Arada awoke feeling uneasy. She opened her eyes and looked beside her.

  Irgos was gone.

  Immediately, she bolted upright. "Irgos?" she called out.

  No answer.

  She threw on her jacket and stood up. Between the empty shelves of the building, it was dead silent. Outside, daylight had broken. Last night's storm had passed, and a bright blue sky stretched overhead.

  "Irgos!" she tried again, this time louder. "If you're trying to be funny, this isn't the time."

  Silence.

  Sweat suddenly burst from her pores. She felt short of breath, and a sense of fear settled over her. She sprinted out of the building, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled as loud as she could.

  "IRGOS!"

  Footsteps sounded from behind one of the massive vehicles.

  "Shh! Not so loud. The whole world doesn't o know."

  A boy with shaggy dark brown hair emerged. His dark blue cotton t-shirt matched the many rain puddles scattered around. He held his fio his lips; his brown eyes were alert but not particurly armed.

  Relief washed over Arada. "Holy, don't ever scare me like that again. What were you doing back there?" She oward one of those things with too many wheels and carrying a huge box with various colored patterns.

  "I was already up," he said ily. "I had to empty my bdder somewhere, didn't I?"

  "Let me know ime."

  "You were still sleeping. I didn't want to wake you."

  Arada sighed. "Fine." She uood his choice; they he rest.

  Irgos pulled the piece of paper with colored splotches out of his cotton pants pocket. "I was thinking about this," he began. He held it out so Arada could see and traced a path on the paper with his finger. "If we follow this route, we'll eventually reach that pce called Ebrotown, where we cross the river here." He poio a small line crossing the blue streak beled Ebros. "Then we head toward Aquinox."

  Arada nodded slowly. "Good pn. We'd better start walking. I doubt those bald idiots will sit around for long in Overmore. Are ys still holding up?"

  "They'll have to."

  * * *

  They had been walking for a while when Irgos broke the silence.

  "I had a really weird dream st night."

  Arada looked up.

  "It happened on my birthday. I was in your father's room, but it was much bigger than normal," he tinued. "I felt terrified and trapped. Then a giant mosquito flew in through the window. It came straight at me and nded on me. I didn't know what to do—it was like I was pletely paralyzed. But just as it was about to sting me and sink its needle in, I felt a huge warmth ignite inside me. In no time, I felt like I was in ahe heat was so intehe mosquito burst into fmes and buro a crisp. Then I woke up."

  They both fell silent for a moment.

  "Weird," Arada said. "Why on your birthday?"

  Irgos sighed audibly. "I don't know. I won't even be sixteen until fall, so I guess it was just... digestierday."

  her wao discuss it further. They were focused on reag Aquinox as soon as possible.

  "But holy, I barely got any sleep," he said. "What about you?"

  "Only a little," she replied. "It's mostly that I—"

  Mid-sentence, she stopped. She pointed into the distance.

  "Look! The road curves off to the right," she said excitedly. "Hahat paper."

  Irgos did as she asked. "It matches here," she said, pointing to a spot on the paper that matched the curve. "It really is some kind of guide."

  After a while, they passed a blue sign by the road. Ohey were close enough, they could read what it said—a white arrow pointing upward, with more text alongside it.

  "Tusiown," read Arada. She looked back at the paper. "That's the name of this spot. And here. Ebrotown is a bit further north. We're on the right path."

  She studied the route on the paper carefully. "What I don't uand is why the road twists all the way around Tusin. Why didn't they just make it straight when they built it?"

  "Maybe the road came after they built the vilge?" Irgos specuted. "Anyway, if we cut through Tusin instead of following the road, we save a good amount of time."

  "All the more reason to head there, then." She poi the sign they had almost passed. "Too bad Aquinox isn't on it."

  "No, just these two vilges," Irgos repeated. "No Aquinox."

  "Let's hope it's on the ohen."

  At the point where the road veered east, Arada and Irgos climbed over the iron fence beside the road and tioward Tusin. The pce they'd stayed st night was now out of sight. The sun had been up for a few hours, the wind had calmed, and the cobalt sky was a stark trast to the night before. No buildings were visible in any dire.

  They crossed the field beside the road aered a sparse but covered forest. After a while, they found a paved path within the forest, which led to a wider road, simirly rown with weeds and occasionally scattered with those mysterious four-wheelers.

  "Here again," Arada noted, her eyes drifting over each steel traption in turn. "They're getting more frequent." The further they went, the more vehicles appeared on the road, as though staring at them with their 'faces.'

