I've missed the final war which turned humanity into dust...

I was the last one left alive from my science team.

I've been circling the dead city for days and surrendered all hope of finding another human being.

After my all-terrain Dead Zone vehicle ran out of fuel, I started walking. Walking was an exhausting activity. My feet ached.

The world I once knew lost all sense of balance and slipped into a nuclear winter.

While I contemplated the slippage of the world, I myself slipped on an icy shard and fell onto my butt.

“I GIVE UP…” I sighed, sitting on the snow.

The icy chill of the Dead Zone was digging into my bones, sucking out the last remnants of my energy. This was it. I had no friends. Everyone I knew was in fact dead. I was too tired to go on, too exhausted to move on my own.

Sudden sound of thunder interrupted my snow-nap and then, a song started to flow over the wasteland...

“ALOUETTE, GENTILE ALOUETTE,

ALOUETTE JE TE PLUMERAI.

JE TE PLUMERAI LA TETE.

JE TE PLUMERAI LA TETE.”

Ahead, atop the surface of a downed, decayed airplane, a purple shimmer flickered in the air, revealing a human figure. The figure marched towards me through the sleet.

“BONJOUR, MONSEIGNEUR! ZEE WEATHER IS RATHER LOVELY THIS SPRING, DON'T YOU FIND?

WHY, YOU LOOK RATHER SHABBY! DO YOU FANCY A TASTE OF BOURBON? NO? HOW ABOUT AN EXQUISITE JOB OPPORTUNITY WITH PARTIAL DENTAL BENEFITS AND POTENTIAL CHANCES OF ADVANCEMENT IN ZEE RANKS?”

The blurry thing spoke.

I wiped the sleet off my lenses to witness a tall, trench coat wearing individual.

“You are an odd hallucination.”

I muttered, to which the hallucination responded with:

“I AM ZEE CAPTAIN......ANOINTED SOVEREIGN, EMISSARY OF HUMANITY, PRESCIENT GOVERNOR AND LADY OF ALL THINGS IN CAPTANIA, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL SYSTEM WIZARD!

BEHOLD... CAPTANIA!

YOU HAVE DISCOVERED YOURSELF IN A MOST PROSPEROUS PARADISE NATION OF DIGNIFIED LOVE! CONGRATULATIONS!"

With that, Captain gestured towards the frozen wasteland in a long, dramatic pause.

“Could have also offered me a free coffee.”

I thought with sarcasm.

“IT'S YOUR MOST LUCKY DAY!”

The trench coat boomed.

I lifted a brow, wondering which question was best to utter first. My Directorate issued Dead Zone Tour Guide Emotive-Goggles lifted one of their lenses, replicating my facial expression. Who knew that my "blink-powered" G-Goggles would function this long when all other electronics had given up?

“...So, what am I supposed to call you?”

I asked finally.

“SILLY CHAP! I JUST TOLD YOU! I AM ZEE CAPTAIN!

BUT I HAVE MANY OTHER JUICY TITLES WHICH CAN APPLY: YOUR GRACE, LADY OF THE LAKE, YOUR EXCELLENCE, YOUR AWESOMENESS, ZEE ALL-MIGHTY ONE, OR MY LIEGE... BUT ZEE CAPTAIN IS ALSO A MOIST SUFFICIENT TITLE!"

I stared at the self-proclaimed lord incredulously, it appeared that "Zee Captain" was completely serious. Extra radiation with your fries, anyone? I decided it was unimportant. Lord? Governor? Lady? Captain? Whatever.

"The end of the world isn’t the best time to start getting picky about who you hang out with,"

I thought.

"Besides, a little nuttiness couldn’t hurt anyone, right?"

My own tired mind was acting rather odd. For some weird reason I couldn't even begin to assign Captain a gender, no matter how hard I thought about it.

It's as if something was wrong with my brain, whenever I thought of it, my thought-pattern skipped a beat and simply settled on "Captain".

I filed it under "possible brain cancer/radiation poisoning/extreme exhaustion" and moved on.

“My name is Charles Snippy,”

I introduced myself.

My enigmatic acquaintance wore a respirator, like all humanoids in the wasteland.

Can't survive without one out here. I recalled how one of my tourists took off his respirator for a "breath of fresh air" and then the entire group looked for his nose and ears…

But, Captain's respirator was different.

It seemed to catch the light in such a way that it looked like a perpetual smile.

Tapping it with a finger and pondering, Captain twirled around as if on a ballet stage.

"SNIPPY, HMM?

SNIPS, SNAPS, SNOOPS, SNEEEEPZ, SNIP-PIE, SNAPPER, SNIPPING, SHNIPPENG, ZSHNIPPEH, SNOPPEH, SNAIPPEH, SNIPPEH!”

Captain hummed, testing numerous variations of my name.

I just stood there, listening to that endless rant,

wondering how many more variations of my last name there could be.

Noticing my silence, suddenly, Captain hugged me tightly and proclaimed:

"DO NOT WORRY!

CAPTANIA OFFERS JOBS EVEN TO A SAPPY-CHAP OF PITTANCE SUCH AS YOURSELF! WHY, YOU COULD BE ZEE MOST PERFECT CANDIDATE FOR MY NEW SNIPPING DIVISION IN WHICH A POSITION HAS JUST OPENED UP DUE TO UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES. IS IT NOT KARMA ITSELF THAT BROUGHT YOU TO MY OFFICE, WITH A NAME SO FITTING?"

