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On a Sunday, what was considered a day of rest, the world ended.
Unlike popular belief-- it wasn’t a quick end. There were no zombies, no meteor that struck the earth and wiped out most of the population. No, it started with reports of the temperature rising. It started when politicians and internet popularities denied anything happening to make a quick buck. It started with the tide coming in closer, closer, closer until it swallowed up whole shorelines, and there were islands made of trash, and the sky would be an orange fog for weeks at a time and epidemics were being declared left and right-- everything piled on top of each other until the world broke down because it couldn’t take it anymore.
Reality was like this: no Great Extinction was ever just the snap of one’s fingers.
Mornings in the times after the world ends are calm for Puffy. She had a routine, for routines were the only thing keeping anybody civilized in the world. She’d get up from her cot in the tunnel of bunkers and she'd report for breakfast in the cafeteria. They ate rations, as they were still experimenting with farming techniques. Crops like wheat and corn and other fruits and vegetables were no longer able to be grown due to the earth’s temperature. So all they had were tin cans and experiments. Then she’d head to the bunker where most of the children spent the day in. Puffy’s role in this new world was a caretaker for the children. In her past life in civilization, she had been a psychologist, which contributed to her placement here with the children. It didn’t matter that Puffy had survival training and extensive experience in the wilderness-- she’d been assigned caretaker and that was that.
On this particular morning, Puffy ate quickly as she had run a bit late. Sleep seemed to cling to her today more than any other day. Perhaps it had to do with the odd dream she had last night, though it felt more like a memory than anything else. She had seen her mother, who she had not seen in a little over a year, and her brother, who she had not seen in even longer-- they had been frowning while looking at Puffy, as if there was something wrong with her face. Puffy attempted to reach out with her arms, like a little girl trying to cling to her mother, but she had woken up before she could make contact.
The bunker relegated to childcare was all the way at the end of the hall, out of harm’s way. There were two other caretakers in their settlement-- all women, as it seemed the patriarchy did not die when every other marking of civilization did-- and about fifty children all differing in age. Only one to twelve year olds stayed in the daycare-- otherwise, they were deemed old enough to help out around the settlement. Children far outnumbered adults around three to one, and it didn’t help that people didn’t stop reproducing even after the world ended.
Honestly, Puffy didn’t mind the job too much. She liked kids a lot-- she even worked with kids in her line of work-- but Puffy did miss the excitement of life. Most people used apocalypses to unclip their wings and let themselves free, but Puffy found it to be the most restricting moment of her life. If she didn’t value safety, she would’ve left long ago.
Exactly thirty seconds after her arrival at the bunker door was she bombarded by parents shoving their kids into her arms, and the kids that were already there due to their status as orphans were wrapping their little arms around her leg, making it next to impossible for Puffy to move.
Releasing a sigh, Puffy plastered a happy smile on her face as she greeted the kids, her voice pushed to a higher register. Puffy had a naturally deep voice for a woman, something that ran in her family, so she really had to work on a voice to which kids and animals would respond well.
Some kids didn’t immediately approach her. Some were trying to get attention from the other caretaker that had arrived a few minutes before her. One child, a secret favorite of Puffy’s named Michelle, sat in the corner by a cracked mirror a scout party scrounged up a couple of months ago. She held a wooden hairbrush as she looked at herself with sad eyes. She reminded Puffy of herself in a way: she was a quiet child that hid a loud laugh and her hair was a mess of unruly curls, the same as Puffy (the same as her mother).
As Puffy kissed the foreheads of the children and placed the ones in her arms down, she headed over to the corner, greeting Michelle with a grin. “Hi, Michelle. How do you look today?”
Raising her head towards Puffy, Michelle exhaled with a sharp force. “Ugly.”
“Eh?” Puffy replied, kneeling down next to Michelle. She grabbed the little girl and placed her in between her legs, the way Puffy’s own mother did when she brushed her hair when she was a little girl. “You’re not ugly. You’re a very pretty girl.”