  They walked betweeallic vehicles until Irgos suddenly stopped.

  She looked over and saw his face ale as a ghost. Following his gaze, she saw it too.

  In one of the seats inside a four-wheeler sat the remains of what had once been a human. A skull with bck, hollow eye sockets that stared endlessly ahead. A dropped jaw. Ribs. Thin bones clutched something round in the .

  As if people had tried to flee once.

  They both froze, staring. Captivated by the gruesome remnants of the Old World. Then they noticed that more vehicles held extra tents. Some had bee homes for weeds, but others also tained skeletons. Not all were intact, sometimes only a spine remained. Occasionally, a skeleton slumped forward in the seat, with the skull rolled off and staring bnkly from just behind the gss.

  "This is giving me chills," Irgos shuddered. "Like a graveyard e to life. we keep moving?"

  She didn't o be asked twice.

  * * *

  "I see something," Arada said after a while.

  She pointed ahead. The dense forest gradually gave way to what had once been a developed area.

  I hour, they hadn't seen many more vehicles or corpses. The sun was nearly at its peak, and the heat was rising. Luckily, the cool forest air kept it bearable.

  As they got closer, they spotted a sign hidden behind a tree.

  Irgos read it out loud. "Wele to Tusin."

  Arada and Irgos gazed in wonder as they saw a vilge from the Old World for the first time. Four-wheelers lihe road, just like before. Rows of houses stood farther from the road, built from a smooth, stone-like material. Even the roofs were covered in reddish-brown tiles instead of reeds or branches. Stohways ected the houses. Straal frames with bars and two wheels were pced along the road ainst the houses.

  What happened here? Where is everyone?

  The wilderness had fully recimed what was now ay vilge. Moss crept betweeoiles. In some pces, the tiles had been repced by square patches of sandy ground. Enormous trees grew here, their roots weaviweeones. Ivy climbed up the walls and roofs, turning some houses into green blobs of vegetation. A stray cat emerged from the ivy and darted away as soon as it spotted the two newers. Birds fluttered off the rooftops. Down a side street, they even caught sight of a deer, which quickly fled in the opposite dire.

  After a while of walking dowreet, a rge open space appeared on the right side of the road, surrounded by various buildings. It was a sort of square, scattered with white stripes on the ground, all evenly spaced. A few four-wheeled vehicles still stood in pces around the square.

  But that wasn't the worst of it.

  The air on the square was rancid. The smell was the first sign that something was very wrong with this pce. Then they saw it.

  It was a field of bones.

  Everywhere, the ground was covered with skeletal remains of people from the Old World. Many y alone, but there were also piles of multiple skeletons grouped together. The ground was further littered with debris, trash, and stains.

  Arada's mouth fell open. "What the…" she started.

  Irgos couldn't believe his eyes either. "Almost looks like there was a fight," he said. "A massive one."

  "Let's ihe buildings. Maybe there are still things left."

  They began on the left side of the square. The first building was rge, with some sort of logo of a blue pentagon above the entrahere were various iron racks on wheels he window and simir kinds of posters as in the building where they had slept.

  Inside were long rows of empty shelves once more. Huge bins and crates y empty, and strange, eloables were covered with items from the Old World.

  They searched the entire building. It seemed to have once been a ste pce for various objects, but there was absolutely nothi. Certainly no food.

  Arada found it hard to imagine what this pce must have looked like once.

  "So, this pce used to be full of food?" she mused. "How did people even mao make so much?"

  Irgos had no ao that.

  In the end, the building had nothing useful to offer. They stepped back outside and tried the buildio it.

  This one was even rger. Uhe previous building, however, the shelves were actually filled—but not with food.

  Long, tall shelves with seven tiers lihe walls. In the ter were smaller shelves, about half as tall.

  Every one of them acked to the brim with books.

  Arada noticed Irgos's wide-eyed expression. In Overmore, he hadn't known much more than Alexander's small bookcase, where he had spent many afternoons enjoying fairy tales, fantasy stories, and other children's books.

  Shit... Alexander, she thought suddenly. There's no way he survived...

  There were also certain 'educational' books where children of the Old World learo read, write, and do math. Irgos had bee enthralled with these, especially the ones about mathematid geometry. When he'd showo Arada and tried to expin the tents, she'd uood little. In the end, she never got beyond ting, which she didn't mind at all. She much preferred hard work on the fields and spending time in nature.

  But this was different. It was all knowledge from the Old World.

  As they walked between the shelves, Arada waved her hand up and down in front of her brother's face.

  "You still with me?"

