The Road Sequel Fanfiction

The Boy

The black rotting root came out of no where catching his old worn boot in it grasp. He fell and tumbled down the small slope. It took all of his strength to get up and stagger forwards. They were coming. It was all that he could think about. Don't think about what they will do. Just run. If he did not move faster and find somewhere anywhere he would be caught. The grey ash was kicked into the air from his frantic footsteps. There was no where to go, he was in the forest with nothing but a knife and his clothes. His limbs burned with Lactic acid as he struggled to run. His body was skinny and malnourished. Every step moved his muscles closer to cramping and seizing up in an utterly painful tantrum at their mistreatment. The dead trees blurred past like they did in the vehicles of long ago. His frantic breaths misted before flying past as he ran on. He could hear them crashing through rotten leaves and layers of ash. Or was it his mind. He had to get away. He had to get away. Death wanted him and he wanted death but not in this way. He wanted it under his terms. Only then would he let Death greet him like an old friend. Only then would he see his father once more. He talked to his father now.
Please. Please. Please. Where do I go? Where do I go? Tell Me!
He was almost in tears. He was panting too hard now. He couldn't fill his lungs. He was slowing down. His hunters were closing in. Or was it his mind? His head was throbbing. The pain in his legs was unbearable. He would fall down soon and he would stay there until his hunters took him. Another root. Bam like that he fell down and down. He crashed into the leaves and he kept falling.
Out there was the gray beach with the slow combers rolling dull and leaden and the distant sound of it. Like the desolation of some alien sea breaking on the shores of a world unheard of. Out on the tidal flats lay a tanker half careened. Beyond that the ocean vast and cold and shifting heavily like a slowly heaving vat of slag and then the grey squall line of ash. He looked at the ocean. His father stood beside him. I'm sorry it's not blue, his father said. That's okay, he said.215
He coughed with what was in his lungs. He was buried under soft ash. He clawed towards the air to refill his exhausted lungs. He reached far enough to see the bleak grey skies before slipping away once more.
The Woman and the man were fighting again. He could hear them through the deteriorating walls. They fought more and more. Ever since the Girl had died they had been fighting. The Boy would only cry when he heard them. He cried often, he had cried when his father had died, and he had cried when the Girl had died. Not as much for the Girl. The Girl had gotten sick she had cried as the end neared and begged for them to hasten it. She had cried for them to stop forcing her to live in a world she wanted to leave. The Girl had taken action himself then. She had walked with the last of her strength to the kitchen and had taken a knife and had walked back to bed where she died. He sighed and turned over in his sleeping bag and tried to sleep. Sleep greeted him kindly. He hoped death would do the same.
He jolted awake. He noticed that he was in a pit of ashes. He was at the edge. He must have woken and passed out without remembering. He was hungry. His stomach was roaring and cramping in opposition to its abuse. Death was near. It tasted like candy and was transferred through the ash coating his mouth. The pit was full. There were burnt husks of buildings nearby. His Father had told him of places like these. They were used in the earlier stages when disease ran rampant to help hold the sick and to try and treat them. A waste. To him it was a waste as most people died and were thrown into pits like the one he currently resided in.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. He should have left years ago when tensions had begun. He had known that it would explode. He should have left with the man who had found him. He had known. He had just denied the fact. Ignorance was Bliss. It was devilishly tempting and he loved its sweet nectar. Now it had come back and blown up in his face. The boy was curled up in a ball bawling. Idiot was making too much noise. He was angry he needed to do something. Those Idiots. They just couldn't wait. They had to do it at the worst possible time.
shut up.
The boy just cried even more.
Shut Up, He commanded. The boy only cried even more in his hole of self pity.
SHUT UP! He screamed at the pathetic ball at his feet. At this the boy stopped but only from the sheer terror. He had rarely and almost never talked let alone raised his voice.
The Idiots couldn't have made a worse decision. His mind was racing. He couldn't think right. The adrenaline and his nerves didn't help. All he could remember was a series of blurring images and pain. Pain. He remembered the two Idiots fighting. They could have gotten away if they hadn't been so STUPID. The man had pulled out the detonator and activated it against the will of the whole group. They could have gotten away and done it if they hadn't stopped to argue. He had been thrown away along with the Boy. The Man and the Woman were both dead. So much for her and her God.
