7.2
Sasha occasionally checked the fuel gauge, which was maintaining a relatively comfortable cushion between itself and the terrifying E for 'empty'. On the road, they'd passed through a few more areas where people had lived long ago, but none had been as intense as the first one.
"Uhh, how far are we going?" he asked innocently.
"Who knows?" Yumi responded.
The medium-sized road had turned into a massive, divided highway, and Sasha was beginning to wonder where they would end up.
He wracked his brains, trying to calculate how far they'd driven. His knowledge of geography was excellent, but the day had been so frightening that he'd completely lost track of time.
"Yumi," he said, "do you know where we'll end up if we keep going straight?"
"No," she replied. "I don't know where the road goes, but I do know that Portland is in this direction. I hope we'll end up there!"
Sasha's mouth fell open.
Oh, she's joking.
He chastised himself for not realizing the obvious, but when he looked at Yumi's eyes, there was something… uncanny beneath their surface.
Just to be sure, he turned to her and naively said, "Portland's a big city. If we're anywhere near it, we should stop or find somewhere to turn."
"Careful Sasha is back!" she exclaimed happily.
She couldn't have responded in a more terrifying way.
Sasha thought he'd gotten to know Yumi's personality pretty well, but this was where he drew the line.
"B-big cities are really dangerous," he pleaded. "More dangerous than you think. We should definitely avoid Portland."
"I know, Careful Sasha," she replied softly.
Only a few minutes later, they had another close call at what must have been a heavily populated area. Thankfully, Yumi simply hit the gas and left any rogues that had begun tailing them in the far distance, but Sasha knew that one populated area would greatly increase the chances of them finding another.
Could we actually be close to Portland? he wondered anxiously.
To Sasha's dismay, the density of trees around them began to thin.
The trees themselves, on the other hand, got thicker. Large fields opened up on either side of the road, containing no more than a handful of these massive stalks of wood.
Sasha had seen the likes of them before.
Suddenly, his eyes were drawn to a reflective red sign that stuck up proudly through the long, brown grass.
He gasped in relief.
"There's a road, Yumi," he said, pointing a finger at the sign, which had an arrow that was directing them towards a much smaller road that jutted out to the left. "We can stop going this way."
"Sasha."
"Y-yeah?"
"You have to leave your comfort zone if you want to be happy."
Sasha's face was wiped blank as he watched the sign come and go.
Debris and plants seemed to magically sprout up out of the asphalt, and Yumi swerved, sometimes from one side of the road to the other, to avoid them.
This road wasn't maintained.
This road wasn't meant to be used.
Sasha looked at Yumi, and Yumi looked at the obstacles in front of her. He saw the glint in her eyes, and, for the first time since getting in that van, his expression softened.
I guess… if there's a cool way to die, this must be it.
If only a little, he thought that he might have begun to understand Yumi.
The van flew between fields and between buildings. As the ground passed beneath him, Sasha felt that he was on a river of time, being carried to his final destination.
He had no control over the water–it simply carried him along at a constant, unrelenting rate, and no matter how scared he was, he wouldn't arrive any later.
After all, he was just a single human being, completely insignificant in the universe. The river would inevitably carry him to death, and that was just the way it was.
He lifted his gun in his hands and put his extra magazines into his pocket.
He knocked out the final few shards of glass that still clung to the pillars around what used to be a window.
"Yumi."
"What?"
"Go really fast."
The girl took his request without hesitation and sped forward into what they both knew was the most dangerous place they had ever been.
Trees lined the highway, shielding the surrounding buildings from view, but they both saw the cars that littered the road. They both saw the chunks of concrete, massive debris, and signs that were riddled with bullet holes.
It was only a matter of time.
Yumi saw the small red laser and ducked.
BANG
Sasha had originally planned to shoot out the window, but when another bullet smashed through the windshield and he saw two other guns tracking their van, he caved to the pressure and dropped beneath the dashboard.
BANG BANG
He'd barely made it in time, but now, both the driver and the passenger in a vehicle that was going over 80 miles an hour couldn't see anything apart from the dusty black carpet on the van's floor.
Yumi, with no other options, poked her head just high enough to see through the windshield and get an idea of what the road ahead looked like.