“Oh yeah? Then why does Foosh Jr. Keep saying I’m ugly?”
“Um, well, maybe Foolish Jr. is thinking the same thing about himself, and he’s angry. And because he’s angry he’s taking it out on you. Doesn’t make it right, though, okay? It’s good you told me. I’ll talk with him later.” Michelle nodded, a small smile on her face.
Raking the brush through Michelle’s hair, Puffy hummed a quiet tune, imagining she was sitting next to a window and there was a quiet patter of raindrops hitting the windowsill. She imagined the big tree in her mother’s front yard that her brother, her senior by ten years, used to help her climb. These little visions helped soothe the ache in her heart that had been there since even before the world ended.
For the next few hours, Puffy tried to enjoy a mental silence while the world roared around her. Kids had powerful lungs. She played and comforted the kids until there was a knock on the bunker door.
It was odd.
“Ramona? Puffy?” someone on the other side called. Ramona, one of the other caretakers, unlatched the door and swung it open, revealing a burly man Puffy had only ever seen in passing. He was one of the scavengers, it looked, as he had a yellow full-body suit, the hood resting against his back, a mask covering the bottom half of his face, and he was covered in dirty water and mud.
She got up from her spot in the circle of kids and greeted the man, but the man was in no mood for politeness.
The man cleared his throat. “Ramona, I’ll need to bring Ms. Puffy with me down to the med-bunker. I hope you and Ms. Jess can handle these kids on your own?”
“Hal, is everything alright?” asked Ramona.
“On our way through the Kia forest, we heard someone shouting for some help. Upon approaching, we saw a man lying on one of the cars. He was covered in blood and dirt and, and, well, he said he was looking for you, Ms. Puffy.”
“Me?” Puffy echoed. Who in the world would be looking for her? Her entire world existed in this tunnel system of bunkers. She considered her brother for a moment, but Puffy long resigned herself to never seeing him again. If he wasn’t already dead, then he’d never willingly travel through the wastelands for anything, much less to find Puffy. He’d had so many years to do that, anyway.
“Exactly. We brought him to the med-bunker. He’s being treated, but he insisted on speaking with you.”
Sending a furtive glance over to the children, Puffy considered waiting til the end of the day to meet this man. Fifty or so kids against two people was not an easy task. But this man-- he sounded like he was in rough shape, and if he came all this way for Puffy, then it would be better to meet him as soon as possible.
“Alright,” she agreed. “Let’s go.” To Ramona, she apologized with a look, but Ramona seemed fine with it from the beginning. Her co-worker was the understanding type-- that’s why she was put in the daycare in the first place. In her past life she had been just a simple HR employee, and an expecting mother of one. She wasn’t anymore. As they walked, Puffy asked about the traveler’s injuries.
“Namely a cut leg, some rib fractures, and a dislocated arm. Roughed up pretty good.”
“Damn,” Puffy whistled.
The rest of their walk to the med-bunker was silent, save for the sounds of their boots clacking against the concrete and the echoes of their breathing. There was a group of people waiting in the med-bunker, all standing around one bed. They made way for Puffy.
“Hey, Puffs,” someone said, squeezing her shoulder as if they were trying to comfort her. For what, Puffy still had no idea. The further she got into the room, the better she could see the man. He was of average height and build with mid-length blonde hair in a messy and loose ponytail, and startling blue eyes that were reminiscent of the sky in a time that was no longer.
“And you are?” Puffy asked, internally cringing at how rude she came off. She couldn’t help it, though, as the man just stared at her as soon as she entered the room.
“This is Phil,” someone else introduced. “He says he’s from the neighboring Flowerfall settlement.”
“So good to meet you,” Phil coughed out. From the corner of his lip, a bit of blood dribbled down his chin.
“Why?”
He didn’t look like he wanted to say anything else, not with all the prying eyes. Puffy shooed everyone out until it was just the two of them. She pulled up an old chair and sat by his bedside. He tilted his head so he could look at her better.
