Glade

The Wedding Ring

The United States government (or, what was left of it) was making a sensible choice. Among the many recent unexplained events, including the world ending, Glade's impenetrable power was undeniably the most advantageous. If they could find out what was causing her regeneration, they could possibly use that trait to save the world.

There were many who (misguidedly) believed that the world could still be saved.

However, Glade wasn't one to sympathize with the intentions of others, and to her, the actions of the government were filed under "avoidable nuisances;" One of these nuisances being the mortally wounded man lying in front of her.

What a bother.

"Help... help me..." the man mumbled. His eyes were flitting open. They were brown; not an intriguing, milk chocolate brown, but more of an uninteresting dirt color. Blood was pooling on the ground, oozing out of his back. His clothes were tattered and old, and he reeked of rotten food.

It was then, as Glade was staring unsympathetically at the dying man, that she saw the heavy bag of objects laying a few feet from him. My stuff! she thought. She stepped back over his body and picked up the bag, opening it. It was indeed filled with her belongings from the bunker. She looked down at him. "Let me guess. You raided my house, and then a military grade asshole shot you?"

He didn't answer. Glade could see that the life was fading from him, fast. She sighed, then knelt down on the ground, placing a calloused hand on his sweating forehead. "Sorry, but thieves don't get to be helped." She watched apathetically as the light faded from his still open eyes.

He was dead.

Glade sighed and stepped over his body, climbing down into her home. The bunker was, unsurprisingly, a disaster. Not only had it been raided, it had been raided twice, once by soldiers and once by the dead man. Neither of the two had been very concerned with keeping things orderly.

Loose papers were strewn across the floor, drawers were broken and pulled out of their respective dressers, and clothing and broken food cans littered the entire room. There was a mattress in one corner, and it had been ripped open. Small pieces of stuffing from the inside of it drifted through the air.

Glade looked around, shrugged, and tossed the bag of her belongings on the floor. "Time to move," she said, beginning to pick out what she wanted from the ruined bunker. It was a shame, really. She'd stumbled upon this one by accident; the pictures on the old desk showed it used to belong to a (probably paranoid) war veteran. There was a ranch a few acres away, across the field beside the bunker.

Now apparently everyone knew where she was, and seeing as Glade preferred not to be bothered, this was a problem.

She tossed a total of 4 new things into the dead man's bag; An outdated driver's license that read "Jane Pera - 16 years old" with the photo scratched out, a steel chain about a foot long with eleven links on it, a large piece of a record that had been smashed, and a wedding ring that looked a century old.

She did not keep these things because she was sentimental.

She was heartless, after all, and made a point not to care about the past.

That's what she told herself as she took one last look at the bunker, and headed back up into the world unknown.

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It seems appropriate now to say a few words about the newly deceased member of our story, Professor Ryan Madson. Ryan had bland sand-colored hair and was approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall, although he had a permanent slouch in his shoulders. When he was a child, before the world ended, his mother worked as a maid for what she deemed the "rich bastards" of the city. Of course, to her, Ryan was not a child, but an extra helping hand, and he always ended up scrubbing each floor of the elaborate mansions his mom was hired to clean. His now dead chiropractor had declared in his adult life that because of this, he'd never stand up straight again.

Ryan, of course, didn't mind, because he didn't need to stand straight. Unlike the average, everyday citizen, he spent most of his hours lecturing his son Luke, forcing him to learn as much as he could, hunched over intricate artifacts that had been dug up in the desert. Ryan was one of the many who felt more than distraught when the world came to an end; he had years of research left to work on.

It should be mentioned that the most important thing to take from the life and story of Ryan Madson is that he was, indeed, an absolute dick to his son, just like his mother was to him.

But more on that later.

⧫    ⧫    ⧫

Glade didn't like to dwell on the past, but what she missed most about the old world was the fast transportation. She had been trekking through the mountains for three hours now and only walked about seven miles if her counting was right. She could be moving faster, but it was dangerous in case she drew attention to herself. The world was a lot more dangerous now that it had ended.

She glanced up at the sky, sighing. The sun would be setting soon behind the tall pine trees that surrounded her. The faster she got to some shelter, the safer she'd be once it got dark.

It seemed that even to a seemingly invincible being like Glade, there were things that she still should be afraid of.

Eventually, as she walked cautiously along the bottom of a rocky cliffside, she came upon a small cave. The stone around it was grey, crumbled, and looser than she would have liked, but she knew if it caved in on her she would be able to dig her way out... Hopefully. She stepped inside and carelessly tossed her bag on the ground, sighing and plopping herself down.

As if on cue, the last light of the sun finally vanished from the sky.

It was going to be a long night.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! I hope you're having a fantastic day! Don't forget to vote and comment!