was the reply and the slit snapped shut. There was a heavy clank and then a squeal of metal as the door opened up. Like meat, Ethan was transferred from one guard to the next. This man was older, half his face scarred from what looked like a fire, and he seemed about as irritable as he was intimidating.

He said nothing as he led Ethan across a small entryway, through an open door at the back, down a dimly lit corridor all the way to its end, where he knocked on another, thinner metal door.

“Come!” came the reply.

The guard opened the door and stepped back. Ethan walked in and the door was shut firmly behind him. He found himself in a cramped office mostly taken up by a desk scattered with a random assortment of objects, a few chairs, and a shelf also packed with items. A healthy-looking rat was crawling around on the topmost shelf.

The man behind the desk looked somewhere in his fifties, grizzled and gruff like most everyone else. His head and face were buzzed, covered in a layer of graying stubble, and he had a scar down one cheek.

“Have a seat, son,” he said.

Ethan sat in front of the desk and for a long moment the man seemed to be taking a measure of him. Ethan waited and tried not to fall asleep in the chair.

“I’m Captain Donovan,” he said finally. He spoke with the ease of an authority not used to being questioned. “For all intents and purposes, I’m the one who says whether or not you get accepted into Wayport. My men tell me you came from Refuge. That true?”

“Yes, sir,” Ethan replied.

“What happened? We lost contact, but that’s nothing new. Had a merchant come through yesterday who said it was gone.”

“It is. Raiders attacked while we were sleeping. We fought them. That drew the attention of a big group of Strays. That escalated the fighting, which in turn started a fire. When it became obvious that the situation was screwed, we who were still alive ran through a back tunnel. We came back a few hours later, to see what could be salvaged, but all the chaos triggered a cave-in,” Ethan explained, seeing the horror replaying as he explained it listlessly.

“I see,” Donovan murmured quietly. He leaned back in his chair. “And the others?”

“They didn’t make it. Some died from their wounds. Most died in the attack and the fire. I did what I could to help with the others. We formed a group trying to make it here, but we kept running into problems on the way. Another Stray attack killed two. A Hornet killed another. And we ran into a Death Bot. I was the only one to make it out of that one.”

Donovan looked unhappier with each thing he said. “What’s your name?”

“Ethan Lumos.”

“Lumos...I think I remember your father. Peter?”

“Yes, sir.”

Maybe that’d buy him some points in his favor. Nepotism seemed to be just about everything. A connection to someone like Donovan, even a thin one, could be a significant boost. He waited in the quiet office while Donovan chewed over the information, at one point picking up a tablet and activating it. As he navigated it, the rat scurried down the shelf, across the floor, then up the desk and onto the man’s shoulder.

He reached up and pet it absently with his fingertips in between navigating the tablet.

“What can you do, Ethan Lumos?” he asked finally.

“What most other people can, I imagine,” he replied. “Cook. Clean. Move things. Harvest plants. Stand guard.”

“Nothing special?” Donovan asked after a pause.

Ethan shifted uncomfortably. “I’m good at staying alive out in the tunnels,” he admitted reluctantly.

“I can see that, if you made it here on your own with the way things are nowadays.” Donovan paused and lifted himself up a little, studying Ethan. “You made it here without a gun?”

“No, I had one. Your man at the gate took it.”

“Did he now? What was it?”

“Silversmith.”

“Six or eight?”

“Six-shot.”

“You must be strong, those have a hell of a kick.”

Ethan shrugged. “I did a lot of hard labor digging out a new tunnel.”

“Well, we could always use another tunnel crawler. There’s a lot to be done and a lot more to be found out there,” Donovan said.

“I appreciate that fact, but in truth, I’d much rather find work within the bastion if it could be helped. I’ve...really had my fill of it out there,” he replied uncomfortably.

Donovan let out a bitter chuckle. “I can’t fault you for that. Did twenty years as a crawler myself. It’s brutal out there.” He lost his half-smile and checked over his tablet again, his grizzled face bathed in its pale blue glow. With a sigh, he shook his head. “You’ve come to Wayport at a bad time, I’m afraid. Times are tough and we’re in a rough patch right now. I appreciate your situation and your father once saved my life.