He crawled over the edge of the burial pit. The shells of buildings were nearby. The buildings might have something that he could use or something to eat. The thought of food threw him into another painful fit of stomach cramps. He heaved emptily trying and failing to throw up. His breathing hurt. The Adrenaline that had sustained him for so long was wearing off and he could feel the concussion from the explosion and the stresses of running. He tried to stand but only succeeded in painfully flopping onto his side. He forced his hands into the long untouched ash and into the hard soil. He crawled so slowly it was as if he wasn't moving at all.
They set out across the fields wrapped in their blankets, carrying only the pistol and a bottle of water. the field had been turned a last time and there were stalks of stubble sticking out of the ground and the faint trace of the disc was still visible from the east to the west. It had rained recently and the earth was soft underfoot and he kept his eye on the ground and before long he stopped and picked up an arrowhead. he spat on it and wiped away the dirt on the seam of his trousers and gave it to the boy. It was white quartz, perfect as the day it was made.203
He was halfway there. So close. So close to nothing. In all likelihood there was nothing in the wrecks that had once been used to treat the sick. He felt sick. His stomach was doing somersaults. He wished that it would end. It wasn't like the stories he had been told. The end was coming slowly and violently. There was no peace to it it was painful and his body would not give in. He sobbed dry sobs as his body tortured itself even more to try and stay alive. He crawled the only thing that could save him from the agony was food or death. He knew he would not get both. Only fools and the greedy thought they would receive both.
He awoke his head throbbed the explosion had damn near crushed his skull. The Boy was next to him. He slid over to him. He stood. He shook the Boy. Get up. Get Up, He said. The Boy stirred. He hauled the Boy to his feet. RUN he yelled to the boy. The people they were targeting for the explosion would soon make them the target if they didn't disappear. The Boy wouldn't move he only shook and whimpered. He Grabbed the Boys wrist and hauled him into a stumbling run. SNAP! A gunshot he felt a sting on his arm. He spared a glance and saw a man and knew that soon he and the Boy would be dead. The bullet had skimmed his arm barely leaving only a tear in his sleeve and soon if he lived a bruise. He had gotten a lot of them in recent days.
He woke again this time in a wreck of a house. He didn't remember crawling in. The warped boards stuck out from the rubble like fingers reaching for him. He moved slowly towards the rubble. Maybe there was something.
They had run until they had come upon a town to hide in. They had immediately hidden in the largest building. They needed time more than anything else. They needed time to think and time to react. They were on their heels in a brawl. It wasn't supposed to be them reeling from the explosion. They could have pulled it off. He could feel the panic reaching for him. The anxiety was tightening its crushing grip on his heart. His stomach was sick. The Boy was sitting in shock. He didn't make a sound. It wouldn't last. He knew the boy and as soon as the shock began to wear off he would break down. How far this time? The Boy had just lost the rest of his family.
The ash fought against his fingers as he pulled weakly at the rubble. The ruble had yielded nothing of use. He was slowly fading. He didn't know if he would or could wake up if he passed out again. His head throbbed. His throat was dryer than it had ever been. His throat threatened to stick together. He pulled more ash and burnt chunks of wood away to reveal only more of what he had just removed. It was painful to move his hands. He could feel the joints in his hands grinding together. The pain of this slow death was agonizing He knew that he would not escape the enroaching death headed his way.
He left the Boy. The thing that was left wasn't human. All it would do is howl in agony of its life as images and memories of pain ran through its mind. There would be only death for it. He put it to use to slow down his hunters. He ran away into the nearby woods. They would provide some way of escape.
The sky was darkening. There would soon only be the life leaching cold that had already taken so many. Its thirst would not be sated until there were no more lives to consume and then it would consume itself. After that there would be nothing. Only the ruins of a civilization that had consumed itself. The ash was cooler to the touch, his hands harder to move. The thought that he would die alone and in such horrible pain made him wish that he had simply died in the explosion and made it easier. No, he should have laid down next to his father and put the gun to use. He should have ended it all there. Then he wouldn't have felt the pains of life. He wouldn't have felt the pains of his innocence being sucked away and the person that his father knew and protected being taken away with it. He wished for the end but he still fought against it, mindlessly.
