Slate pressed his forehead against the cold, unforgiving surface of the glass. He watched everything streak across his field of vision as the bus trundled its way across the emptiness. The road was nothing more than a harsh black line that vanished into the distance against a sheet of white paper. On either sides of it was the dry, sizzling expanse baked by the mid-afternoon sun. It hovered in the sky and glared down accusingly at the boy. Needles of light forked out from amid the glowing mass, fighting a losing battle to reclaim space in the sky, which was obscured by a sepia haze. So this was what the Earth had become. There was nothing here except a sea of memories forever consigned to the void. There was nowhere to go but forward. And that's where he was going right now. Forward. The only place he had left to go. Forward. The only home he'd ever known. Forward. Until he couldn't go anymore.