197

Through a hole in the wall.

Pre Chapter 1

She stared,
"One, nine, seven," she read, lips tracing the words.

In large white letters against windows that were unhelpfully tinted cobalt blue, the calligraphy stood, mocking her she decided. They weren't inviting or informative, and she couldn't see enough of the window to get more, than just a little annoyed.

Were you meant to call such a number on a dial-a-phone hoping that someone would save you in a dire emergency? Who would do that, in times such as these. Who even had a dial-a-phone? What idiot would risk their own skin to go out into the darkness of day, in the case of a potential death of someone that may or may not just kill you as a thank you.
Not her. Not anyone sane for that matter.

She'd seen the letters through the part of the tunnel that must've fallen away in the strikes; times when nothing ventured out, for fear of, nurture ? She wasn't sure, no one spoken of such things, no one spoke at all and she couldn't remember the proper word, though there weren't meant to be words for what was out there. Not. At. All.

Nothing was what should have been out there.

So what had she just seen?
It didn't feel like nothing.

● ● ● ●

"If you look up at night, the moon shines brighter than it ever did, before, in those times. It's a pale white, now, while before" her voice lengthened the word while speaking of the time that had no image. "And that my darling, is meant to suggest that we're in better times she paused now. That she, Eartha is a happier being now, than we could ever make her before, but, my darling another pause you and you alone must decide who we is and where we must be; for Eartha to be at her happiest."