“You look everything like your mother.”
“What?” Puffy choked out with a startled laugh. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before. When she was little, it was all people could ever say about her-- how she looked like a younger version of her mother. Like they were staring at a mirror or winded time back twenty, thirty years. It just wasn’t something she heard since her mother left.
“--entirely my fault we ended up like this,” Phil continued. It seemed he had continued speaking even when Puffy wasn’t paying attention. “Your mother and I were exploration partners. We managed to pinpoint access to clean, drinkable water below the earth’s surface-- deeper down than anything ever drilled before. If we managed to locate it and get a drill team in, the Flowerfall settlement-- and surrounding settlements-- would be satiated for the next twenty or thirty years. We were almost there, but I was feeling tired and asked to stop for an hour or so. Just our luck that a tide came in with a bunch of debris. We both were hit very hard and I washed up in the Kia forest. She told me you were nearby. She told me you would help.”
Rough and calloused hands poked out of the sheets and attempted to find Puffy’s. She kept her hands still on her lap. How can I help? Phil, I haven’t left my settlement since this all began. You got here safe--”
“Enough time has passed that the tide has receded. You need to go get your mother wherever she is. It blew her east of here.” Puffy shook her head, ready to reject it, but Phil was quicker. “Puffy, I know I’m asking a lot, but she’s your mother, and she needs your help. I know you were raised learning survival techniques, and you were a fencer in high school and taught a self defense class in college--”
“All of that’s in the past. Don’t you know the world has ended? Everyone died, even the people who lived.”
“Look, I understand your apprehension, but I fear you’re the only one who can find her. A child can always find their mother through any storm.”
“Why don’t you go find my brother, then?”
A knowing look passed through the man’s face, as if he was part of an inside joke with Puffy. Your brother? Really? His eyes seemed to laugh at the notion, the same way Puffy felt silly enough for saying something as stupid as that. Her brother? The man that left home at seventeen and never returned, their only point of contact being postcards and newspapers with him on the front page.
“You should know she talked about you a lot. I know you had your differences-- I know you both disagreed on things-- on why she left. But she’s your mother and she needs your help. Isn’t that enough?” And it should’ve been. A small part of Puffy knew that it was enough-- that Phil didn’t even need to give this speech, for the gears in Puffy’s head were already shifting, already thinking the worst for her mother and wishing the best for her at the same time.
She would always look for her mother.
The settlement didn’t take kindly to the news that Puffy planned to leave to find her mother. The men didn’t take too kindly to the news, but the women that were all but strangers to her rejected the idea too. If it wasn’t for the small share of people that remembered her mother, then she wouldn’t even have a basis of an argument. Puffy’s mother had been a valued member of their settlement in the first stages of its conception. The men argued that Puffy shouldn’t leave because she had a duty to stay with the children and she wasn’t suited to leave the settlement-- you were a psychologist for God’s sake!-- but Puffy was steadfast. She took her body suit and mask and suited up. Some of the cooks gifted her three days worth of rations for her journey, which she thanked them with hugs-- and then that was it. She was off.
Right off the bat, once she opened the hatch and left the tunnel system, she was greeted with the barren hills of which they had made a home. The earth was dry and cracked, and there were hardly any plants left to color the ground green. The sky was a perpetual shade of ash and soot. A few feet down would be an ocean where a town used to be-- and further out was the Kia forest, which used to be a parking lot but now was just a bunch of cars floating. Some sank to the ground, but since there were so many cars, a lot of them reached the surface. If that was where Phil was found, it would be a good place to begin her search-- then head east. Like Phil said. Puffy kept to the hills for a while until it was impossible to continue forward without wading into the water. The Kia forest was just in front of her, and she noticed the splatter of blood on top of an off white Kia that was in pretty good condition despite being flooded with water.
Younger cars tended to have that luck. Puffy freestyle swam out to the cars, and when she reached a Jeep she climbed onto the hood before taking a deep breath. The Kia forest wasn’t that expansive, but what lay ahead was a vast horizon of murky blue. Occasionally the tops of buildings would poke out, the bones of a tree uprooted.
