Lily didn’t exactly know her way around, so she simply drove. Through the suburbs the streets were almost entirely empty, but by the time she got onto the freeway there were occasionally other cars around. All of them were empty, of course. Most of them seemed to have drifted off the side of the road and stopped, but a few were still in the street. A couple of them were still running, but presumably would be running out of gas in the next few hours.

One car was just a still smoldering shell. Lily stopped to examine it. It seemed like it had run into the barrier along the side of the road and ignited. Fortunately it hadn’t spread. “Is this what started the other fires? What the hell happened?” Somehow vocalizing her thoughts helped her feel less alone. But, the mystery was real. What HAD happened? Judging by the posts earlier and the amount of cars on the road, it happened around three AM. In some ways that was lucky. If it’d happened at noon, she’d probably need a motorcycle to use the roads, and she didn’t really know how to drive one.

Probably a good idea to learn… but not right now. Right now she had other priorities. LIke… What? She paused to think. There was no active fire spreading near her, so it was as good a time as any. Although it felt strange being stopped in the middle of the freeway. So, she got in the car and pulled it off to the side of the road, then climbed on top of it to sit and think.

What did she need to do, immediately?

“Let’s see. Order of survival! Remove myself from immediate danger? Check. Remove myself from potential danger?” she glanced back at the nearest fire still spreading on the horizon. “I need to find a place to settle that’s safe from the fires until the fires die down. Is there anything I need to have to wait that out? Fine! Basic survival checklist for… three days! Just in case. Shelter away from the fire, food, water, and something to do so I don’t go insane. There, look at me bein’ all responsible. First things first, where do I go?”

She stopped for a second, and just tried to clear her mind of everything but that question. The forest was out. California was notorious for forest fires, and she remembered hearing that they could spread VERY fast. Was there some kind of fireproof building? Maybe tunnels underground? If a fire passed over a tunnel like that, would it heat up? Could she still breathe? No… she didn’t want to find out. She took a deep breath, and let it out. And the answer came to her. She could smell the ocean in the air, even through the light smell of smoke. The ocean. It hadn’t immediately come to her because she didn’t really know how to use a boat, and she’d never owned one before.

But, ownership wasn’t really an issue right now. And she knew how boats were supposed to work. On paper. She’d used boats in video games, and seen them controlled in videos and things. They had that… weird throttle that was like a lever, right? But that’s just forward and back and a wheel. It’s not like she needed to go far or fast. Just out enough into the water to not choke on the smoke or burn alive. That’s do-able, right?

“Okay. A boat! The harbor. I can do this. I’m a good swimmer too. But I won’t need to swim! Life vest too! I need a life vest. They usually have those on boats, right? I’ll look for a boat with life vests. I need food and water, and something to do for a few days. Then I can find the harbor. I- I can do this! I can do this! I can do this. …right?”

The city of Santa Del Mar was small for a city. It was right on the ocean, with a freeway running parallel to the coast through most of the city. It had no particularly tall buildings, but was fairly spread out. It was a tourist destination, so the traffic stopping into the city while passing through would find plenty of overpriced places to stop and eat or buy overpriced souvenirs. The main attraction was of course the beach, but the forests around the city held a number of good hiking spots and little tourist traps as well.

It was a quiet, somewhat idyllic little city. On a day like this, there should be a mass of people laying out across the beach practically all the way along the shore. The single freeway through the city would be so full it was moving at a snail’s pace, and every little shop and restaurant ought to be bustling with activity, conversations, and laughter. The sun was shining, the temperature was lovely, and yet, the city was empty. Almost silent, apart from the sound of the ocean and the few automated devices still making sound.

There were only a few sources of activity. A number of fires had started, and black smoke was billowing up into the sky in those places. There were a total of fifteen already, stemming from kitchens whose occupants happened to vanish while cooking, and unoccupied cars that had crashed and caused chaos. A few of the fires had never gotten particularly large and burned themselves out when they reached roads and other gaps in material they couldn’t cross. But, three of the fires were currently quite large and only spreading faster. The flames engulfed everything in their path, becoming stronger and consuming increasingly quickly.

Apart from the destruction wrought by the fire, there was one point of activity in the entire city. Coming from the inside of a high end grocery store, there was a scream.

Lily pulled up in front of the grocery store. Normally she’d be too poor to shop here, but there was no reason to grab anything but the best goods available right now. So, she’d driven until she’d found an upscale looking area and then looked for somewhere that might have what she needed. It hadn’t taken that long to find.

The parking lot was empty too. Lily assumed not a lot of people had been shopping in the middle of the night. So, she parked right out front. In the red zone. She got a small thrill from being so cavalier about rules that she’d otherwise never ever break. Feeling a little giddy, she turned off the car, and got out. Then, realizing she didn’t have to lock up she left the door wide open.

But, as she walked up to the door she encountered her first problem. The automatic doors didn’t open. Puzzled, Lily took a few steps back and walked up to them again.

“Huh?”

She walked back, and then forward a third time. Nothing. For a second she thought about whether maybe the electricity had stopped working, but that couldn’t be it. The lights were on inside.

