You’re dying. I remembered the snow. I knew I was going to freeze to death. My body was so sore. I was conscious, but my movements were much slower than my head was processing. I sat up—kind of—and looked around the room. Someone was in the corner, layered in camouflage clothes. They looked back at me. The longer I stared, the more I recognized that it was Jacob. I looked around the rest of the room. Everyone else was gone. I stretched my arms and legs before finally speaking.

  “Jacob, what happened?” I looked down at my hands. There were gloves on them that weren’t there before. “You’re alive?”

  “Everyone else,” He couldn’t look me in the eyes. “They didn’t make it,” I released a stifled sigh. I had known this. There was blood, and there was nobody left. I knew it before he said the words. “We can stay here," He pulled me out of the spiral I had yet to fall into. "They set up traps in the house. I got away, but they know I'm out here. I don't think they don’t know that you’re here. They didn't want to leave me behind alive, so they’ll be back for us,” he tossed me a hat and a mask for my face, then an army man’s gun and knife. “We can head northwest. It’ll be a few hours' walk on the road, but that town, Liberty, is our best bet for now. We’ll have to pass through Windland so we can see what’s going on in town. You think you’re good to get up?” I got up all the way to my feet and stood there, gripping the gun in my hands.

  “They took out all of the vehicles, but who said we had to walk?” I rolled my shoulders around. “What about the ranger?” A slight smile grew on his face.

  “I’m driving. Last time you drove, you almost killed us,” he put out the fire in the wood stove. Almost immediately, the cold air wrapped around us. My temples were throbbing.

  “That’s alright. I’m a better shot anyway,” I opened the door, and we started the walk back to the barn.

  The silence was loud, but neither of us wanted to talk about the loss we just gone through. I had lost people to things like this before, but Jacob? This was the first time he experienced a mass killing. This was the first time he stepped into the reality of the world. I stood outside the barn as he pulled the doors open and yanked a couple of wagons out of the way. He untwisted the gas cap and topped it off, then started it right up. I climbed inside, and we let it run for a few minutes. Slowly, the seat got warmer, the engine's heat pouring out from beneath us. I reached forward and sealed my window cutout with the plastic wrapping to cover the hole. It would be easy to lean out and shoot at someone if I had to.

  We slowly started on the road after putting my extra gas cans from the truck into the bed. Some of them were drained from bullet holes piercing their sides. We started slowly until we got out of the city limits. The Ranger was Four-Wheel-Drive, but the snow was very slick in some spots. Eventually, he picked up the speed. The roads were long and windy, and we were silent. I could tell he had a lot on his mind, and I felt evil for feeling peace. I was glad that he was alive. That brought me peace. I looked all around us to make sure there were no threats, but now this small world here had finally joined the bigger picture. It was inevitable, I knew it from the moment I got here, that the American dream wasn’t truly real. It wasn’t obtainable back then, and it is impossible now. I was grateful that I soaked in the memories for as long as I could, but Jacob knew this. I remembered myself at the start, terrified and struggling with the sights I had to see, and here he was. At least he wasn’t alone, though. I knew how this world could be, and I knew how to navigate it. I could help him.

  I was watching the world around us when Jacob slammed on the brakes. The Ranger slid sideways and spun out across the road. The strap on my gun kept it in place on my body as I let go and grabbed the dashboard in front of me to steady myself. I slightly overcorrected myself. When it came to a stop, I was flung back against the seat. I didn’t know why he slammed on the brakes, but I grabbed my gun, ready to shoot the threat. I looked around, my heart beating out of my chest. “Dude, what the hell was that?”

  “Look at the road,” He still had his hands gripped around the wheel. I tried to slow my breathing, but I was scared shitless. I slowly turned to the side to see what he was talking about. There was a wire across the road. A trap. “We’re gonna have to go around,” He put it in reverse, then drove forward into the field next to us. I stared into Windland, the edge of the town at the top of the hill. It was all on fire. I could see the smoke rising from multiple areas through the snow. I sat back in my seat and stared ahead. I didn’t want to see it, but looking ahead made me just as stressed. We could barely see the ground in front of us with the headlight reflecting off the thick snowfall, and the field was completely covered. I put my faith into him, but right then we hit a big bump, then another, and the ride got much rougher. I fastened my seat belt and held on for the rest of the blind ride.

  “What should we do? Go all the way around or stop outside of town and walk inside to see what’s going on?” I stayed with my feet tucked to my chest as he drove. I didn’t know where we were going. I lost sight of the outer line of Windland a long time ago. It was just snow everywhere. Thick layers of it in the air, and a thick layer of it on the ground.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do,” I ran my hands through my hair. I needed to brush it. I would be better off putting it into a braid to keep it out of my face, but it was honestly keeping me warmer with how long and thick it was. I felt like an animal. “We can see if anyone’s left in town, but what good would that do? The soldiers booby-trapped the road, just like they did the house. They took everyone, and if anyone slipped through the cracks like us, then they’re going to be found, too. Once the snow dies down, we’re a big fat fucking target, man. Look at us. A big black Ranger in the middle of a huge ass field of white. If we’re going to survive, we need to find a place underground, in a hill, just anywhere that we won’t be seen, so we can waste our lives away until we rot to our core.” He just sat there and listened to me spill out the only chances we had. I could have delivered it less harshly, but these people were going to be looking for us. Any movement they found, they would target. We could never be free, not really, and living underground would make us lose our minds. He just kept driving forward for a very long time until we found the road again, or what we thought to be the road, which eventually led us to the partially covered sign of Novelty. Not once did he say a word after my short outburst.

