Attempting ...

to ignore the metallic voices of common household objects that still reverberated in my head, I walked around the apartment complex in severe agitation.

Are they actually plotting to kill Captain?

Did they dispose of... Pilot?

Who are they?

Why have they taken the forms of mug, straw and ladybug?

Why can I hear them?

Has the fabric of my reality completely unraveled itself?

Have I gone mad?

Surely, there is a sensible explanation for all of this.

I bet Captain recorded these voices with Pilot just to mess with my head using an audio-player and hid it in the floorboards.

Indeed! That must be it! How gullible of me...

Pfff... talking mugs!

I bet I'm going to find out a new entry in the calendar that marks today as "Household object uprising, from which only Snippy's left boot can save the day".

Captain and Engie's footsteps led out of the building, so I followed them, hoping to find explanation, clarification, anything really... company even, no matter how horrible with Captain always proposing outrageous things and Engie simply ignoring me.

Wearing a small backpack and newly scavenged rifle, I tried to locate the path in the snow that might lead me to my associates, but the snow was falling too heavily so I had no luck whatsoever finding anyone at all.

How frustrating. Usually it's incredibly easy to locate Captain thanks to the booming, commanding voice.

I don't know how Captain manages to be so loud with a mask on. Electronic amplification, maybe? If it is, then it must be with voice modification or the feedback would be enormous.

I lost myself, admiring the titanic constructs that still towered, here and there, piercing in the sky. Even in their ruin, the Directorate superstructures looked overwhelmingly imposing, immovable and dreadfully ominous.

Nevertheless, the ever-expanding glaciers, mountains of ice and snow unleashed by nuclear winter... will devour them, flattening and grinding the still-standing, monolithic gravestones of our civilization into naught.

Bones of mutated, mammoth beasts littered the frozen lakes. I speculated whether these monstrosities were grown for entertainment of past generations. Perhaps they were further altered thanks to bio-weapons, engineered viruses breaking down DNA and pushing evolution rapidly out of control. A bone cracked, breaking off, showering me in silver dust as it fell.

For a second I clung to my mask, afraid to inhale.

No, it's much too cold. The bio-weapons are dormant, sleeping underneath the ice, their power dulled by the frigid air.

As I ventured further out into the frozen wasteland, I felt that something was intensely watching my back.

I backtracked and found nothing.

Whatever it was, it was following me without making a sound nor leaving a footprint that I could track. It was quiet, too quiet for a mutant-worm like Photoshop, too quiet even for a hunter-wraith that glide on the ice searching for hapless organic victims.

What the bloody hell...

No, it can't be! Surely it can't be!