“I can’t do much to help you, and what I can do is going to cost you. There’s a shack I can set you up with. It doesn’t have power or water right now, but you’ll have to talk to Smith and Wexler about that. As for jobs, unfortunately, if you aren’t willing to crawl, there’s not much that can be done. We’ve got a strict three-month waiting policy for new residents. You go three months without causing problems and then you can start being considered for work in the power core or hydroponics or patrol,” he explained.

He finished up what he was doing on the big tablet and then switched over to a smaller one, typed rapidly on it, then passed it to Ethan.

“Fill this out. Accurately.”

Ethan just nodded and did as he was told, feeling relief tentatively beginning to take hold within him. He was being let in. He was being made a resident and given a place to live. He answered the questions as they appeared on his screen.

His name. Birth date. Physical dimensions. Skills. Knowledge.

He passed it back when he was done and Donovan looked it over, grunted once, and typed something into it.

“All right, now comes time for resettlement fees...I’m afraid I’m going to have to clean you out in exchange for entry into the bastion and a place to live. As I said, times are tough.” He tapped a relatively clean spot on his desk. “Everything you got but your clothes.”

Ethan repressed a sigh as he got to his feet and began emptying the pockets of his survival suit. He’d found it, and a few other things, out there in the tunnels. He set down a handful of bullets, a combat knife, a blue crystal, a canteen mostly empty of water, a few nutrient bars, and a handful of coins.

“Thought your people didn’t use currency?” Donovan muttered, picking up a silver coin and studying.

“We don’t. Found those in the Passageway,” Ethan replied.

“You understand how it works?”

“The bigger they are, the more they’re worth is what I heard.”

Donovan laughed softly. “Yeah, more or less...this is it?” he asked.

“This is it,” Ethan replied, patting his pockets. “Everything I had on me.”

Donovan looked at him for a moment, then passed him back the silver coin. Ethan took it tentatively. “Wex is going to give you some shit when you ask him to turn on the water. He’s supposed to give new residents alpha level rations, which isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing. If he does, hold out for a bit, then bribe him with that.”

“Thank you,” Ethan replied, unsure of what else to say.

The rat hopped off the man’s shoulder and landed on his desk as it sensed him preparing to move more significantly. It scurried around a bit as Donovan stood and walked over to a battered old locker. Opening it up, he rummaged around inside until he came up with a metallic card. He sat back down and passed it to Ethan.

It had a faded 26 on it.

“That’s how you get into your shack. Don’t lose it. It also serves to prove you’re a resident of Wayport. There’s a board in Market Square where jobs get posted. You’re flagged as an alpha level resident, and that means shit jobs unless you want to crawl,” he said, adding a bit of emphasis to that again.

Ethan simply nodded, not wanting to respond.

He really didn’t want to crawl in the tunnels again.

“Your shack is left of the Market. Down. In the pit.” Donovan regarded him as Ethan stood up and pocketed the coin and his card. “Don’t expect any help beyond this...good luck.”

Ethan just nodded, thanked him again, and left the office.

CHAPTER TWO

Ethan could feel the weight of the card and the coin in his pocket as he was escorted back out into the main thoroughfare.

Besides his clothes, they were all he had in the entire world now.

Well, that and a shack.

In truth, he was elated, but it was laced heavily with paranoia. Refuge had been small and although he had never really fit in, he had at least been accepted. People tended to leave him alone, because that’s mostly what he wanted.

Even more significant was the fact that people tended not to rob or attack each other in a community of less than a hundred on the grounds that it was so much easier to identify everyone. You couldn’t get away with it, so the sense of peace was a lot less uneasy than it was in a place of, say, several thousand people.

Like Wayport.

And he knew no one here.

As he stepped out of the bunker and took a look at the Marketplace, Ethan stopped. A wave of lethargy overcame him with such intensity that it was a genuine struggle not to lay down and go to sleep right then and there.

A glance at the sunglobe that hung hundreds of yards in the air overhead told him that it was nearing evening. For a moment, staring in the vague direction of the large sphere of light (as it was too bright even now to stare at directly), he found himself wondering again what the sun looked like. Or the moon and the stars for that matter.

With a force of effort, he set off deeper into the bastion.

The Marketplace was as he had always heard it described by those who came to visit: a confusing proliferation of shacks, stalls, tents, and people. Some of the structure had even been built up to two or sometimes three stories and featured precarious catwalks and stairs lashed to their sides. Even now, with day’s end approaching, there were easily over a hundred people still out and about.