  Irgos snapped out of his trahere are SO many," he said in awe, as if he'd pletely fotten about st night.

  Arada scoffed. "Who thought that people had the imagination to e up with this many stories?" she muttered.

  "They're not all made-up stories, sis." Irgos went to a shelf and spotted a title that caught his eye. "Some of these are books from way back. Look!" He pulled out a thick, heavy book and showed it to her.

  "A Brief History of Catsroes," she read.

  He ope. On one of the first pages, the year 1992 rinted.

  "The book is exactly fifty years old," he said in disbelief.

  "What's inside?"

  As she looked over his shoulder, he flipped through the pages. Many of the chapters began with a year, describing major events that had happened in that year, going all the way back to 1452.

  Irgos turo a random year and began reading: "1670: During the agrarian revolution, farming in rural areas became increasingly easier. Thanks to the plow and new seedihods, crops and yields could increase rapidly. Many farmers became more autonomous and no longer needed manual bor. But slowly, a feudal system began to take shape: people started w for ndlords—rulers e ndowners with much power. In exge, they received enough shelter and food. With the rise of this…"

  Arada cut him off. "I don't even uand half the words…"

  Irgos ignored her. "This is just too fasating. Cura old us about all the things that happened. I want to know what—"

  "This book is too old for that. The information isn't relevant anymore, and we have far more urgent puzzles to solve. Besides, we don't have time for this sort of thing. Do I o remind you why we're on the run?"

  Irgos nodded, disappointed but uanding. "Alright then."

  Without another word, he put the book back. They left the books where they were aed the building.

  They tried the wo buildings with no success. They had a simir yout with rows of shelves, but they were pletely empty.

  But the fifth building wasy.

  When they ehey saw something lying on the ground. Or rather, someone.

  A skeleton y in a dark gray stain, something green strapped to its back. Something that was familiar from Overmore.

  Arada let out a cry of excitement. "A backpack!"

  She crouched o the skeleton and peeled the bag off its back. Its arms came out of the sockets and colpsed onto the ground.

  "Sorry," she muttered softly.

  Irgos noticed something in the remains of the right hand. He pulled it out.

  Arada saw it too. It was a kh the same gray stains on it.

  "He died here," Irgos cluded, pointing to the stain on the ground. "It's as if he ended his own life."

  Arada shivered but turned her attention to the backpack. "This one's huge. Now we actually carry stuff."

  Irgos poio something like a cushion attached uhe backpack. "What's that?" he asked.

  Arada felt the bottom of the backpack, where a rolled-up mat was fastened with straps. "Ah, I've seen this before," she said. "It's called a sleeping bag. Some people in Overmore slept in these." She detached the sleeping bag and unrolled it. "The idea is you sleep betweewo yers to stay warm at night." For demonstration, she unzipped it. "And when you're done, you roll it up again to carry it with you."

  "That's awesome," Irgos admitted. "People from the Old World were no fools."

  While Arada rolled up the mat, Irgos opehe bag to see what else was inside. He took out ay water bottle, a straransparent bag made of soft, very flexible material, and a small box taining wooden sticks. In a front pocket was a round, bck disk with a red arrow and little lines on it.

  "What's that?" asked Arada.

  Irgos noticed it moving. "Look, no matter how I turn it, the arrow aloints in the same dire. It seems like it's for orientation."

  She followed the red arrow with her eyes. "It's pointing toward Ebrotown. North."

  Irgos pced the items ba the backpack. "Who knows, it might e in handy."

  "Was that everything in there?"

  Irgos nodded. "No food, unfortunately. I could really go for something to eat."

  She pulled the paper from her pocket and unfolded it. "I suggest we keep moving. We've seen enough here: this vilge is as empty as my stomach, and even if we find food from the Old World, it's most likely gone bad." She poio a small dot below Ebrotown. "If we keep a good pace this afternoon, we still reach the south end of this vilge. Hopefully, there's some food left there."

  Irgos nodded again. "And here, we fill the bottle with water." He poio a small ke on the paper. "But what if there's no food?"

  "Then we'll turown upside down."

  "And what if there's nothing there either?"

  She sighed and shoved the paper in his face. "Look for yourself. Ebrotown is a big pce. There has to be somethi." Theucked the paper and the creepy ko the backpack. She pced the gss vial with the liquid into a separate front pocket. Irgos added his half-amulet to it.

  "Alright, let's get out of here," Arada said. "This pce creeps me out."

  As they walked out, Irgos cast o g the skeleton-strewn square. "Absolutely."