Chapter Text
It is the end of the world.
Or at least it was. Four days ago. Four days ago, when a global pandemic was announced and more than three quarters of the world’s population had died. Four days that Grian had been walking on… and on…. And on and on and on. On day two he had made it out of the city, day three out of the traffic jams, and day four – today – off the main roads. As he slowly dragged his feet along the dusty, broken up tarmac, crows cawed overhead. Circling him like they thought he would be as good as dead any day now. Grian sighed and adjusted his backpack. He didn’t really have an idea of where he was walking to, just somewhere out of the city, away from anyone who could spread the disease. The Georgian flu it was called. It had come out of nowhere; one planes worth of passengers had arrived here in Toronto from watchers know where with it and now… he didn’t know how many were dead. Millions.
The sun glared down on him, slowly turning his British skin a rather horrid shade of pink. He’d forgotten to bring sunscreen.
For the first time in days, he felt like he was actually getting somewhere with his walking, the tarmac slowly became gravel slowly became dirt under his feet. Trees swayed in the midday breeze while the crows still circled lazily. The footprints on the road ahead stretched off into the distance. The footprints on the road ahead stretched off into the distance?! Footprints meant another person, finally company!! Grian picked up the pace and started following the footprints as fast as he could, but after a minute he stopped remembering company probably means flu… but he was four days out of the city and the flu killed people within hours, so it was completely safe! He hoped…
He started running again.
After 10 minutes of running off and on he thought he saw a figure trundling along in the distance, with... what looked like a llama pulling a cart?
‘Hullo! Hullo??’ He called after them.
The stranger turned around, letting the llama graze on the grass growing in the ditch of the dirt road.
‘Why, hello there mysterious stranger! I haven’t seen anyone round here in days! Well… four days. And I haven’t been here long, just passing through, you understand.’
Grian looked a little astonished at the strangers greeting, but replied – a little suspiciously –
‘Uh, yeah. I’m also just passing through, trying to make my way out of the city, away from the disease. I was um wondering, since we’re both out here on our own and that seems a little dangerous, and since if either one of us was sick we probably would have died three days ago, if you wanted to stick together?’ Grian glanced nervously at the person he had just met.
‘That sounds very smart indeed, but why! mysterious stranger, I don’t even know your name! For the sake of introductions, I’m Scar.’ Scar said with an odd smile on his face, Grian didn’t know if it was endearing or suspicious. He decided to go with the former.
‘I’m Grian’, said Grian, offering a hand for Scar to shake.
‘Nice to meet you Grian, I think we shall get along nicely.’