As he quickly navigated the bazaar, he noticed that most people offered him little more than quick glances. That was another thing he’d heard: everyone tended to mind their business around here. And if they didn’t, there was a very good chance that they were trying to take advantage of you in some way. He kept focused on the path ahead, drifting left, and no one bothered him. He imagined he looked and smelled awful, given what he’d been doing recently.

Fine then, he was in absolutely no mood to speak, nor did he have anything to buy or barter with.

The coin thing he was going to have to get used to. Refuge was small enough that for the most part, people just did their work for the sake of themselves, their family, and the community. There was a system of rations and if you wanted anything extra, you traded for it. Either an item or physical labor. It was a simple way to live, at least.

Slowly, the noise of the Marketplace died off and he stepped past the boundary of the ramshackle collection of structures.

A space that was mostly empty of anything but people and some utility poles seemed to serve as a demarcation line. The two paths that split off were obvious, both in their location and in their intent.

The path to the left, his new home, led down into a gloomy collection of shacks and sheds and things that might be called houses if you were feeling particularly charitable. All of them made from thin metal slabs.

The path to the right led up, forking before long. The main one led onward to what he imagined was the mid-tier housing. Places where the more permanent residents would live. The place he might aspire to get to, if he was lucky.

The other path led towards what was probably the industrial area.

Ethan ignored it all for now, putting away any thoughts of any kind of advancement, and continued walking, moving down into the poverty pit. He was careful to stand upright and keep his gait steady. Even he knew that some prospecting thieves lurked in the deeper shadows somewhere nearby, keeping an eye out for an easy mark.

While he didn’t consider himself easy, he wasn’t in proper condition to defend himself and anyway, ninety percent of all fighting was: avoid if possible.

It was a pain, though. His struggle through the Passageway and, occasionally, the tunnels when he had been forced to flee or hide from something a lot more dangerous than him, had been brutal. He had somehow managed to escape it while sustaining little in the way of actual damage, nothing more than some scrapes, cuts, and bruises, but his exhaustion had seeped into his marrow.

He took in the environment with quick glances, making sure his gaze didn’t linger too long. If the people at the Marketplace had been disinterested, the few people he saw hanging around here seemed almost outright hostile.

He saw numbers in luminescent paint scrawled on the upper corners of the shacks. There were a lot of these tenements, crammed into a small space, the people packed in. For the most part the doors and windows were shut firmly against the world, and Ethan sympathized. He intended to do exactly the same thing as soon as he found his home.

At last, he saw it: Number Twenty Six.

It wasn’t very big, rectangular and a bit odd. The front door wasn’t cut into the front of the structure, but instead was on its far end, accessible only via a little alleyway between it and the next shack over.

That made him briefly paranoid, but the alleyway was at least not completely bathed in shadows, and he saw no one lurking in it.

As he slipped into the alleyway after a surreptitious look around, Ethan came to stand before the door, pulling the keycard out, and then hesitated.

He suddenly had the sense that someone was inside.

What had tipped him, he had no idea. No light came from the single window, though it was covered by a heavy drape, and he heard nothing coming from inside. The door seemed locked and intact. So what then?

Was his paranoia spilling over?

Part of him felt a rage slowly building. He’d kept his cool pretty much for the duration of the entire incident, since he’d first had his sleep shattered and was thrown into a fight for his life with no warning, all the way through everything that had happened. He’d done everything right and luck had granted him a new place to live.

His emotions were as spent and frayed as his body.

Fuck it, he thought and slotted the key end of the card into the hole beside the door. There was a click as the door unlocked and he pushed it open.

There was light inside, though not coming from the initial room. A faint flickering light was just visible through a doorway at the rear of the room. Slipping inside, he closed and locked the door behind him, then waited, listening intently.

His eyes adjusted to the lower light level quickly and he became aware of the almost imperceptible sound of something breathing. Not in the room with him, he determined after a moment, but deeper in, at the back of the structure.

Someone was definitely here.

He considered how to handle it, his anger faltering. Ethan wouldn’t call himself a violent or antagonistic person by nature, despite the world’s seeming intent on making him one. As soon as he questioned the situation, the rage died out a bit.

