The Twelfth Marker

"If you're reading this, it's too late. The hero is dead. Her friends however, survived the calamity and are in hiding. You may feel that the movement has died with the death of the figurehead, but it is not so! We are alive, we remember, we carry on! Onward, we beseech you, onward!"


This was the twelfth such marker we'd found.

Making our way over the ruins of a highway, we stopped under an ancient overpass for a break during midday. It's too hot to go without shelter for most of the day now, and true night-vision is cherished. Our hearing has gotten sharper, and our feet more quiet--we wear soft moccasins, and go barefoot when they wear out, until we have enough skin for more. We've finally learned the value of silence, after years of depredations by over- and undersized beasts. But silence doesn't save us from the parasites, only their hosts.

The first marker was a few months and several hundred miles south of this place.












For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, melissa brodsky challenged me with "Begin your story with the line 'If you are reading this...'" and I challenged Grace O'Malley with "Crisis averted. "