Fahrenheit 451 Ending Continuation

Part 1

Montag walks through the rubble, careful to step over detached limbs and trying to find attached ones. Montag and Granger’s crew have been searching for survivors but haven’t found very many. Montag sighs and kicks some loose rubble near him. He finally reached his destination. Millie’s hotel. Montag didn’t know how to feel about her after everything that has happened, but he knows he didn't want her dead. 

The building is half gone and he could hear a soft whimper from inside, giving up hope of being saved. Following the sound, he sees a woman, likely in her mid twenties with her arm caught under a bookshelf. She definitely got a better fate than most. Montag walks over to her and lifts the bookshelf up enough where she can move out from under it. She takes a few steps back when he faces her. 

“I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here with friends trying to find survivors.” She looked at him skeptically. Then opened her eyes wide and looked around at the corpses lying amongst them. A man a little younger than Montag and a child around the age of 5 or 6, huddled together with rubble covering parts of their bodies. The woman crumples to the floor and starts sobbing. Maybe her fate is worse than those around them. Montag walks over to her and puts his hand on her good shoulder. 

“It is not good to stay here. The building could collapse any minute now. We must keep moving and see if there are others.” Montag stops and thinks of Millie. “There is something else I need to check on in this building. I will come back for you in a few minutes.”

The woman simply nods in between sobs and leans on her family, covering herself in blood. Montag walks out of the room and makes his way down a long hallway, peeking in rooms as he passes them. Corpses, corpses, and more corpses everywhere. None of them Millie. He walks past a seemingly empty room until a ring catches his eye. He walks back and picks the ring up from off the nightstand. Millie’s wedding ring. She was nowhere to be seen and seemed to have left already. 

“She’s alive.” he mutters under his breath and lets out a long sigh of relief that he has been holding in since he watched the bombs rain down on the city. He walks back out of the room and back to the one with the woman in it. He stops dead in the doorway and a tear falls from his eye. She took control of her own fate and made it better. Just as he was about to. He bows his head for a second before turning and heading out of the building. 

“Montag!” Granger calls from a few buildings down. As Montag turns to look at Granger he sees a figure in the distance. Because of the dust, he couldn’t make out who it was. After squinting for a few seconds he sighs and turns to Granger who had started to make his way over to him. He assumed it was just one of Granger’s friends. 

“I only found one survivor… but that didn’t last long.” Montag told him. Granger looked at him, then the building he just came out of. 

“That happens too often in this business. There’s nothing you can do. They’re in a better place now. ‘Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.’ That’s what our purpose is. That’s why we’re here.” Granger says as he also bows his head to honor the dead. 

“I suppose. Does it ever get better? Easier?”

“The day death stops being feared is the day it becomes easy to cope with.” Granger says as he turns to one of the men that has joined them. 

“We need some help a couple streets over. Aggressive survivor who is trying to attack some of the boys.” 

“Some people can’t handle grief as much as they used to. Takes over their minds like a virus.” Granger sighs and points in the distance where Montag saw the figure. “Montag you can start searching that area. No one’s been over there yet.” Montag’s heart drops but nods wearily. Granger takes off with the man and Montag swore he heard angry screams from the direction they were heading. 

Montag walks down dark alleyways with his eyes flickering in every direction. He was on edge, searching, scanning for the figure. A creak from a blackened shutter raises the hair on the back of his neck. A squeak from a dying rat behind him almost gives him whiplash. As he turns back to continue his trek through the rubble, he sees the figure a few streets down watching him. With a surge of adrenaline from who knows where Montag starts making his way down the alleyway. 

“Hey! Who’s there?” Montag yells, not taking his eyes off of the figure. As he got closer he could see a bit more of him. For starters he could tell it was a man by his build. Tall with short hair. And judging by the smoke surrounding him like an aura of impending doom; he was smoking a pipe.