Not completely, but enough.

Ethan thought about how to handle it for a moment further and, when nothing about the situation changed and no other thoughts were immediately forthcoming, he made a snap decision.

“I know someone’s in here. I’ve just been given ownership of this place. I’ve got the keycard and everything. I don’t want to fight if I don’t have to, so can whoever it is just come out and leave and we’ll call it even?” he asked.

There was a long pause, and then he heard the softest whisper of shit.

Finally, movement from the back room. A shadow shifted across the wall in the flickering light and then a woman appeared in the doorway, stepping slowly out.

For a moment, they just stared at each other in silence.

Even through his intense lethargy, Ethan felt an immediate lust stab at him, hitting him hard and true in the way that desire hits a young man who has not been with a pretty woman for what feels like far too long a time.

She was tall, maybe just a few inches shorter than his six foot one frame, her skin very pale. Her hair was shoulder length, messy, and a brown so dark it might be mistaken for black in some light. She wore little, just a ripped black tanktop that did a poor job of concealing her good sized breasts, her nipples obvious through the thin fabric, and a pair of black panties, frayed but mostly intact.

It was her eyes that most immediately caught his attention, captivating and warning him in equal measure.

They were blue, and alive with the energy he’d seen in people who did whatever it took to survive. He immediately felt that she was a woman who would fight to the death if he made her, and she would have no compunction about pulling a concealed knife and slipping it smoothly between his ribs. But there was compassion there too, and her eyes lacked the flinty lassitude of someone who would kill without a second thought.

She was the first to break the silence. “You really own this place now?”

“Yes,” he replied. Slowly, carefully, he held up his keycard, still in his hand.

She frowned deeply as she looked at it, her eyes flicking between the card and him, and several notions seemed to come to her and be rejected in the span of a few seconds.

Finally, she said, “Please don’t make me go. I don’t have anywhere else.”

Granted a burst of awareness and lucidity by the adrenaline rush he’d been hit with upon learning someone was in his house, Ethan was better equipped to size her up. She didn’t seem to be hustling or playing him.

Nothing but honesty, bitter and hopeful, was in her eyes.

He’d been forced to get good at reading people. Analyzing their body language, facial expressions, tone of voice. A million little things gave liars away.

It wasn’t perfect, but it had suited him well enough so far.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” he asked.

She hedged, just for a bit, then her shoulders sagged as she probably realized she didn’t really have much choice but to be honest.

“I’m Ember,” she said, “I’m from...another bastion. Far from here. I...did some things, and pissed off the wrong people, and I had to run. I ended up here.”

“How’d you get in here? How’d you survive the Passageways? The tunnels?” he asked, curious despite everything.

“I managed to find a pretty heavily armed trading caravan. I know how to cook. They’d just lost theirs. In return for protection and getting me somewhere far away, I prepared their food. As for how I got here...the woman running the caravan and I got to know each other. She felt sorry for me. There was little she could do beyond running some interference while I slipped away in the Marketplace. I ended up here. The door was unlocked and no one lived here, so I moved in.”

“How long have you been here?” he asked.

“A few weeks.”

Ethan considered it for a moment. He could feel his lethargy returning. He believed her.

But there was more he had to know.

“What did you do?” he asked, then added, “I’ll know if you’re lying.”

She looked like she might hedge again, holding out longer this time, her expression turning fearful. Whatever it was, it must be bad. And he knew what was running through her mind: often, there was a reward for turning in thieves, murderers, or worse.

And seeing as he had just moved here, (something she’d surely put together by now), he was a second-class citizen.

Finally, she sighed. “I freed some prisoners. I lived in Salvation, and we were taken over by a charismatic asshole who locked up anyone he didn’t like, and killed anyone who tried to stop him. I worked as a cook in the prison. I took whatever opportunities I could to help out the other side that wanted him dead.”

The more she spoke, the firmer her voice became, the more she straightened up, the more defiant she was.

“I don’t regret what I did,” she added.

Ethan felt a strong wave of sympathy for her. He’d heard vague stories of Salvation and they mostly aligned with what she had been saying.

“All right,” he said finally.