“Oh shit! It was closed when shit went down!” Lily yelled in frustration. She marched up to the door and tried to wedge her fingers between the two automatic doors and pull them open. But, it must have been locked or something, because they didn’t budge at all.

Well. They were made of glass. How hard could it be to smash in? She looked around for a rock. Finding a nice stone the size of her closed fist she hefted it up. It had to be at least five pounds. Approaching the doors, she stared for a second, feeling guilty for what she was about to do.

“It’s fine. There’s no one to get hurt, and besides! I’m the girl who parks where she pleases. I can do this!”

She threw the stone as hard as she could at the glass door.

THUNK

It made a pathetic sounding noise, and clattered to the ground in front of her feet. The door didn’t look damaged at all.

“What the hell? Is this some kind of super glass? What kind of glass doesn’t break when you hit it real hard!?”

She huffed, staring at it. For a second she contemplated grabbing the rock and throwing it again, but an image of it falling back and landing on her foot flashed through her mind and she decided to do something less dangerous. Glancing around, she saw a trash can nearby. A relieved smile crossed her face as she walked over and reached to grab it. It was stinky, but it looked plenty heavy, and she could just bash until the glass broke right?

She grabbed the trash can and lifted with all her might! It didn’t budge. Not at all. She wrenched and pulled and heaved! Nothing. A muscle in her back was starting to hurt, so she stopped pulling. Sitting down out of exhausted frustration, she examined it more closely to see if it was welded down or fused to the rock below, but no. It was just too heavy for her. Way too heavy for her to lift over her head and smash with like she had in mind.

“Ugh. This sucks… I don’t want to try and drive my car through it. I need to be able to get around and I don’t have a backup right now. Gotta add that to my list over the next few days…”

Lily took a deep breath, and looked at the sky. It was strange. All day today, looking at the sky felt kind of comforting. Usually it filled her with a deep unease, but because she had so many other things to be scared of right now, her usual fears weren’t activating so much. She laid out on the ground and just stared for a little.

“I wish I could have felt like this before today. Casually outside. Able to stare at the sky with my heart at ease. Maybe today I even could have talked to a stranger. If I felt like this all the time, what could my life have been like?”

She closed her eyes for a minute, and began to think about her current situation. Driving the car through the door was her last resort. But what else could she do? She needed something to smash through the window with. Heavy and blunt wasn’t going to work because she couldn’t lift something heavy enough. Stupid weak body from years of not going outside, she cursed inwardly.

Okay, what might she have in the car? Her suitcase probably wasn’t heavy enough, and she didn’t want to mess with her stuff. Her cell phone still wasn’t letting her unlock it, so she couldn’t look up a good solution online. The car might have one of those car window breaker devices for people to escape vehicles with? Lily wasn’t sure how those worked, if the car would even have one, and if so if it would work on the glass door. Well, worth considering. What else?

Wait. Car tools. Isn’t the tool used for removing tires that plus shaped metal thing? Could there be one of those?

Lily opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet. She walked quickly over to the car and popped the trunk open. At first when she walked back there and opened it she was disappointed. It was almost entirely empty. But then she noticed a little pull cord, and upon pulling it the false bottom opened up revealing a spare tire, jumper cables, a car lifting device and… a tire iron! She nearly shouted for joy. Grabbing it up she ran back to the front doors of the store and took a swing as hard as she could.

THUNK

For a second, she was in total dismay. It didn’t come crashing down like she had hoped. But… there was a dent. A small dent. But a dent. Grinning wickedly, Lily raised her tool of devastation again!

THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK CRASH

The door broke inwards. Not a large enough gap for her to fit through, but from there it was much easier to break it the rest of the way. Once it was clear, she carefully stepped through, making sure not to scratch herself on the presumably sharp edges. And then she was in. The cool air of the air conditioner was blowing down on her, and a stale song from a 90’s boy band was playing in the background. It was perfect.

Lily immediately got to work. Grabbing a cart, she entered the store proper. Twenty steps in, she froze. Lily was awful at shopping. Anxiety started buzzing at the back of her mind. But, usually she was bad at shopping because she was scared of the people that inhabited a grocery store like this. She always felt like she was being judged. Like everyone was staring at her with disdain. Like she was the biggest piece of garbage and everyone saw it immediately when they looked at her. Like they could see the slimy thing she was, and it was obvious to everyone, and she didn’t deserve to be here. How could she dare to step into a place meant for normal people? She didn’t belong here, and it was only a matter of time until—

“ATTENTION SHOPPERS!” The voice called. Lily’s scream almost drowned it out. For a horrible moment everything was terror. She got so scared, the next thing she knew she had fallen to the floor. She was scrabbling backwards towards the door without really hearing the voice at all or processing what it was saying until…

“-Madness! That’s right, starting in fifteen minutes at four PM there will be a special deal at the butcher’s counter! During M-m-meat madness select cuts of your favorite meats will be 50% off, and deli meat will be 25% off! A deal this good is rare to see! Passing on it now would be a huge missed steak! So we’ll sear you up at the butcher’s counter in fifteen minutes! Thank you!”

Lily choked out half of a laugh, and then felt her eyes bubbling over with tears. That had been… SO SCARY.