The highway was straight, but there were plenty of obstacles in her path. Amidst the gunshots, she popped her head up and down, barely managing to navigate the road without dropping their speed.
BANG
"Ah!" Yumi let out a yelp as a bullet pierced through the aluminum door and into her left bicep.
"Are you ok??" Sasha yelled in a shaky voice.
"Yeah." She nodded, briefly meeting his concerned gaze, "I'm better than ever!"
The grin returned to her face and she upped the intensity, weaving between overturned cars and broken traffic signs.
Blood flooded out of the bullet hole in her arm, but the pain was good. It felt good to be wounded again.
"YYAAAAAA!!" she screamed as they whipped underneath a series of overpasses and approached the entrance to a massive bridge. "THEY CAN'T KEEP UP!!"
Yumi sat up a little higher in her seat, feeling quite complacent as they sped onto the bridge. At least for a moment, they would be safe over the water.
However, when Yumi sat up and looked out the window, her victorious grin faded, and her mouth dropped open slightly.
"Sasha," she murmured softly to her companion, who was still in the brace position, hands clasped to the back of his head as he pulled his face down against his knees.
"Sasha!"
Without sitting up, Sasha turned his head towards her. "w-what?"
"Sit up," she said, slowing the van to a roll. "Sit up and look out the window."
Sasha slowly sat up, and then he looked out the window.
What he saw was a landscape of blue; a river that moved calmly, but carried the weight of giants.
Its mass was surely immeasurable, he thought, and he wondered if the creatures beneath its surface were just as tremendous.
Together, Yumi and Sasha gazed at the sparkling river in a trance.
It was perfect–a completely unmarred floor of blue. Although it was in the middle of the most chaotic city either of them could imagine, there wasn't even a single man-made object there to ruin its glistening surface.
Well, except for one.
Both Yumi and Sasha noticed it–how couldn't they, when it disrupted such a perfect existence?
Both of them squinted at it, not saying a word for fear of disrupting the moment. At least, that was how Sasha felt.
"What is that, Sasha?" Yumi asked candidly.
With the silence already broken, Sasha wasn't afraid to reply. "I… can't tell. But my vision isn't good, so…"
"Aright, Self-Deprecating Sasha," she said without taking her eyes off the unidentified floating object, "This is what I think it is:..."
She paused, accentuating the suspense.
"It's a fucking person!!"
Squinting a little harder, she added, "Wait… there are two! They're stacked on a tiny boat, and they're paddling the water with their bare hands!!"
She cracked up as she said this, smacking the window with her non-injured arm and succumbing to an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
Sasha diverted his eyes from the floating people and looked at his companion with concern.
Why is she laughing? he wondered.
Yumi stopped the van and rolled down the window. "OOIII!!!" she yelled, energetically waving her right arm through the window. "YOU GUYS NEED A RIDE??"
Her voice carried, and the hand-paddlers stopped paddling.
They stared up at the bridge, and Sasha could only imagine what they were thinking as Yumi encouraged them to "Climb up."
Suddenly, the person on the bottom began paddling furiously while the person on top held up a peace sign.
"Hey," Yumi giggled as she gave a peace sign in return, "the one on bottom is doing all the work."
"Are you sure this is safe?" Sasha asked nervously. "They might not be good people."
"It's ok, Sasha," Yumi said over her shoulder. "You don't have to worry."
BANG BANG BANG
"No!" Yumi cried as the gunshots reverberated across the river. She nervously peered at the pair of paddlers, but they appeared to be doing just fine.
"Thank goodness," she sighed. "They didn't get hit."
Sasha scratched his head. "Yumi… how do you think those people floated in without getting hurt?"
"Who knows?" she replied. "But they must be insane!!"
That's what I'm worried about, Sasha thought, smiling in spite of himself.
…Maybe I could afford to be a little more like her.
As the paddlers approached, they disappeared from sight underneath the massive bridge.
"I can't wait to meet them!" Yumi declared. "Riiiight, Sasha?"
Sasha exhaled a breath that almost resembled laughter.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I guess so."
Yumi flashed him a grin and thumbs up.
The smile disappeared from his face.
"Yumi!"
"What?" Yumi asked, furrowing her eyebrows at his sudden change in expression.
"Yo."
The deep, tired female voice came from just outside the van's window.