In a few hours, Puffy managed to travel two miles before she found a rickety old wooden canoe to make her traveling much easier. She set her traveling pack down and looked for holes before beginning to paddle with the splintered oar left inside. She paddled for a few more hours, vigilant in case she spotted another person, but the world was completely vacant.
Nothing could be heard in this wasteland. Puffy stopped paddling to eat a little, but only ate a small portion of her rations. She didn’t know how long she’d have to be out here and she couldn’t risk starvation. Not when she was already risking thirst. With nothing to anchor her, Puffy drifted east where she noted she was heading into city territory from the crumpled skyscrapers in view. Some were fallen and dilapidated, but a few maintained structure though the windows were blown out and the concrete was slowly eroding by the water. Over the open-roofed (not by choice) towers were tent covers. In other words: civilization. People lived here.
Gone was Puffy’s relaxed demeanor-- civilization was bad news. People-- people after the end of the world could not be considered people, but cruel creatures. With food stock low, people resorted to cannibalism, nonsensical murders, and cruel and unusual punishment to enforce a new world order. She dropped her can of cold beans and picked up the oar, trying to steer away from the city, but luck wasn’t on her side. Of course they had watchers. People with old science equipment keeping an eye on their borders. And of course they spotted her.
They were already paddling over. Puffy had no way of escape unless she started paddling in a different direction, but a basic physics class would tell her that they would reach her despite the speed she was going at.
On their boats Puffy could see a piece of brown cloth with a crudely sewn on ram pattern acting as a flag of sorts. She didn’t know what it meant, but patriotism after the world ends is a very dangerous thing. Sometimes, in the cafeteria, scavengers and explorers would recount their travels to the group, as the sole form of entertainment. Other nights there would be singing and dancing, but it didn’t happen as often as it used to. In their tales, they’d talk about the different groups of people they came across. Not everyone lived in the ground like they did. Not everyone was as prepared. Some lived in the debris of the city while others took refuge on high mountaintops, but their chances of surviving viral disease after viral disease and the terrors of nature were nigh. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, Puffy recalled someone saying something about sheep or rams, but it was all a blur for her.
Right now, they were coming close to her, shouting obscenities at her all in an effort to stop her from escaping their clutches. When they finally caught up, they had a hook ready to attach to Puffy’s boat to theirs and drag her back. They were both men with all types of scars and lesions covering the top half of their faces-- that Puffy could even see. Their body suits were a different color than hers-- which meant they probably weren’t from around here, which was quite peculiar. When temperatures started heating up, the government issued body suits to every state, and each area of the country got a different color. Yellow for the northeast. These men had blue body suits. She could not recall which part of the country got blue.
“Excuse me,” Puffy said as she tried to pull the hook off, but one of them slapped her hands away. “I’m just passing through. Please don’t take me in. I’m just looking for my mother. I’m just looking for my mother.”
They didn’t seem to care. They just rowed her closer to the city, closer to her doom. They made jokes along the way-- obscene jokes, the same kind of jokes she used to hear when she passed men on the street, around the corner, in her workplace, in her home. Oh, her brother used to love those sorts of jokes. She didn’t understand them at the time, but she did now. Puffy felt she understood them more than he did, and more than they did.
Usually what would happen at this point was that she would be taken to their makeshift cell if they were going to murder her, or she’d be taken to their kitchens if they were going to eat her. It wasn’t fact, but it wasn’t conjecture. She remembered a scavenger once came back with a severed arm, and her group told them all that someone sliced it clean off just to eat. It’s a wicked world out there, they said, you’re lucky you don’t have to go out there. The state of their camp wasn’t nearly as dire, upon closer inspection. They all appeared to live in the more structurally sound buildings, transportation just a gondola away, and they didn’t look like cannibals, but nobody ever looked like anything they actually were.
