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"Look for her," said Amy

He made no cry He exited the world in a blink He was there one second and gone the next, plucked into the whirling dust, his body thus to join the ashes of the vanished city

--

And then it was over

For a long time Michael waited The silence see happened, he realized soed There was, all around him, a deep stillness, as if he were alone in the room

He uncovered his eyes and looked

The virals were dead The one that had knocked the pan away lay at his feet, curled in a fetal position The other tere on the far side of the room in a similar posture--even the one with the blade in its eye, froed fluid There was so tender about their postures It was as if, overcoone to sleep

He used the stove to pull hi the trail of his own blood He took a scarf fro, and ventured outside A low evening sun, punching through the dust, flared the clouds with color He made his way east to Lafayette Street and turned north It wasn’t until he’d traveled another block that he knew for certain what had happened

The virals lay everywhere On the sidewalks On the street On the roofs of old cars All in the same fetal posture, curled like children in their beds, worn out by a too-long day A sight less of death than of a vast, collective repose Their bodies, like the city of which they had so long been a part, were crureat, sad, and joyous wonder, too heavy for oneof destruction persisted For months, years, centuries even, the i itself into the sea But now, as Michaelthe bodies, an infinite quiet prevailed, the world pausing in acknowledgment, history held in ti he could He fell to his knees and wept

--

Peter had begun to die

A hi Soon it would be gone

Don’t leave me She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek; his flesh was growing cold The muscles of his face relaxed toward death Please, she said, and shuddered with a sob, don’t leave oodbye, yet the prospect was unendurable; it could not be accepted There was a way, perhaps The gravest act--a betrayal, even Sheoutside her body, watching herself, as she took the shard of glass froe across her palathered in a rich, crimson puddle She took Peter’s hand and did the saainst her own and ether She felt a tiny twitch; with accuers over the back of her hand

She closed her eyes

83

At the top of Central Park, away from the destruction, Amy and Michael pitched their camp It had taken them nearly a week to find each other; the center of the island was blocked by i of the sixth day that Ahostly figure, covered with ash By this tione; her presence, her spirit, these were nowhere in the world Still, when Michael told her what had happened, the reality undid her She sat on the ground and wept

--And Peter? Michael asked tentatively

Not looking up, Amy shook her head No

They reather supplies Michael slowly regained his strength Together they constructed a siame Elsewhere in the park they found a variety of edible plants, even solossy fruit Michael worried that the water in the reservoir would be tainted by seawater, but it wasn’t; they retrieved the water filter from the Nautilus to clean it of debris Fro’s collapse, followed by a silence that seemed somehow deeper in the aftermath At first this unnerved the even to acknowledge

The days were long, the sun hot One earlythey awoke to a blast of thunder Storh the city When at last the sun returned, the air was different A sparkling freshness lay upon the park, dust washed from the leaves of the trees