  It was a small sign, clearly made by the townspeople. It was a lot like Greenwood, but maybe a tiny bit bigger. Still, it was a paper town. It was added to the maps made in these people's minds, but it wasn’t really findable on real maps. Paper towns weren’t on paper maps. He drove off the road as I slid halfway across the seat upon the impact. We decided to go around to avoid booby-trapped streets. We could see an orange glowing light in the center of town where one of the buildings was on fire. It was going out, though. It was lit a long time ago. I wasn’t sure where he was going as he made a big circle around the town and started to head away from it, but then I realized there was a path cleared in the trees. He kept following it, and we came upon a trailer. Next to it were storm cellar walls. He brought the ranger to a stop and parked it so we could hop out.

  The cold air hit me like a bullet, and I immediately tensed up and squeezed my arms around my body. The metal on the gun was just as cold as the air itself if the wind wasn't blowing. “What is this place?” I looked at the trees closest to me to check for cameras or wires. There was nothing here, but the door was still wide open to the trailer. We definitely were not going in there. He stepped up to the cellar.

  “Old party place. My buddy Calvin usually threw them in this old cellar,” he tugged at the doors, but they wouldn’t open. He took a step back and slammed his boot down on them. Nothing. He slammed his boot down again, and it gave way. The door swung inwards and bashed against the concrete walls. “We keep it clean down here. Should be safe until we come up with a plan, right?” I stepped up next to him and stared down into the dark hole. He stepped in, pulled the door back a little, and flipped a switch to illuminate the stairs and the room at the bottom.

  “You feel like closing those doors behind you and seeing if they open from the inside?” My teeth were chattering as I spoke. He stepped a couple more steps down and closed them, then opened them again with no trouble.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “They just get stuck sometimes when they’re closed for too long,” he started walking all the way down. I stepped in and closed the doors behind us. I was going to be pissed if they latched and we died down here. It was cold in this staircase, but at least the wind wasn’t making it unbearable. I stepped down onto the main floor and realized it looked like a basic home. Couches, a television, a bar with a fridge, and countertops. Even a bathroom. He walked up to the fridge and opened it. There were a few food cans in there and bottles of water, as well as a few beer cans. I cracked a smile. In the corner by the couches was a very small space heater, but it would definitely get the job done. I stepped up to it and flipped it on so it could do its magic. I decided to lie down on the ground in front of it and soak in the heat while Jacob started digging through some drawers. He approached me soon after with a map, a pen, the soldier's knife and gun, and placed them next to me beside two pieces of metal. He was collecting things like a hoarder. I sat up and looked down at the pile he had accumulated.

  “Why the hell are you collecting souvenirs of this shitty day?” I picked up the map. He took it out of my hands and circled Greenwood with a circle. It was a small map of Missouri, but he had one of the whole United States, too.

  “Okay, look. Here is Greenwood, and our house,” he made a solid dot. “Our house is right where this dot is. Down here is the gate you came in through. The wall stretches all the way around,” He carefully traced a box-shaped line all the way around the town. Windland; Greenwood; East City; Wildwood. The rest were smaller towns, or paper towns inside them. He circled the area where we were and put a dot on top of the cellar. He circled the gate I entered through. “Here’s the only gate to get into this place. Those trucks had to have come from there, and that’s also where they exited. If they cleared out all of these towns, they all had to get through this gate. Now, what are the chances that the guards protecting the gates were helping them?”

  “If they didn't help, they definitely aren’t there anymore. There’s nothing to protect, and those people don’t like to leave anything behind,” Jacob scribbled something down on a paper.

  “So the guards can’t help us. The people in town can’t help us since there aren’t any left. As for the rest of the world," Jacob opened his phone and scrolled through Facebook. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “There are a few other compounds around the United States. Big secluded areas, like this, where the population has been hardworking from the start. Populations that worked to protect themselves and preserve humanity when the end started. The last posts from them were many hours ago. Right when the raids started here, so they probably got hit, too. These places are clearly being targeted, but why?” I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes. There were a lot of questions, and we had no way of telling what was true. He then pulled a radio out and laid it amongst the pile.

  “So all of these people are being murdered. Is it because they didn’t conform to the tragedy of the rest of the world? Maybe the end is really just a huge ploy made to destroy humanity. The people who are trying to make it work are getting killed because they only want the people who are willing to murder each other left. They finish off the people who don’t want to murder each other. Then nobody’s left, and they start from scratch?” He looked at me like I was crazy, but there have been crazier theories that we’ve brought up before. I wasn't sure if he fully grasped my thoughts. saying it out loud, I wasn't sure if I had explained it right either.

  “Who are 'they'? The government?” I nodded. That's what he had picked out of my theory.

