The morning air was crisp, carrying the metallic scent of coming frost, a signal that our window for easy travel was rapidly closing. Preparation was a ritual of survival, a series of practiced, silent motions that required focus, not thought. We were moving as light as possible—three packs, two rifles, and the three charged walkie-talkies carefully wrapped in a thick wool sock to protect them from bumps. My pack held the navigation gear and most of the dried rations, Lexi carried the bulk of the ammunition and tools, and Jesse, as always, carried the most precious weight: the water and the medical kit.
"Two bottles of water each for the journey out, two for the return, and one extra," Jesse recited, cinching the straps on my pack. He didn't need to look at a checklist; the inventory was etched into his memory. His caution was necessary, but sometimes I found it exhausting. Everything was so calculated now, every step weighed against risk and reward. "If we find a reliable stream, we use the tablets, but we don't drink anything we haven't treated, understood? The Rot isn't the only thing that can kill you out here." His eyes, the color of rich earth, were serious as he made sure both Lexi and I acknowledged the warning.
Lexi, already dressed in layers of muted, durable fabric, checked the bolt on her rifle. She looked like she was born for this landscape. "We're taking the old logging road for the first day. Less chance of encounters than cutting through the city's skeleton, but we'll have to move faster. James, you lead point, watch the canopy. I'll take rear guard, watch for anything tracking us." She was already in motion, her voice crisp with command. There was a confidence in her that I both relied on and found intensely captivating. It was a confidence born from surviving the absolute worst life could throw at us, a beautiful, lethal edge.
We moved out as the sun broke over the peaks, casting long, distorted shadows that we had to learn to read—were they our own, or something else? The first hours were a blur of focused movement, our pace steady and relentless. The logging road was overgrown, forcing us to constantly push aside thorny bushes and navigate around fallen trees, but it kept us mostly concealed. The silence was the hardest thing to bear. It wasn't just a lack of human sound; it was the absence of everything—no chirping birds, no humming insects, not even the distant drone of an airplane. The Rot hadn't just killed people; it had broken the natural world's rhythm, too.
Around midday on the first day, we took a mandatory thirty-minute rest break near a dried creek bed. Jesse was meticulously examining his boots for wear while Lexi scanned the surrounding ridge line with her binoculars. I used the quiet time to check the walkie-talkies one last time, making sure the channel was set and the antenna was secure. As I fiddled with the rubberized casing, I glanced up and found Lexi watching me. Her gaze was soft for a moment, an emotion that was rare and fleeting in this new life, before she quickly snapped her attention back to the perimeter.
"We need to discuss the frequency," I said, breaking the quiet. "We're high enough now that we should try a short broadcast before we get to the Butte. A quick burst on the most common emergency frequency. If anyone is out there, they're probably scanning that band." Jesse agreed, but advised waiting until we were further from our known base to avoid giving away its general location. The tension between the desire to find people and the absolute necessity of remaining hidden was a constant, gnawing presence. Every decision was a life-or-death calculus.
The second half of the day was more difficult. The logging road became choked with a rock slide, forcing us to detour off-trail and into the dense pine forest. The undergrowth was thick, and the going was slow. The sky began to turn a sickly, bruised purple as the sun dropped, and we had to hustle to find a suitable camp before complete darkness. We found a small, protected overhang beneath a massive granite slab, perfect for a secure rest. While Jesse set up a near-smokeless fire using scavenged dry wood, Lexi and I took turns standing guard, our backs pressed against the cold stone, our rifles held ready. That night, lying side-by-side near the fire, the silence felt heavier than usual, punctuated only by the occasional snap of burning wood. We were moving forward, driven by a thread of hope, but the crushing weight of the world was always right there, just beyond the firelight.