Reaching the makeshift dock, which was just a broken window wall. The men got out first, and they had to forcefully pull Puffy out, as she refused to part with her boat (and her life). Two against one wasn’t a fair fight though. They led her through what most definitely used to be an office building and up a compact flight of stairs until they were at the top floor.
Nothing could prepare Puffy for what lay behind that door. There was a flurry of people running around shouting and demanding and reporting things. At the head of it all was a tall man with a mess of brown curls, thick lamb chops, almost like a nineteenth century madman, and a thin stache across his upper lip. He wore a white button up that was not buttoned properly and a torn brown blazer, rather than the body suits everyone else was wearing. Puffy knew this man-- she knew this man before the world ended. He was the boy that helped her climb branches she could not reach, who picked her up from kindergarten, who beat up her bullies and threatened them with a gun even though they were all under ten. He was a blurred face in her memory and a celebrity among people.
The men pushed her until she was right in front of him, her brother. And when he looked at her… There was nothing. No spark of recognition, no warm feelings of fraternity-- nothing. It was as if they were strangers. And, Puffy supposed, they were.
Only thing they shared was blood. “Please let me go,” Puffy said, trying to keep her voice from sounding like she was begging. She had never begged for anything in her life-- she always fought-- and she would not start now. “I’m looking for someone. It’s urgent. I didn’t mean to get in your territory-- I was trying to leave when these guys picked me up--”
“Tell her to shut up,” her brother ordered. The men did more than that-- they kicked her knee pit and forced her to the ground.
Her brother laughed. The boy that used to defend her became a man that laughed at her subjugation. Would he even know her if she said her name? If she claimed to be a long lost sister? She knew the kind of person he became after he left home-- one of those Wall Street dogs, the kind that bankrupted the sort of people who used to be his neighbors with a smile. She assumed him dead after the last wave of what became the apocalypse, but now he was here, and he had been thriving all this time, and he never came to find her or their mother. What did family mean to a man like that?
Eventually his laughter died down, and he ordered her hood to be removed, though he allowed the mask to stay. Even someone like him was wary of the germs brought by a foreigner. She didn’t used to be a foreigner. All her hair fell down her back in a mess of curls, just like his, just like their mother’s.
“My mother. I’m looking for her. I need to find her; she could be dead,” Puffy tried again.
“Take her away. Just slice her throat and throw her into the water. Teach the people not to come into our land--”
“Our mothers share a name!” Puffy said out of panic. A last resort. Something she didn’t think would work, but had to try anyway. Luckily, this caught his attention. He approached carefully, every step a walking death sentence, and grabbed her chin forcefully, tilting it so she could look him in his eyes. The eyes they shared. “I’m looking for my mother. You know her too. You left us at seventeen--”
Knots like the ones she used to tie on her mother’s boat tied themselves in her stomach as he sneered at her. “You’re Little Puffy?” He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking on it hard and earning a yelp out of her mouth. “Hair matches. Little Puffy, here at last.”
“Now can you let me go?” she requested, breath shaking from the short spurt of pain. “You wouldn’t kill your sister.”
“Oh?” he replied. “And what makes you so sure?” Right. What did make her so sure? He didn’t know her at all-- her life and death was not a matter of his.
“Well… because I’m looking for our mother, and… She found something really important. Something that can ensure the survival of a number of settlements for the next twenty years. But if you don’t let me go, I can’t find her. Y-y-your settlement could let me go, and I can find her, and bring the information back to you. Yeah? It’s a no-brainer, Schlatt. You’d be a fool not to take it--”
“What did you say to me?”
His palm slammed against her cheek, sending the rest of her to the ground. Her face was burning and she felt like she might’ve been concussed, but she hid the pain by biting her lip and pinching her fingertips. She would not show weakness.
“Anything I said is just a fact.”
This did not settle him, but he didn’t hit her anymore. “I let you go, you get mom, and then what? I can’t trust you to come back with that secret of yours. No. No, I’ll go with you.”
