In the city below, the people scurried like rats between buildings, avoiding the falling brick and mortar, avoiding the crumbling around them, but most of all avoiding each other.

Had they kept the buildings intact - the libraries, the universities, they would have known about Darwin's theory of "survival of the fittest."  And, to a certain extent, they did know.  But not out of conscious understanding.  Instead, their instincts had taken over, presiding over every decision made.

In a small corner of a small hotel still standing, a young child wrapped in the bedsheet screamed of hunger.

"Shhh, little one, shhh," a young mother urged.  "Please baby, please." 

"There must be more than this"  she thought.  "Certainly someone understands that this is not what is meant to be.  How long have we lived in fear of others, of ourselves?  Someone, somewhere, must understand.  Someone, somewhere, must feel as I do."

Picking up the small child, Angie crooned out the only song she knew, hoping that the anthem of the day would pacify the pangs and fear of her only child.

We are the ones.  We are the ones.

We need no one.  We have no one.

The days are now.  The night is soon.

We are the ones. We are the ones.

Miraculously, thankfully, the wailing ebbed.  Tucking her child into her torn and ragged sweater, Angie cradled him in her arms, rocking him gently, and felt the baby slowly tire, its hunger beginning to weaken its spirit. 

Laying Chaz on the bed, she packed her non-flammable nalcuril bag with the necessities of the day.  Knife. Gun. Ammunition.  Gilded Warding Compass.  And the few rice cakes she had stolen from the neighbour yesterday afternoon as he was napping  by the emptied pool in the courtyard.

"I'll take care of you," she sing-songed to Chaz, "Mommy will help you."

And with her bag over her right shoulder, and her baby on her left, she headed out to look for the food she and Chaz - her baby - so desperately needed. 

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