"Unfortunate circumstances? Karma?"

I muttered.

"FALLING PIANOS DO NOT STRIKE TWICE! OR DO THEY...?"

Captain spoke looking up into the sky, as if expecting something extraordinary to happen there.

I looked at Captain and then, too, looked upwards.

Nothing was there except for gray, thick, stormy snow clouds.

We stood silently in one spot, just staring at the sky, for what seemed like several minutes.

"Can we go now?"

I asked, feeling rather awkward.

"SHHH. Shhhh..."

Captain shushed me.

"YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN ZEE PIANO MIGHT STRIKE AGAIN!"

"Right"

I sighed and shuffled on my tired legs.

"WE MUST DEPART!"

Captain spun suddenly.

"I DO NOT APPROVE OF THAT CLOUD'S STARES!"

"Really?" I whispered with concern for how low Captain's sanity could descend.

"AH, BUT I HAVE ZEE SOLUTION!"

Captain continued, and dug deep into the pocket of the black trench coat, pulling out what looked like... white rice.

"Huh"

I blurted as Captain threw the rice upwards as if this was just a merry wedding party.

Captain's next rice throw went forwards, in front of us.

"ONWARDS! WE MUST FOLLOW ZEE TRAIL OF RICE, MR SNIPPY! BUT TREAD LIGHTLY! MOST LIGHTLY!"

Captain boomed, and marched forward.

“What have I gotten myself into...?” I pondered.

"Good and Evil in Captainland - as elsewhere they occur,

But only here Goodness rules, my dear monsieur!

Very lively stories, on these roads you might meet

Wild imaginations running on long, thin feet!"

Captain was singing softly into my ear, dragging me forward.

Some kind of grayish THING, on ridiculously long legs ran across the road in the fog.

I blinked, and the nightmarish vision vanished.

It was only with the assistance of Captain that I was able to walk forward. My muscles were aching and my face was feeling numb as my feet drowned in the knee deep snow, while Captain's boots, it seemed, barely made an imprint. I filed this fact under my tiredness-related delusion.

Fatigue and lightheadedness made me want to keel over, but Captain was holding me tightly and keeping me upright. Occasionally, Captain also chose to interlock our arms, as if we were a happy couple taking a lovely stroll through the park.

"The Fairy Godmother, where's she off to?

Perhaps someone's wish bills are due!”

Captain's song was becoming more absurd.

"Fairy godmothers don't exist..." I mumbled tiredly.

A silver, winged monstrosity flashed in the sky, highlighted by a lightning bolt.

I felt unease.

“Some kids even call me Dodo, the bird!

Even Alice doesn't have a clue

How I can compact into that word.

You'll fit nicely into our crew!

Don't you worry, my dear friend,

All the sadness we shall transcend!”

Captain continued to musicate.

"My name isn't Alice." I thought blearily. "You are not a bird."

I blinked momentarily, blanking out.

When I opened my eyes I found us walking through the outskirts of Eureka.

“There's many fancy oddities,

Growing from basic commodities

That happen in our wonderland

Where nothing goes unplanned.

There is no border to this land

No need to fly or run

And anyone can get here,

If you just wish for it!”

Captain's nonsensical song-poem ended.

I looked ahead. This was no wonderland. There was nothing left of the mega-continental-city; the world I once knew was consumed by the pollution of the Dead Zone, slightly flattened out and melted by thermonuclear holocaust and frozen solid by nuclear winter. Leviathan ruins of corporate megastructures ominiously loomed in the distance. They had too many floors to count. Broken down as they were, they were still incomprehensibly vast, absurdly long, extending far above the clouds. Looking at them gave me a migrane, so I stared at the ground instead.

As we progressed Captain would point out various ruins and label them as

“UTMOST-PROMINENT LANDMARKS”

such as

“GET-YOUR-MAIL-YESTERDAY POST OFFICE OF CAPTANIA”

or

“JUICY-FRUIT MARKET OF CAPTANIA”.

I could barely find it in me to keep focus. The original sensation of hope I felt when disbelievingly taking the Captain's hand and being helped up had subsided. Right now, I was just tired, cold and highly concerned about the mental state of my new “GRANDE EMPLOYER”

who just offered me a “TWO AND A HALF PERCENT DISCOUNT IN SELECTED STORES OF CAPTANIA”.

Captain's words were buzzing into my skull, sucking out the remnants of my sanity like some kind of robot vacuum. It was really distracting me from focusing on potential Dead Zone dangers such as giant brain-sucking mosquitoes.

Wait just a minute... What if Captain is actually one of them brain-suckers in a coat?

Suddenly, Captain came to a halt. I nearly fell onto my face... nearly, if my companion hadn't been holding me with an iron vice-like grip. Lifting my weary eyes, I glanced out at the misty, snow covered wasteland. The area looked no different from all the others I've been through; ruins, charred remains of a city square and lots and lots of snow.

I wondered if the mad Governor of Captania had read my mind, and decided to grant me a nap on the snow. It really made little difference to me at that point. But I would've appreciated it if the Captain hurried up with it already as my body was shutting down.

“WELCOME TO ME CASA!”

Captain pointed towards what looked like a tiny cardboard house covered in a deep layer of snow.

“You're kidding, right? You live in that?” I observed the micro-domicile.

“AH, BUT TIZ FAR BIGGER ON THE INSIDE!”

Captain confirmed my concerns.

I sat in the snow, refusing to accept this new development.