It was a normal, beautiful morning when Chaia rolled out of her bed of stained futon and threadbare blankets. The sky was within its interesting transformation between the storm-cloud-black of night to the blood-red of day. The result was a dark burgundy that draped itself across the horizon from the blonde’s window, fading into a true red at the eastern edge and remaining a stubborn black in the west. The colors warred and blurred in the middle, wavering between being blacker than red and more red than black with red appearing to win the fight every moment longer Chaia watched it.

In her distant, hazy memory it was kind of like Armageddon all over again.  The thought made her smile, because any memory of a time before this was precious to anybody.

As the blood-red sky continued on its flawless journey across the sky, allowing hazy, dim light to filter through the grime-caked windows of Necropolis, Chaia got herself ready for the day. She pulled on the same loose-fitting black slacks she had donned the day before (and the day before that and the day before that and she just didn’t have any laundry tokens right now) and slid a fresh, silky blue top over her lithe frame. She splashed some (disgusting) water over her pallid complexion and dragged a brush over her teeth before pulling dull blonde locks up into a messy tail at the back of her head.

(After Armageddon, no one really cared about their appearance.

After Armageddon, ninety-five percent of the population had been wiped out.

And no, it hadn’t been some kind of decision based on whether or not you were a true believer. It was merely who could survive the anomalies falling from the sky until the whole thing was over.)

Grabbing what would at someone twenty years ago would have considered a set of keys, Chaia walked out of her apartment, leaving it in the same disarray she left everything she seemed to touch, like even her own belongings that she relied on every day meant nothing to her.

As a secret, this is the truth. Chaia cared about nothing.

(It was kind of hard for anyone to care about anything after Armageddon.)

There was no “good part” of Necropolis, Unclaimed Country, Unnamed Continent, Earth. The sidewalks that adorned the presumed streets were cracked, uneven, and dangerous to walk over. They hadn’t been rebuilt after things falling from the bleeding sky had destroyed them beyond repair. Nor had the streets, some of which were little more than trails of rubble and dangerously sharp jutting asphalt. The only buildings that had been rebuilt were those that only needed a board for a wall and maybe a roof and all they were used for were sleeping in.

Transportation, communication, technology in general no longer existed.

And not just because the punished people of the earth knew better than to recreate its downfall. The human race had become so lazy, so reliant on their mental strength and the convenient tools that were created from it that nobody really had the capacity to care to redo it all. Better to just let the race pitter out, not to rebuild, right?

And fuck you if you were one of the survivors.

Chaia encountered no one on her walk, but the thing she held in her hand likely was the reason. Indeed it had been a set of keys, back when they would’ve been used for anything, but she had found them years ago and spent more time than she had spent on most anything else sharpening the keys into deadly points. The desperate, hungry men that littered the damned city learned better, quickly. After all, in a world that had been almost entirely obliterated, life-wise, what sense was there to make murder - or rape, or theft, or anything at all - a crime?

(They said that Armageddon would bring out the best of people.

It couldn’t have possibly been any more wrong.)

Still no one spoke to her as she turned sharply into what would, at first glance, be seen as an abandoned building. It was in fact just this in reality, but at the moment it was the headquarters for her gang. Everybody in Necropolis belonged to a gang, and this was no exaggeration. Considering the population could be counted in the hundreds, these gangs were the equivalent of developing nations that had yet to split very far from one another and actually form their own country.

Humanity was far, far too lazy to think of doing something like that again. But nonetheless, there were gangs, and they mysteriously provided things like food and clothing if one desperately needed it.

Which reminded her. “I need laundry tokens, and badly,” the blonde announced as she walked into the dusty room that served as their commons. Several heads looked up; more looked down because they were used to such proclamations as a greeting. A dark head in the corner of the room cocked itself and a laugh far too pure for the world rang through the room. Chaia’s steely gray eyes glared in the direction the far too vibrant, far too young Felicity. “Shut up, Liss,” she hissed before taking a chair close to the door.

Those dark locks tilted again and the smaller, thinner girl stood up to walk across the room, taking a seat next to her blonde counterpart. Chaia glowered at the fact that everyone in the room stared. Felicity had that effect on people, though. Despite her dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes, and contrasting white skin, she seemed to radiatesomething to the world. Something no one could really put a finger on, for it was a word that had seemingly been crushed with the rest of the world as their parents had known it.

And damn it, those dark eyes were staring at her. Something Chaia usually shoved to the side of her brain that was numb to everything arose in her and she shoved it away as quickly as her eyes turned to meet that calm, unreadable gaze. “What?” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It’s just the way your carry yourself, and the way you speak,” Felicity said in her quiet, pretty little voice. It was never mocking, or anything less than pleasant, and that was what pissed Chaia off the most.

“Do you expect me to waltz in here with a ‘Hey, how’re you guys doing? Shitty day? Yeah, don’t I know it!’? No, Liss, no one cares about shit like that. Better to just state the facts and skip the rest and go on to goodbye.”

As usual, the response was a tilting of those glossy dark locks. “I care,” she said, voice a little softer than normal. In another day and age, before such nice words had been wiped away from the mouths of all humans in every language, she would have added, ‘because I’m your friend.’ But no one had friends in Necropolis. It was an odd, lucid existence from birth to finish and that was the end of that.

“Well fuck you,” was Chaia’s response to such hospitality. “Unless you got any laundry tokens.”

“I do.” Nothing less than pleasant, nothing less than polite. A thin, pale hand rummaged into a pocket and pulled out three of them, handing them to Chaia in offering. The blonde only stared.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

“You’ve told me, yes.” And it was true. It was never what Chaia meant to say, but that’s what always came out. What Chaia always meant to say was that Felicity didn’t belong in this bastardization of a world and that she should’ve lived fifty years prior. But she knew that she would only get that tinkling laugh if she said something like that and so she kept the words to herself. “Do you want to eat dinner with me tonight?”

