01. rain
The air around him is warm and arid when he wakes, like he’s just spent the last five hours baking in an oven. His skin stretches tight over aching muscles as he pushes himself off the pieces of foam he’s been using as a makeshift cot for the last few days now. He’s still tired but he knows he’s overstayed his welcome. Staying longer than a couple of nights in one place is suicide after all. He glances out the hole in the wall that used to be a window, notes the blood red of the sunset, the lack of clouds in the sky. He can’t remember when the last time he saw a cloud was, the last time he felt moisture on his skin. The heat feels neverending, like all he’s ever known. Ever since the asteroid, Earth hasn’t been the same. In the beginning, scientists said it was nothing to worry about, just a couple of degrees, a couple of kilometres. But that was before the sun burnt away the ozone and left nothing but heat and radiation behind. He shakes himself out of it. The past is the past. There’