The Beginning Ends
Vic rattled Wake’s arm, the morning sun peeking over the top of the power station. “Hey, man. Wake up, Wake. Heh.”
“Original,” Wake grunted. His back cricked as he sat up, and the pain at the back of his eyeballs felt like someone had been poking at him with a toothpick. “Sleeping on pavement, 0/10 do not recommend.”
The events of the previous evening started to circle back into his memory. “Ash, where’s Ash?” He looked around, already afraid of the answer. An emptiness hovered in his mind, just like it did when the Bobs moved through. “And Meg?”
Vic shook his head. “Haven’t seen either of them this morning. What happened out here last night, where did they go?”
Wash leaned back against the car, and began to cry. “I couldn’t stop it.”
Vic sat with Wake, with one arm over his shoulder. The he felt a twinge of relief that Meg wasn’t a spinning black mass of nothing-void, and that twinge made him angry. He didn’t want to accept that she was gone, but he saw no other choice. No one comes back. This world was dying, and he’d just lost the last person that mattered.
“Fuck it,” Vic got up. “Let’s go.” He sounded different than he had the day before. He sounded rougher. He offered Wake a hand up.
“Where?” Wake brushed the dust off his pants, then wiped the last tears from his face, smearing dirt across his cheek.
“Northeast. I want to know what these fuckers are protecting. What was worth killing everyone I care about. Maybe it was all to save the most people, I don’t know. But if there’s something else there, I want to know what it is.”
Wake nodded sharply. He got in on the driver’s side while Vic dropped into the passenger side. “There’s a breakfast spot a couple hours east of here, let’s stop on the way. It’s been a minute since I’ve had real food.”
Wake glanced at the empty spot on the dashboard where Ash had set the gargoyle the night before. The thought flicked through his mind to check for it on the floor, but he already knew it was gone.
With a sigh, he started the car and headed east.