Now that had been unexpected. In Necropolis, that kind of hospitality was just… never extended. People were too selfish, too hard and bitter to want to even do it. Plus, the world was hard-pressed for food anyways. Sharing was a pretty stupid decision, as far as survival was concerned. Somehow Felicity always managed to extend things like hospitality.

Her gaze must have been more incredulous and rude than normal, because for once the mirthful dark eyes averted their gaze to the floor and Felicity seemed almost shy. “It’s just that I really don’t need as much as the rations give me, and I wouldn’t mind sharing with you.” More ways to say ‘friendship’ in less comforting, more general words.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You expect me to turn down free food just ‘cause you’re an idiot?”

But even as she said it, strange warmth spread through her chest and Chaia had to discreetly check to make sure she wasn’t bleeding or the ceiling wasn’t leaking hot water on her or something.

--

Felicity’s apartment was, unsurprisingly, the exact opposite of Chaia’s ravaged hole in the wall. It wasn’t much, because nobody had much anymore, but she kept it clean and orderly. Instead of a futon, she had an old foam mattress and despite the fact it was ridiculously worm-eaten and flat, it sat proudly in a corner with a holey blanket flattened over it with the same amount of pride. There was a little shelf in the corner filled with uninteresting knickknacks and, most interestingly, a hole in the floor that was apparently to be used as a fire.

“I don’t eat them all when I get them, so I have to reheat the rations somehow,” the dark-haired girl explained calmly as she struck a spark and lit the fuel that would reheat their meal. Something about the idea of it sparked an old, distant memory in Chaia’s mind, of a box that hummed and whirred and produced warm food like it had just been cooked, even if it was days old.

(In a phenomena still unexplained that likely never will be, every electronic device exploded at once.

This killed fifty percent of the human population. Everybody else died from something a little less lame.)

They ate in comfortable silence, Chaia considerably less refined than her quiet, picky friend who ate her whole portion but somehow still managed to make Chaia feel like some kind of pig. When they finished, they balled up the aluminum foil that the food had came in and been reheated in and held it, lingering warmth warming their hands. A question was nagging at Chaia’s mind, which was odd because she chose to just live and not worry about things like asking why. It made things too complicated and too painful and too bitter… but here she was with a question on the tip of her tongue and it was just unnatural for the blonde to keep anything inside like that.

“Why are you doing this?” It was blurted, as unintentional as could possibly be, but Chaia didn’t let her face convey that as she stared at the ball of cooling metal in her hands.

“I don’t know,” was Felicity’s answer, not even missing a beat as she, too, stared at her hands. “Truly.”

“Well if you don’t know something, you don’t touch it,” Chaia chided, glaring at the curtain of dark hair that hid Felicity’s pale face.

“I know why I wanted to,” Felicity said, almost in defense. “I just don’t know quite why I acted on it.”

“Well that’s stupid. You should think more before you do that,” Chaia said, her already severe expression deepening into an angrily confused frown. There was silence for a long while after that, the foil long-gone cold and the sky darkening back to black before Felicity spoke again.

“I really like you, Chaia, you know?” The words were whispered and sounded like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to say them, but Chaia was less concerned about that then what the words implied, her cycle of hatred and solitude blown off track by one quiet little voice. “You hate everyone, but I really like you.”

“Why?” Accusations flying, about ready to take the form of words and projectiles and maybe humanity really hadn’t changed all that much.

“I don’t know that, either.”

“You don’t know a hell of a lot of things, but you sure as hell like to act on ‘em.” More accusations. It wasn’t the result of anger, but of many conflicting emotions, some of which she couldn’t identify. It was just too easy to hide it all behind anger, too predictable of her.

“Please.” There was a rustle and as quiet as she’d seen anyone, Felicity stood up before kneeling right in front of Chaia, those dark eyes gleaming with something that might’ve been tears. Why? Chaia didn’t even question it this time. Didn’t have time to, because she had blinked and suddenly there was a soft, slightly chapped, wet sensation on her lips and she realized that she was being kissed.

Kissed, by Felicity of all people.

It lasted only seconds, but Chaia had responded, tasting what seemed to be pure emotions and it was just so much better than anything else than she had ever ingested. She was actually disappointed when it ended and found herself pulling Felicity closer, into her lap. Surprisingly, the girl buried her face into the blonde’s shoulder and clung, like Chaia was some kind of maternal figure or other symbol of comfort.

“It’s just that we’re the last humans on earth, and no one’s producing, you know?” Chaia nodded, her hand somehow rubbing circles in the dark fabric covering Felicity’s back. “It’s just so lonely. Everyone’s so lonely, and hateful, because they can remember what it was like before. I don’t have those memories. I just want to make the best of what I have.”

The purity was overwhelming. Chaia couldn’t find the words to say, instead giving another jerking nod and burying her nose into those glossy locks that always tilted at her. In that instant, it was like she could feel the sorrow, fear, and loneliness that were all hidden behind Felicity’s tilting hair and tinkling laughter and unreadable eyes. It was a little overwhelming for her, too. Finally, those eyes rose from Chaia’s shoulder and though they were red-rimmed they were clear, suddenly readable, and she almost didn’t have to ask the next question because Chaia knew what she was going to say just from those eyes.

“Make the best of it with me?”

Suddenly it seemed like the most ingenious idea in the world. She nodded.

(After Armageddon, nobody lived happily ever after.

But some people came close.)