“Anything but the rain.”

That was his wish.

He took out the canteen bottle tied to his hip, and took a sip as he carried on. In times long past, rain might have been a blessing but now, now it was nothing more than a nuisance. It made the road muddy and difficult to traverse, made your feet all damp. Not to mention the musty smell never left his surroundings.

Today too, the dark grey clouds were set on the horizon as far as he could see. Sunlight was a thing of the past, no one remembered the last sighting of the sun. Always just the rain. Sometimes the downpour was like cats and dogs but mostly it was just drizzling. He found the rare moments with no rain at all, quite peaceful.

He was walking along the long abandoned roads, according to his map, he was on the outskirts of the city. The cold breeze was blowing slightly faster today, carrying small droplets of rain alongside it. The tiny raindrops splashed on his face and prickled like soft needles.

How long had it been since the rain started? One year? Three years? Five years?

He had honestly just forgotten, for there were more pressing priorities looming over his head all the time. But it all boiled down to one in the end.

How to survive?

He had made his makeshift base in a big wholesale store he found on the entrance to the city. He came to this city only a few days ago after the previous city had completely run out of food.

He had kept walking alongside the main road used to travel between cities. It took him nearly three weeks before he found a city. The road he used for travel was meant for motorcars, using one would have reduced his travel to perhaps only a few days.

However, they were powered by the Mist Engine and were useless now, after all the years of degradation, and none of the survivors knew how to build one.

The world had fallen.

According to the rumors, only took less than a month after the plague first spread.

Humans, always developing, always evolving their ways. In their pursuit of knowledge to ensure their own survival, they caused their own demise.

Ironic, really.

The mist that had been enveloping the continent for countless years, had fascinated them for a very long time. It was a mysterious source of energy that later led to the creation of the Mist engine. They were curious about what was beyond the mist, their efforts to traverse the mist brought the plague upon their land.

The prickling droplets hitting his face were now annoying him now. He stopped and looked at the sky for a few moments, the rain didn’t seem to be letting down. He gave out a tired sigh and took off his backpack, searching for something.

He took out a piece of cloth resembling a scarf and wrapped it around his head. At least it would stop the droplets from hitting his face. A rusted and worn down sign board near him, at the side of the road said the following:

CAUTION!

“THIS AREA HAS BEEN QUARRANTINED”

The rest of the writing was worn out and too tedious to read so he stopped reading it. He looked at the signboard and snorted derisively, and carried on.

The initial mode of contraction was due to the air itself. It was an airborne plague. Anyone infected became rabid in a matter of minutes, lost all sense and became nothing short of an animal.

The infection in the air didn’t last long and humans became the primary source of the plague. Tearing at each other, biting, gnawing and multiplying rapidly. The only effect in the air that remained was the weather.

The infected population’s only source of nutrition was cannibalism. Didn’t take long for most of them to die of starvation. After all, they weren’t some sort of undead who magically go on to live for eternity without any source of nutrition. Some infected, however, were still rumored to be alive.

No, the problem of survival wasn’t directly related to the infected.

He spotted a small general store by the road. He ran in small steps, to avoid muddy water splashing on his pants, to the door front and inspected the doorframe. It seemed it wasn’t locked.

“Finally some luck”, he thought.

The problem was something painfully simple.

The resources were running out. Food was very scarce to come by, most was way beyond its date of expiration.

Humans that survived were very few and the continent was big, too big for them.

As such, they rarely crossed paths.

Besides, even if they met, they had an unspoken rule of not staying together for long. Sooner or later the food in that area would run out, faster with more people consuming it. That would lead to conflict over the remaining food in that area.

There was, however, a bigger issue.

The remaining Humans were afraid of each other. They had witnessed the world’s fall, and in quite a gruesome way. As such, the concept of trust had been lost.

He rattled the entrance door a few times and the door opened, making a loud creaking sound. He took out his flashlight and started to examine his surroundings.

It seemed to be a store that specialized in tool making, perhaps a blacksmith?

He was disappointed that he couldn’t find any food, but all was not lost. He was in serious need of some tools. For example, his water canteen had started to leak recently, due to a tiny opening. He could fix that with the tools available here. He also required some materials to mend his shoes.

After finding a few useful tools, he was now searching the shelves at the back of the store for any trivial thing he could come upon (mainly to satisfy himself that this long trek from the wholesale store wasn’t a failure). His hand touched something rectangular.

Ah, it was a book. It had accumulated so much dust that it was hard to tell what it was.

He carefully brushed the dust a bit with his fingers and the titled revealed itself, the title read:

“How to tell constellations Apart for Dummies”

He grinned a bit over his vain search, and decided to put the book in his backpack.