Josh stood alone.
The blood red sunset cast itself around him, marking him out like someunholy silhouette blasted out on the now barren terrain that lay about his beaten, worn prescence. He looked out to the horizon to see the trees in the distance. The smoke was thinning now, crowning the sunset with a deep orange and purple hue as it spiralled around in an endless circle.
He could feel the sun on his face. It filled his eyes, reflected bronze from his aubern hair. It felt warm and pleasant, like he could feel it in the very core of his being, healing from within.
Peace... The word had sounded so sweet once in his ears, but now... now he wondered if he could ever make it worth the price that had been paid.
He hadn't started out on this God-forsaken crusade. He had never really been one to be prone to acts of heroism for morality, or saving the lives of people he had never met nor would ever know anything of. That realm of thought belonged to Jeeves.
Jeeves... The name reverberated around his head for a moment like an echo of something he couldn't quite remember. How long had it been since he had seen that ever persistent friend of his? Too long...
Friends. Now there was something Josh understood. That was how he had come to be in this mess. If they hadn't taken his friends away he may never have been involved. That said, if he had ignored Jeeves' initial greeting, never taken that official introductory handshake Jeeves did so well, he wouldn't have had friends, and would have gone on contented as he had done before. Mac too. Josh had never invited them into his life... What did they think they were doing... Who did they think they were eh?
But the words found no earth to settle in his mind and grow. He knew, he could feel it lurking in his throat threatening tears of sorrow, he would not have forsaken them, and they would have never left him behind...
The suns healing rays passed behind the forest in the distance.
"Still..." he said to himself. "Gone now".
And he fell to his knees as sobs of a man who had lost that which mattered to him so much racked his body. Jenna's hand appeared upon his shoulder, startling him.
"OOHJAWOTFCHA"
"Ouch." Came the slightly irked response, from within his inexpertly performed silat grappling poise.
Josh let go immediately. Slightly irked was dangerous enough from Jenn... Commodore Jenna Davidson. He dared not irritate her properly.
She had always been strong. The recent years of combat had only served to make her more so, both physically and mentally. Always a soldier... her mother's words too, echoed in his mind.
"They're gone" he said thickly.
"I know." She said softly. She never liked speaking about loss much. Particularly not ones like this. "You gonna help me up like a proper gentleman or what?"
Josh raised an eyebrow and looked down at her. They smiled in spite of themselves. She stood, muttering about the state of men these days and what she would do if she hadn't pledged herself for fighting for democracy rather than her own dictatorship. And the appalling state of affairs things were in when the highest ranking officer in the English military didn't get a big red button to play with. Apparently feeling a bit better for this, she straightened her shirt and said. "Now what?"
They looked behind them once more at the campsite. It stretched for miles in the twighlight. All these people displaced by this conflict. "I suppose we begin the rebuild..." He replied, though he didn't really know exactly what this meant. They couldn't possibly put things back as they had been, most of the infrastructure and technology had been consumed by arms manufacture. And there weren't nearly enough people left to run it all. Jenna appeared to be having the same thoughts; "We're going to have to start back in the dark ages again... but sort of... accellerated, because we know how to do the next bit"
Josh chuckled. "That, and there's no more health and safety people, or at least if there are they have other worries right now."
"What about the others?" Jenna and Josh turned to face their new companion. Bobbin looked at them. He'd gotten older fast. Jenna had laughed at the 16 year old when he said he was coming to. He had done his brother proud though. A little spark of him Jenna thought, remembering Bob's tenacity and determination.
"The others went east," Josh said grimly as the sky began to show its full array of stars.
You couldn't have seen this during the age of cities. But now the blackout that had taken hold revealed the sparkling diamonds that cast themselves across the heavens. Like a great spread of silver powder under a light, the sky glistened. An infinite number, space stretching out forever in the night sky.
"So?" retorted Bobbin. "Heroes come out of even the most adverse circumstance".
"Comic book heroes," replied Jenna. "Movie heroes, James Bond, the Iron Man. They aren't real."
"Maybe." Bobbin said "But the reason they..." he indicated the populace before them "the reason they followed him was because he did what comic book heroes did."
It was true. Thus far their group had enjoyed vastly more than their fair share of luck. Josh recalled how the people of the Americas had pledged to help after He, Jeeves and Mac had taken a mere hundred and twenty one men to clear out the northern lands and returned with only one loss to their count. Josh had expected that frozen wasteland to take their lives. There's always a chance. Always. It just depends how much you are willing to give.
"I'm going east." Josh said loudly.
