From the basement, my ears strain to make sense of the apithopter crew’s intentions. My tightly focused hearing fails to notice foot crunches over snow above.

I hear a life running across icy-covered floorboards, skidding around nail infested holes. It gets closer and I make out vocal panting of a hurried soul. A woman.

All these months and I finally sense another human. And here I am, unable to share a fire. At the same time, I articulate the landing party arguing with each other. Her footfalls stop.

I peek out of hiding and gaze up through to the sky. There she is, patterned against gray. A man calls out Over here! followed by a sharp CRACK!

I smell roses, the last innocent red I’d seen before The Culling

Viciousness sprays past the wide steeled skies. The female figure crumbles and comes to rest on the hole’s edge. At the last moment she melts over, landing dead at my feet. Out of her waistband, a clatter; A fully charged natural-gas powered nail gun. I collect it and move back into darkness.