It was off-putting, if there was no other word to describe it, to go on this sort of journey, one might’ve called an adventure two or three years ago, with a man that used to be a brother and was now just a stranger. A stranger that had slapped her in front of so many people. A stranger that never called; not once. She tried to dissuade him from coming, but he was adamant. His followers tried to dissuade him, suggesting they go in his place, but he was steadfast. If Puffy didn’t know better, she could’ve sworn she saw a piece of their mother still in him. He suited up in a yellow suit-- he never left the northeast. She told him what Phil told her, described things the way he described them. She told him how it was likely their mother continued to her destination despite her injuries.
“That old thing?” Schlatt scoffed, referring to the cave in a nearby mountain she spoke of. “That has this precious fuckin’ water source? Come on. Come fucking on, that’s like half a day’s trip from here on a boat.”
Was it really that close? Were they all just an arm’s length away from each other and didn’t realize it? Perhaps it was a willful ignorance on all their parts.
All of Puffy’s belongings were moved to a boat in better condition, and they set off in complete silence. Puffy cleared her throat. “Aren’t you worried someone will throw a coup or something like that while you’re gone?”
“Shit, if someone had the balls to do it, I’d shake their hand and then slit their throat. Everyone in that settlement’s my bitch. They know who’s the big guy.” Puffy stared blankly ahead, not knowing how to react to his callousness. The sun set at the halfway point, so Schlatt stopped rowing and they decided to nap before continuing when it was light again.
“Let’s see,” Schlatt murmured as he rested his head on one of the benches, parts of their bodies left with no support. Puffy laid the opposite way so her feet were facing Schlatt’s head. It wasn’t a problem since she was just about a foot shorter than him. “You’re… what, twenty? Twenty-two?”
“I’m twenty-six.” Of course he didn’t know her age. It was a miracle he remembered her age. “What are you? Eighty-one? Eighty-two?” Schlatt snorted but did not respond, and this engendered Puffy to keep talking even though she really should’ve been getting some sleep. “You know, you really made mom sad when you left. And then you didn’t call, didn’t write-- you just disappeared. Seeing you on the news and magazines-- it was hard for all of us. Well, not me. I mean, you’re a stranger to me. But mom only had me left to comfort her--”
“Know so much about me, huh? You were a fetus when I left, so maybe you don’t know, but it wasn’t my choice. That bitch kicked me out. The only reason I’m doing this with you is to get fresh water and make sure if she dies, it’s on my watch.” While cruel, his words didn’t seem inherently truthful. “If you and her are so fucking close, why are you chasing after her? Why weren’t you with her?” Puffy stiffened at the question. Schlatt tapped her shoulder with the tip of his boot. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to say-- I know. She got tired of you too, didn’t she? Or was it the other way around? What was your fight about, huh, Little Puffy?”
“Enough,” she mumbled, turning on her side despite the discomfort she faced. She wouldn’t subject herself to this.
The morning came and their journey continued. Every now and then, Schlatt would ask Puffy a question about herself. What she used to do, what she did now-- did she have a special someone? Kids? She didn’t know why he took a sudden interest; he didn’t seem to know either. He didn’t do anything with the information, just stored it in his brain-- maybe blackmail material, maybe just to have as a fun fact. There were things Puffy wanted to ask him as well-- she wanted to say she was sorry about the loss of his son, Tubbo, who died in the early waves of viral tropical diseases. That was her nephew after all. She wanted to ask about the mother, how he got his businesses to be so profitable so young, why he never called. She kept her questions light and shallow. He did the same.
Out in the distance was a hazy, jagged mountain top. Just like Phil and Schlatt had said, there were dozens of cave entrances, but some of them were no doubt flooded. Her mother would’ve had to have specific swim gear-- gear that was hard to come by these days-- in order to go deep enough to find the clean and fresh underground water.
“Hell,” Schlatt breathed as he took the sight in. “Yeah, if she’s anywhere looking for water, she’d be here.” It’s funny how well a son could know his mother even after years of animosity and disownment. She was still his mother, the same way she was Puffy’s.