  “Maybe not just the government, but whoever wants control. A group powerful enough to fuck up the atmosphere and fuck up all of the animals, and people powerful enough to turn us all on echother. It doesn’t matter why, though; that’s not going to help us now,” Jacob knew that I would say that eventually. He picked up the two pieces of metal and handed them to me. I realized one of them was the dart that had shot me in front of the house. The dart I had ripped out of my skin.

  “I don’t think they killed our friends. I think they injected them all with this and took them all away. Why else would they take their bodies and not the dead soldier’s body, too? We killed a soldier in the basement, and that’s all that was left. Look at the full one compared to the one you got shot with,” I turned them over. I recognized the line I had seen on mine. It was empty, but with a little bit of liquid at the bottom. The other one in my hand has the same shape, same markings, and same small glass section, only the liquid filled it to the top. Whatever that liquid was, it was injected into me and put me to sleep. It didn’t kill me, and it wouldn’t have killed them either.

  “Well, if they’re alive, we need to find them. I don’t know what they want with a bunch of people, but I don’t think we need to waste time on that. If we find them and where they were taken, then we can get them out. Small problem though," I sat back. "How do we do that?”

  “We could lead them back here and smuggle ourselves onto the truck, but that’s nearly impossible. We know what they want, so what if we do it from the inside instead?” He had a point there, but we wouldn’t be a part of that plan if we were being smart about it. It would only be one of us.

  “Our friends would find a way out themselves if it were that easy. I don’t think we can just give ourselves up, either,” he got up as I was speaking and went into the kitchen. He pulled out a duffel bag of weapons from under the sink and took out a huge handheld radio. He pulled out the antennae for what seemed like several feet, then laid it next to the radio he had brought out earlier.

  “One of us can go in there and surrender, but whoever does will have this,” he held up the weird radio he just grabbed.

  “So we can tune the radios to the same frequency and use them to communicate. One of us from the outside, and one of us from the inside. Once we know what we’re dealing with, then we can make a plan,” He nodded as I filled in the words for him, but there was still one big problem with the plan. “If there are multiple places like this slice of paradise that you’re living in, then all of the people they took have to be going to the same place. These compounds are all over the country. If one of us gives ourselves up and gets a good old-fashioned truck ride back to wherever, how will the other person catch up? I don’t think smuggling onto the truck will be very easy, and a ranger can only get you so far.”

  “We’re going to have to hammer out that detail later. I think we should go into Liberty and get some supplies first. Maybe we can come up with a whole new plan and fix the details later,” He laid down the weird radio. I stared at the objects in front of us and picked up the knife, flicking open the blade. I was checking it for symbols, signs, anything that would help us identify something.

  “Take that gun apart. See if you can find any markings. Dates, names, symbols, even if they’re made in China. Lets see what we can find,” I started to check every crevice of the knife while he took off the scope and magazine of the gun. There were some cool pattern designs on the blade, but not much else. There were some hand-carved initials at the bottom of the handle, but we figured it belonged to the man who owned it. I could tell Jacob felt guilty for shooting him, but he didn’t have a choice. He was protecting himself from what he knew was a threat at the moment. It wasn’t his fault, I just hoped he knew that. He briefly said a few words about it, as he usually did when it came to serious topics, then moved on.

  “Here,” Jacob flipped the scope upside down and revealed a symbol on the bottom. It looked like a wing with an arrow through it, but it wasn’t detailed at all. It was like a dainty sketch someone would do on the side of their homework, but it was strategically printed into the material. “I think I've seen this before,” he took out his phone again and zoomed in on the symbol to take a picture. He got back on facebook and started to search through the other slices of paradise spread throughout the country. I was sitting there for five minutes, watching him scroll and type until he screenshotted something and held it in front of me. “Is this the same thing?” He swiped back and forth between the two pictures.

  “I’d say so. What is that?” I zoomed in on the screenshot he took from an online post.

  “It was in the background of these people’s pictures. It’s the slice of paradise in Nebraska. It’s actually kind of close to here. The state touches the top of Missouri. Their whole place is like a big company. They’re self-sustaining, but not through farms like the rest of us. They have big, heavily loaded factories. Like a mini China but for the USA. That’s the logo printed on everything they own there. See it on the collar of that guy’s shirt?” Jacob zoomed in on the background of the picture where a man was walking by. It made sense. This symbol led us to Nebraska, no doubt.

  “How much do you wanna bet that the logo there is also on those trucks, and those trucks with those soldiers are returning to the place they came from?” Jacob nodded.

  “Nebraska. The base is right here,” He circled it on the map. “That’s where the other person will be going if they lose sight of the other. Solid plan we got here,” We both stared at the map for a little while longer. If this failed, then the person who gives themself up did it for nothing. Whatever they wanted with the citizens couldn’t be good, and they would be handing themselves straight into a suicide mission. I didn't want to think about it, though, not right now. First, we were going to go into town and get a few more answers. The more we knew, the more questions we could answer. It was kind of funny, the more I thought about it. I would avoid the news because it only gave me more questions that couldn’t be answered, but now it was the exact opposite. I was diving into something with more questions than I ever had before, and no way to answer a single one.