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There was no hope of concentrating on anything for the rest of the day.
I left work early, taking my first afternoon off in probably the last five years. The security guards at the front desk raised their eyebrows in surprise, but they didn’t say anything, and I was grateful for it.
I was still struggling with what hearing Ryker say my name did to me. I shouldn’t be affected by a man simply saying my name. I shouldn’t let the way he confidently strode into my office get to me and I really shouldn’t be thinking about his hands on my naked skin.
These kinds of things didn’t happen here. Even talk of self-pleasure was extremely taboo and only mildly accepted in today’s world.
I’d tried touching myself once, but I hadn’t seen the point.
I took a deep breath and left the museum. My walk home was only a few blocks, and it was over before I was ready for it to be. When I unlocked the front entryway, I went into the kitchen and just stood there for several minutes.
I’d invited him to dinner.
What the hell was I going to feed him?
There were several bottles of unopened wine on the counter, all various gifts that had been given to me at from numerous colleagues over the past several months. I didn’t drink very often, but the sudden urge to enjoy a very full glass rattled through me.
Why was I so nervous?
I opened the fridge and started rifling around. Eventually, I collected enough to start chopping up what would become the fanciest charcuterie board I’d ever seen in my life. One of my favorite cheeses was a local sharp cheddar. Supposedly, it was a recipe that dated back before the cyberwar and the Fall.
I didn’t have enough to make a full dinner, so I ordered a few groceries to be delivered to my door within the hour. Several hours later, I had a bottle of red wine opened and decanted, two nearly overflowing acai bowls and a beautifully presented charcuterie board all set up on the largest cutting board I owned.
I glanced at the clock in my foyer. It was only five-thirty.
With a sigh, I got a glass out of my cupboard and poured a small bit of wine into it. I sat down at the kitchen table, trying to figure out what I was doing and how tomorrow my whole life was going to change.
I’d always thrown myself into my work. In less than five years, I’d risen from unpaid intern to museum curator. I’d excelled at my job and had been rewarded time and time again, both monetarily and with the comforts of life, my home being one of them.
I’d always dreamed of seeing the world beyond the borders of New Englandia even though I knew much of it was a wasteland now—all because of the Fall.
In the late twenty-first century, the world had grown extremely contentious. Country threatened country and cold wars simmered below the surface for years until it finally exploded into an all-out cyberwar, the likes of which the world had never seen. Everything that had been stored in the digital age was lost, forever wiped out. Power grids were shut down for good. Communications faltered. Some people were lucky and could communicate over long distance radio, but those were soon lost as humanity went into a spiraling state of panic. A war that had started digitally soon turned into something real on the ground.
Nuclear weapons were deployed. So many that the records couldn’t quite guess at the true number that peppered the world. Entire cities and whole countries were wiped off the face of the Earth. The only record that remained was their existence on old maps and the occasional reference in an encyclopedia or a textbook.
Food sources dried up. Water was deemed radioactive and unsafe for consumption. Other sources were poisoned. Finding shelter and safety was nearly impossible.
The world collapsed into a state of ruin. For at least a century, the scars of war tainted the land. Society struggled for a long time.
Humanity is resilient, however, and it eventually started to recover. At first, there was a collection of small towns in shoddily fortified safe zones free of radiation, but those grew as the years passed.
Now, a patchwork of city states comprised the world, a confederation of the descendants of survivors that were spread out and separated by vast wastelands in between. Much of the conveniences that had existed before the Fall were reestablished, with some limitations. Electricity, for one, turned off after eleven o’clock at night. Each individual had a daily ration of water and a weekly allotment of food.
It was all meant to keep our city state healthy and sustainable.
World travel was a thing of the past, a rare privilege only entertained by the council and only when necessary. There wasn’t any need for it, really. I had everything I needed right here, but that didn’t stop me from being curious about what lay past our borders.
Even here in my home, there were still scars of the past written deep into the earth. If I climbed up to the roof of my building, I could see the massive perimeter fence that protected our borders. Beyond it, the ground was a dusty bowl gouged out by an explosion from back then, still radioactive enough so that nothing grew anew. I didn’t know what else was out there.
Honestly, I’d never even considered the possibility that I’d ever get to find out.
Someone knocked at my door.
I leapt up to my feet, startled. I nearly knocked over my glass of wine before I set it down and placed my palm over my racing heart.
It was him. He was here.
I groaned inwardly before walking out of my kitchen and over to the front door. It was unlocked. I had forgotten to lock it when I’d come home.
