A deep chill permeates the silent city, and rolling blankets of fog give off an air of mud and suffocation. Steam billows out of the nuclear reactor’s smokestack as it emerges from the fog, an incomprehensibly large beating heart that powers whatever remains.
The sun would be low in the sky now, an hour after I started walking. The building had been taken over by plants long ago, a murky greenery covering its every surface. I take a deep breath, and it smells like hope, life, overpowering everything except a whiff—a memory—of the storm that passed through here yesterday.
I hold a hand against the wall as I walk in. There’s nothing left to do but leave my card on the desk.
Anyone who would have cared left long ago.
Dusk brings an orange glow to the city’s silhouette as I head back to my apartment.
“Back so soon?” Atlas chirps from on the desk. I stare at the ceiling for a long time, fighting to stay awake, but sleep takes me all the same.
Birdsong from the skyscrapers carries far, filling the air. The fog’s starting to burn off, giving faces to the songs as I spot birds flitting between gleaming skyscrapers and through overgrown husks.
Bright and cheery flowers bloom on the streets, poking through concrete and asphalt that shifts under my footsteps.
Atlas points at one particularly vibrant single-story building. An old neon sign hangs on its face. “That’s where I used to work,” she chirps. I didn’t have anything else in mind today, so I stepped into the building. The front wall had partially collapsed, leaving a gaping hole where the front door must’ve been. We go deeper into the building, and Atlas approaches a workstation that’s currently housing a couple of ravens. She giggles as they fly past her and lifts up a monitor, gingerly, almost reverently. “This used to be Glenn’s place. He’d sit here all day, typing away at his computer.”
There was a long pause before she continues again. “He died three years before you were born, you know.”
“What’d you get up to in here?” I carefully pick up a poster; it must be a relic of ancient history now. I can’t imagine it’s very valuable, though, with how much history just like it is scattered across the streets, let alone inside the city’s buildings.
“We built.” She keeps finding small things that she remembers from her time here. We wander around the workshop for the rest of the day, until shadows lengthen and thunderclouds blot out the sun. On the way back, we see a deer.