Alex wakes up to the sound of someone humming.
The tune is old and jaunty, a strange, cheerful melody in a world he had assumed was devoid of such things.
Pain, now a dull and manageable throb, brings him back to his senses. He's on the floor of the bunker, a rough but clean blanket tucked around him. His ankle is splinted with two metal rods and wrapped tightly in fresh gauze.
'Where am I?'
Someone had cleaned his cuts.
He pushes himself up with a groan.
"Ugh…"
Across the small, organized room, the woman from the night before is tending to a series of small, potted medics, it seems to be chunk of every tablet under a single, flickering luminous lamp.
She moves with a focused grace, her short, dark hair catching the light. She's not holding a rifle now; she's holding a small watering can.
She hears him move and turns, a bright, slightly mischievous smile on her face. Her eyes, though still holding a survivor's weary caution, of course he is a strange who invaded her house.
"Well, look who's back in the land of the living," she says, her voice a warm, teasing melody.
"I was starting to wonder if I wasted a good suture kit on you. Had to dig a piece of shrapnel out of your shoulder. You're lucky it missed anything important."
She is the medic.
"Thanks," Alex says, his voice rough. He's taken completely off guard by her demeanor. This isn't the cold, hard killers from this kind of world, he had met till now.
"Don't thank me yet," she winks, wiping her hands on her cargo pants. "I'll be sending you the bill. Medical services aren't cheap out here." She walks over, her movements fluid and confident, and crouches down to check his bandages.
"Now, for the big question. Who are you, really? Your hands are soft, and you don't have that half-starved look of a scavenger. So, talk."
He fell into thought. He couldn't tell her the truth. 'Hi, I'm from another dimension with a superpower that lets me absorb concepts. Nice to meet you.' She'd shoot him on the spot, and he wouldn't even blame her. He had to build on the lie.
"My name is Alex," he begins, his voice steady. "I'm from a village. A settlement deep in the northern valleys. We've been isolated for generations, completely cut off since the Calamity. I was on my first trading expedition. Got lost in a dust storm and... ran into the Scrappers."
Her eyebrow raises, a mixture of disbelief and intrigue. "An isolated village? One that's apparently doing very well for itself if you're not starving?"
"We're… self-sufficient," Alex says. This was the moment. "We have things the outside world has forgotten."
He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket—the one thing the cannibals hadn't bothered to steal. His fingers close around the small, precious items he'd grabbed before leaving his Earth apartment.
He pulls out two things.
First, a sleek, silver Zippo lighter. He flicks it open, and with a familiar clink and a sweep of his thumb, a perfect, steady flame dances to life in the dim bunker.
Maya's humming stops. Her eyes go wide.
Then, he pulls out the second item. A chocolate bar, still pristine in its shiny, colorful wrapper.
He holds them out. Proof. Relics of a lost world.
Maya stares at the items as if they were holy artifacts.
She slowly reaches out, her fingers gently touching the wrapper of the chocolate bar with a reverence Alex found startling.
"I haven't seen one of these since I was a little girl," she whispers, her bubbly persona completely gone, replaced by a raw, naked awe.
She looks at him, her eyes searching his face. "Your story... it might just be crazy enough to be true."
He has her. She's hooked.
"My turn," he says, breaking the silence. "Who are you?"
Her playful smile returns, though it's softer now. "The name's Maya Rostova. Sergeant. Formerly attached to the 7th Mechanized." She leans back against a crate, her tone becoming wry.
"The 'formerly' is the important part. My crew was hired as mercenary support for a high-risk escort mission. When the big bugs—Rippers—hit the convoy, the regulars did what they do best. Pulled back and 'sealed the perimeter.' They left us mercs behind as bait. I'm just the only bait that didn't get eaten."
Her story explains the military gear, her skill, and the deep-seated cynicism he can now see hiding just beneath her cheerful surface. She's a survivor because she was abandoned.
"So, Mr. Chocolate-and-Cigars from Shangri-La," she says, her eyes sparkling again. "You have any other miracles in those pockets, or are you just going to sit there looking pretty while the Scrappers plan a welcome party for you?"
Alex can't help but smile back. "Only the miracle of my brilliant mind," he replies, playing along. "I can turn that broken radio over there into a very shocking surprise for our visitors."
Maya's laugh is a bright, genuine sound in the concrete bunker. "An engineer too? You just might be worth the bandages after all."
Alex smiles hearing her words, of course he would after all this is the normal conversation he had with a person after a very genuinely long and hard days.
"Alright, miracle worker," she says, standing up and becoming all business. "Let's see what we're up against."
She leads him up the ladder to the rooftop lookout. The red wasteland stretches out before them, vast and empty.
Maya moves to the high-powered scope, scanning the horizon with practiced ease.
"Well," she says after a moment, "looks like the party's coming to us."
She steps aside. Alex puts his eye to the scope and sees the rock quarry miles away, crawling with the tiny figures of the Scrappers. They were gathering.
Maya's voice is next to his ear, her bubbly tone gone, replaced by the sharp, cold edge of a soldier.
"That's their main camp. They'll be sending their welcoming committee for you. We've got maybe twenty-four hours to get our shocking surprise ready."