As they waded closer to the mountain, Puffy expressed a certain nervousness. It was a moment of weakness, one she never meant to show Schlatt of all people, but her mother was a figure of fear and comfort in her life, even as an adult. She was someone who guided Puffy but she still had to be guarded against. Mothers were figures of intense contradiction. Seeing her again, after these past few years-- what if she didn’t want to see Puffy? Worse, what if she came all this way and she died of her injuries? What would become of her? No doubt Schlatt might try to kill her because he lost his fresh water source. That didn’t worry her too much. She could take him. But how was she to deal with a dead mother when she was convinced her mother was immortal?
“Very few people die on my watch if I don’t want them to die,” Schlatt said, almost as if he was trying to reassure her.
“Eh?” Puffy replied with a tilt of her lips. “I could’ve sworn you wished her dead just a few hours ago.”
“Oh, don’t we all wish our mothers dead at some point in time? Maybe I’ll be the one to kill her-- just not until I know she’s alive.”
No, Puffy wanted to argue, no, I’ve never wanted my mother dead. But that wouldn’t be true? There were moments when the world ended and the two of them found a community in the bunkers that Puffy envied her mother’s leadership abilities. The way she could take charge and get what she wanted. Had Puffy been able to do that, she could’ve been a scavenger or an explorer, not a caretaker. To the point where she convinced herself she could never be like her mother because all she was was a caretaker. Yet here she was, in the mouth of a cave, about to save the very woman who was everything Puffy wanted to be and nothing like her at all, save for physical features. Puffy wanted her dead so she could keep her face and mold herself into her mother, but that was impossible. Daughters would only ever be terrible copies, until the whole line is a bastardization of a progenitor.
Envious women would never be more than what they were.
Puffy waded forward into the cave.
Little to no light was available in the cave, but Schlatt solved that-- he had a flashlight. With real batteries. And it worked. This was unheard of in these end times. Well, of course he’d have a functioning flashlight-- he’d been a rich bastard in a past life and he’s a powerful bastard in this one. They hit land a couple of feet inside, so they dismounted the boat and continued forward. Every now and then Schlatt would flash Puffy in the face with the light, just for fun.
“Are you going to do that until you run out of battery, or are you going to take this seriously?” she grumbled.
“Can you pull that goddamn stick out of your ass? God, it’s not that serious.”
“Enough. Let’s call for mom. Mom! Mom! Are you in here? Mom!” Puffy shouted, cupping her hands around her mask.
“Wooow, you know, I think that’s really gonna work. Let’s just keep doing that; I’m sure she’ll answer some randos calling out.” His tone was as condescending as the look he gave her, but she soon lost sight of it when he once again shot the light directly in her face.
“Ha! Okay, so what do you propose, jackass? You know, who’s to say she’s even in here?”
Earth shook above and below them as Schlatt threw his hands up in the air, casting the light on the ceiling. “ You did! You and that fucking weirdo that you said was traveling with mom.”
“Really? It was a guess! She could be anywhere--”
Echoes of their fight caused a crumbling sound to come from the walls and the cavern ceiling. The two siblings looked at each other, and then up.
“We should move,” Puffy suggested.
“Eh… I don’t kn-- well, if you say so.”
Beggars could not be choosers. They sprinted down the tunnel, and when they were hit with a crossroad, they chose the left tunnel even though they had nothing to go off of that would even suggest their mother was down there. Perhaps it was a gut feeling. Perhaps it was the inexplicable tie a mother has to her children that led them down that path.
Even through the cave walls, they could hear falling rocks, and they were lucky they managed to escape it, though it was peculiar it chose now of all times to start cracking. Some would say the sounds of their fighting cracked the tunnels, but they would deny it.
Long was the walk down the tunnel, the flashlight flickering every now and then. As they descended, the rock and dirt that made the ground became muddy, and it was clear they were going to hit water level soon. It could be good and bad news. Water level would be a good place to find their mother, but it also meant if they didn’t find her, they couldn’t go any farther.