Time passed he could feel his fingers growing numb. First the tips, then the fingers, soon his whole hand. He might freeze before he starved. That was a possibility. It was just as painful. First he would be numb but then his nerves would light on fire as his blood only flowed to his major organs. His father had told him this once. Long ago. The pain would be unbearable and the pain inescapable. He knew that soon after the body would panic as extremities included his head. The blood would flow to his extremities again. he would feel warm all of a sudden. Then he would die soon as the heat flowed from his body, his blood froze, and his cells burst with the sharp icicles forming within them.
He used a piece of wood to dig instead of his bare hands. He chipped at the incredibly cold ash. The air misted as he breathed. He buried his mouth into his torn jacket. Breathing the warmer filtered air would help to slow the freezing process. The end was coming. He forced himself to breathe as he began to sob. He wanted to die. He wanted to live. He wanted to eat. He wanted to sleep. He wanted the world. He wanted nothing. He wanted to be able to think. He wanted to be numb. He wanted to feel. It was flurrying. The light grey snow drifting slowly towards the black ground. The sky was rolling with clouds burdened with the snow that it could no longer hold back.
He fell to his knees. His eyes drifted down to where he had been digging. There at the edge of the excavated area was a shining dot. He moved his frozen hands and used the stick and chipped away at the hardened ash. The strokes of the plank were slow, weak, and pitiful. slowly he revealed a whole can. The paper that told what it contained was burnt away. His hand tore from the stick leaving chunks of frozen flesh behind. His other hand did the same. He grabbed the can from the tomb of ash that surrounded it. His other hand fumbled for his knife. He stabbed the can with all of his strength. It barely broke into the can. The Knife sawed into the can slowly. The lid peeled back to reveal the peaches within that looked the same as the day they were shoved into the can. He brought the can of peaches to his cracked lips. The tough edges cut his lips but the contents and the taste of the sweet peaches made him focus purely on the life saving force that it contained. The can was drained quickly. He could feel his body thanking him. He could feel the movements of each slice as it slid down into his stomach. He smiled to reveal his grimy teeth. The happiness made him feel warm.
He looked back at the mold that the can had left after he had dislodged it. He began to dig again. This time laughing in crackling way. He couldn't stop himself. He laughed at the world. He laughed at the Gods and their cruel sense of humor. He laughed at the other humans and how each and every one of them were pitiful vermin, himself included. They had become the rats that they had once killed for being in their home. Now the Earth had done the same. He laughed and he only stopped to devour the cans he found. He had been renewed. Renewed by the Gods. The was filled with the fire that his father told him he had carried. It flowed through his very veins and every pore on his body. He was the child of this disaster. He was the very essence of what the world had become. He Was The Fire.

Authors Note
In this story I intended to highlight what the original story told. How it told of the endurance of the human mind and of the body. The story is meant to show not only the endurance of the mind and the human body but what happens when it is pushed too far. Even when he had found the cans of food that would sustain him his mind snapped. The relief at the salvation that the food brought was too much for his mind which had been pinpointed on the fact that he was dieing. The emotions that were running through his mind drove him insane before he started thinking of the world and being its child. His sanity had in fact ended just as the tainted snow had begun to fall from the sky. Seeing and being able to open the can had just been the draining away of his sanity and the aftershocks of its destruction. One mind can only stand so much before it will snap. Even if the last straw is something positive if it is too powerful it will destroy the humans sanity. Everyone has their limit and everyones limit is different. The main character in the story had a strong and calloused mind, as would anyone who has seen unnumbered dead and horrifying scenes of cannibalism since the day that he can remember. He had to live through the death of his dad and everyone he was close to. The explosion may have done something to his brain but overall the emotions were too much in too little time. The snow that falls from the sky that is tainted grey from the pollutants in the air are a symbol of how his mind had become tainted and the sudden change in his mind and also the fact that like the snowflakes, he never had a chance. The story in a simpler sense the story gives the reader an idea of what happened after he met up with the new group with the kids that he had only dreamed of. Certain parts are hinted at and others are told but most is left in the shroud of mystery much like the original book.