She relaxed, but only a little. “Are you going to kick me out? If you do...I don’t think I’ll survive. They’ll either execute me, enslave me, or exile me, and I don’t think I could survive the walk to Refuge…”

“It wouldn’t matter if you did,” he replied, the weight of the past few days coming down on him yet again as he was reminded forcibly of his home village, “it’s gone. I’m the only survivor.”

Her eyes widened a little. “Gone how?”

“Raiding party and bad luck...I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he replied.

As Ethan began really considering how he was going to handle this, it abruptly occurred to him that he was too far gone to make any kind of real decision.

He sighed heavily and rubbed at his eyes, knowing that he was taking a risk, but being too tired to care. “Look, I’m willing to negotiate with you and I won’t kick you out tonight. I’m sure there’s a way we can figure out to work and live together. But right now I’m dead on my feet and I have to sleep. I’ve been in the Vast for the past two days by myself.”

“...how the fuck did you survive?” she asked.

“Luck, mostly. So, do we have an understanding?” he replied.

She pursed her lips. “Are you just going to kick me out tomorrow?”

He sighed. “No. I’m not unsympathetic to your situation, so just...I’m willing to accommodate you if you’re willing to accommodate me, all right?”

Ember considered it a bit further, then slowly nodded. “All right.” She paused, looking awkward. “There’s only one place to sleep,” she said. “It’s that or metal...I could sleep on the floor if you wanted.”

“No, just...can we share?”

He realized it was an awkward question, but at the same time, unless you came from wealth, pretty much everyone had been forced to sleep under awkward or less than ideal questions at various times in their life.

“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s not very big, though.”

“Okay. I’ll try not to take up too much space,” Ethan said. He walked across the room and then hesitated when she didn’t move from the doorway. “Can I come in? I’m seriously about to pass out.”

“Yes. Right, sorry,” she mumbled awkwardly, apparently distracted, and stepped out of the way.

As he stepped into the room beyond, finding it not horribly small for a sleeping area, he saw that while the bed was indeed a bit small, it at least looked comfortable and lived-in. He began getting out of his boots, then jerked in surprise as something huge and dark leaped across the room, coming out from beneath a tilted dresser missing two of its legs and leaping up onto a little shelf.

“Shit!” he cried in surprise as he at first thought he was looking at a massive spider.

“Wait!” Ember yelled, rushing over to the shelf and putting herself between him and it. “I’m sorry, I should’ve mentioned it. It’s just a cave cricket,” she said hastily.

“I...are you serious? Move, I need to see it. I’ve never seen a cave cricket that goddamned big before,” he replied.

Reluctantly, she stepped aside and revealed what was indeed the biggest cave cricket he’d ever seen in his life. It was about the size of his fist, patterned in tan and green stripes. It regarded him with huge black eyes like liquid obsidian and twitched its antenna at him.

“I know I’ve already asked a lot,” Ember said quietly, “but can you not get rid of him?”

“He’s your pet?” he asked, still staring at the huge thing.

The manner in which it regarded him seemed strangely aware for an insect.

“Yes,” she said. “He was here when I got here, and, I don’t know...he acts like a pet? I like him. He’s helped. Please don’t kill him.”

“I won’t kill him,” Ethan replied. “He can stay, just...is there a place for him to go at night? I’m not really happy with the idea of a bug getting into my bed, and I also don’t want to crush him by accident.”

“Yes,” Ember said, sounding immensely relieved. “He has a cage. Thank you. So much. Really, it means a lot.”

Ethan had more questions, especially when he watched her put her hand up to the huge bug, flat and palm up, and it crawled forward. She turned and moved over to a cage that had been mounted firmly on the wall, welded there actually, high up in one corner. But his questions could wait, he decided as she put the bug in the cage and secured it.

As he unzipped and got out of the survival coveralls he’d salvaged out there, stripping down to an undershirt, socks, and boxers, he hesitated.

“Uh...sorry. I’m sure I reek,” he said. “I haven’t really had a chance to clean up.”

“It’s fine,” she replied, “I probably do, too. Bathing is hard when you’re hiding.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess so. Well...I’m going to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight...and thank you,” Ember replied.

He just nodded and crawled into bed.

He knew that he was basically putting his life in Ember’s hands, but he also had to respect the fact that she was doing the same thing.

And, at the end of the day, he believed her, if not trusted her.

Ethan fell asleep while he was still considering the situation.