On their side, just this once, was luck. Up ahead, the flashlight caught wind of a boot, its scope lifting and landing on a muddy and torn yellow bodysuit, long puffy curls and the same brown eyes the other two humans in the tunnels had. “Mom,” Schlatt said before Puffy could even move her lips. She was stuck in place, same as her brother, just staring at their mother, who was reaching her early seventies, with blood on her face, a broken arm, an eye swollen shut. She’d never looked worse, but she’d never looked more like herself.
“Not possible,” their mother laughed, wincing when her ribs rubbed her insides the wrong way. “Schlatt?”
“Great,” Schlatt deadpanned, glancing at Puffy. “Now she thinks we care about her.”
“Extraordinary that you can see your mother after twenty years of being away and you’re worried she thinks you care. Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone would be fooled.” She fell to her knees by her mother’s side, checking her up and down for any hidden injuries, but her mother swatted her hands away.
“Don’t bother. I know my body-- I know where I’m hurt.” Her tone was much more coarse with Puffy than it was with Schlatt. Familiarity does breed contempt. It was what drove Puffy’s mother away from her in the first place. It had been an argument about life and directions, and Puffy had been too timid to say she couldn’t be a caretaker for the rest of her life. So her mother left.
“We need to go. You need medical attention. Phil’s back at our settlement--” she said our like her mother still belonged there-- like Puffy still belonged there. “--he’s back at the settlement getting treatment. We can get you some there too.” Schlatt stepped forward.
He sighed, taking off his hood and running his gloved fingers through his unruly curls. “Don’t need to go that far. We can just go to mine.”
Extremely predictable to the end. “You’ll get the stuff you want, Schlatt, but mom really needs to be looked at--”
“Really? You think I’m bringing the bitch back for some water? Jesus, just-- just--” Schlatt didn’t finish his words. He bent down and helped their mother up, putting her arm around his shoulder. It was a little awkward considering Schlatt was almost two heads taller than her. They began to walk, not waiting for Puffy to follow.
Endings like these were familiar to her. She recognized backs better than she did faces. They were leaving her behind again. Everyone did. Puffy was despondent as she trailed behind them, always two steps behind.
Where the rocks fell, there was a small dust cloud and a short half wall, a pile more than anything, blocked the exit. Nothing they couldn’t climb over. Puffy hardly realized she was moving, too wrapped up in her thoughts. Puffy would return to her settlement. She’d tell Phil where her mother is and he’d leave too. Things would return to normal, but Puffy had now tasted the danger that came with outside, and she knew her worth now. She didn’t think she could go back silently.
“Ebony was the color of your father’s hair,” their mother said suddenly. Puffy glanced up. “You both took more after me than you did him. I wonder if you blame me for that.”
“Fuck you,” Schlatt replied, humor in his voice as he set her down in the boat. “You’re playing victim now? Pretending to be some harmless old lady-- you’re not George Bush.”
“I blamed myself for not taking after you before,” Puffy confessed, standing in front of the tip of the boat, not ready to get in. Not ready to leave this moment behind. Schlatt grabbed her wrist and pulled her in unceremoniously. Puffy struggled to find her footing until she managed to softly land on the bench in the rear of the boat. Schlatt threw her a paddle. “Now I don’t know what I am.” She couldn’t return to her settlement. It wasn’t a matter of feasibility, but rather a strong urge to never return to that place where she felt so stifled in the name of security.
Then she looked at Schlatt, who had his eye on their mother with no malice in her heart, and Puffy wondered if he’d find it in her heart to be her brother again. Puffy’s mother grabbed hold of her hand. “If you don’t know what you are, then that means you’ve figured it out. You’ve become a person of your own. And isn’t that a wonderful thing?” Puffy had to defer to her mother’s wisdom once more. It was a heartbreak that found a cure to all her ails. Maybe she’d just go with them. Maybe she’d go her own way. But it was her decision.