The night was dressed in an odd, raw darkness that scoped the starless sky with its cold tendrils. Like an icy breath, the wind unraveled a young woman’s loose black braid and raised goose bumps along her bare neck. Despite the cold, she had never felt more alive in her life; it was certainly not a good thing. The earth at her feet had turned to mush after a large storm had ravaged the area around her. Kansas City buildings loomed overhead with their structures handing on by a few iron bars hanging here and there. There was hardly anything left of them, if at all, and made the city look like one giant skyscraper grave yard.

Skeletons of all types of creatures covered the floor as well as miscellaneous debris that sought to cut bare feet and trip those who dare try to rummage through the mess. Macina glanced back to a man distanced by a few unspoken thoughts and fifty feet. His eyes were glazed over with memories. Memories tainted with the violence and memories that tore at the seams of his sanity; what was left of it anyways.

When he had finally persuaded her to accompany him back to their home, what remained of it, she had been hesitant and unable to shake the dread that chilled her to the bone. There was nothing left but she understood what he was searching for since it was the very thing she craved. Closure.

No amount of junk piled on top of soil that had seen almost as much blood as she had, would ever provide the answers to the countless 'why's' she shouted at the heavens in confused anger. Everyone had been killed except for the few remaining people left behind to pick up the pieces and to somehow rectify the situation. How the hell were they supposed to preserve the human race when no one wanted their children in this ****?

"Look, Lucy could not touch the cross," Mark commented, picking up a clay cross from a broken windshield on the car at which he stood on. "The irony."

The massive volcano that had erupted in Montana was renamed 'Lucifer' and Mark nicknamed it 'Lucy'. Although, it had not been the direct cause for all of this, it was the first domino to fall.

After the volcano had spewed over, the president denied help to those in the direct path of it's destruction. America was already too popular, so why stop it? Nature would solve the issue.

When the news had spread that no help would be provided by the government, the people came together and rebeled. Two weeks after the volcano, a scientist set off bombs in this country and a few others. It is still unclear why he had done it or who's side he was on and that information died with him.

"Mark," she murmured into the darkness.

"Ready to go?" he asked, moving to her side with the cross still in hand.

The woman nodded, laying a hand upon her breasts as she gazed out across the rubble. Mark followed her eyes and wrapped his arm around her waist. She was not sure if he was trying to console her or if he was merely using her to hold himself up.

This was not the end.

This was Hell on Earth.