Chapter 1: Ava, Nyctophile

   I walk down the aisles, somewhat bothered. It’s cool and all, yeah, but I’m hungry and it’s annoying as hell. You’d think that maybe there’d be something good in this store, but I’ve somehow not found anything. Yeah, yeah, I could grab a thing of chips, or something from the cereal aisle, but that’s the low hanging stuff. I’ve got standards, here. If it’s the end of the world or whatever, then I wanna live it out in the most decadent way I can.

   But, again. It’s a grocery store. I’m not gonna find anything too crazy. And with no lights other than the dim emergency ones, it’s not really the easiest to find stuff.

   Turning the corner to walk down yet another lane, I notice it’s slightly colder. Probably the frozen foods. The power only went out like, a few hours ago, so these things should still be good. Even so, it’s still all gonna need cooking or whatever.

   Another aisle down, and there’s some previously-refrigerated display cases. Cake, it looks like. Those little single-slice packages. They’re still somewhat cold, luckily.

   Finally, something good.

   I take a slice of what looks like chocolate cake from the display, only to realize I’ve got nothing to eat it with. I could just eat it with my hands, but what if it gets on my clothes? It may be black cloth but I’d still hate to get it dirty.

   I walk around a little more, eventually finding the deli section.

   Nice, plastic utensils.

   I take a fork and find a table nearby. The cold metal chair makes an awful noise as I move it to sit down, and the sound echoes over the maddening silence otherwise heard.

   I open the equally loud cake package and take a bite. It’s not bad, surprisingly moist. I take the time to look around a bit.

   Looks like this was a little food court area of sorts. Sure looks lively now, under the shitty lights running on battery backups.

   Come to think of it, why am I the only one around? Outside doesn’t seem any more alive than in here. It’s just the narrow streets, devoid of any motion. All full of fog, unpowered neon signs, haphazardly strung power and data transfer lines, and dim light peeking in from… nothing?

   With how dark it is, it’d be hard to argue it’s daytime, but then again, down here between the tall-rising buildings, not much light makes it, even in normal circumstances. Still, if it were nighttime, without any of the usual lights on, it would be near pitch black. But it’s just a dense bluish haze.

   Hmm. I doubt I’ll ever really figure any of that out. I’ve still gotta figure out what I’m gonna do for the rest of today, however long that is. If there even are days, I guess.

   I stand up from the table. The cake was pretty worth it. Still kinda hungry, so I figure I’ll grab some more things on my way out.

   I lean down to grab my backpack, then walk over to the utensil dispenser to grab a few forks, spoons, and knives for the road. I packed all I really thought to before I left. It’s not like I really knew the extent of what was going on when I woke up, but I think I still got what I needed.

   I look through my bag just to make sure I didn’t lose anything somehow. A flashlight, some batteries, cheap adhesive bandages, a stick of lip-balm, my knife, a few hair-ties, my wallet, a few permanent markers. And my medication. Yep, seems like I’ve got everything.

   I stand up and make my way back to the aisles. I figure I’ve gotta grab some actual food I can take with me before I go. Not even sure where I’ll go, but canned food should be able to take me there. Even then, I could just stop into a little street shop and take something from there. All those little treats have so many chemicals in them that there’s no way they’ll go bad within my lifetime.