Vali tugged at his new clothes in annoyance. Baggy as they were, it was obvious they weren’t made with a seven-foot person in mind. Although, an exposed ankle was quite low on his list of concerns. Even if he wanted to, finding something that would fit perfectly was pretty much impossible without a shop, especially for his feet. No way were the boots he ‘borrowed’ from the poor man going to fit. At least not without breaking a few bones in his feet. He had taken them just to spite him.

The feeling of soft dirt and grass against his soles was quite refreshing. A silver lining, but he would still need something unless he wanted his feet to be messed up. Lifting up the boots he was holding by the hastily undone laces, he squinted at them as if his stare could magically change their size. “At least I can trade them for a pair o’ good ole flip flops. Those always fit.”

He hummed a random tune as he leisurely walked to the next closest group. Now that he had some alone time, the surroundings were looking more alluring. Being dropped in the middle of nowhere by who knows what without his consent was troubling, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the nature here. A deep breath was all it took for him to deduce that this place was quite far from any civilization. “Maybe I should just buy some plot around ‘ere.” He spoke in a relaxed manner.

He didn’t miss his moldy house one bit. The only reason he lived there was that rent was cheap. Besides being a somewhat rundown part of town, someone had built a factory of some sorts close enough to drop the air quality. How they had gotten permission to build it so close to housing, nobody knew. Some said they found a loophole in the law, some said simple corruption and bribery. What everyone knew for sure was, that nobody could do anything about it. Not for lack of trying.

He always kept telling himself it was worth the cheap rent. Every single breath he took here, his opinion ever so slightly changed.

It wasn’t long before he was close enough to see the appearance of the people he was heading towards. A single glance was all it took to completely shatter the little peace he had left. This was going to be much worse than the previous group.

“Goddamn gremlins!” He swore under his breath. It was what appeared to be a whole bunch of middle schoolers being herded like sheep by older people. In the middle of a sea of kids in school attire, a few formally dressed people darted around, trying to manage the group to the best of their abilities. It didn’t seem to be working if the cries were any indication. Vali didn’t even dare to think of how hard it must be to keep so many kids in check, especially under these conditions. “Where’s Anakin when you need him?” He whispered.

As if on cue, one of the people with a teacher’s attire split off from the crowd and headed towards him. Vali was elated. He wouldn’t have to make his way through the snotty brats to speak to someone.

The teacher stopped a few yards away from Vali. The teacher who came to meet him was a disheveled young woman. Her bloodshot eyes and the bags under them were the first things he noticed. Before Vali could open his mouth, she spoke in a dry tone. “Do you speak English?”

Vali swallowed back what he was going to ask. That was one of the last things he expected to hear. Being told not to approach? People here seemed tense. It would be understandable. Maybe she could’ve asked why he was dressed like a clown, with clothes not fit for him?

Vali came out of his stupor when the teacher asked the question again, slower this time. Somehow, she sounded even more tired than before. He managed to answer it this time. “Uh, only when I’m in a good mood? What kind of question is that? Who doesn’t in this… Oh.” Realization struck Vali’s face as the word ‘country’ failed to leave his mouth.

Her face soured. “You would be surprised. Anyways, this makes it easier. Before you even ask, we have no food or water to share. No, we don’t know what happened. And no, we don’t know how to go back.” Vali listened as she spoke like a call center worker who had repeated herself a hundred times over. He thought of the many groups and individual people he could see spread along the plains. If even half of the closer ones came over to ask…

But now he had something else to worry about. It turned out this disaster was not something local to his city, or his country. He was lucky to stumble onto people who knew English.

“Heard there was a group forming to the east? Know anything about that?” Vali decided not to mince his words. He didn’t want to be the one to drain the last drop of sanity this group had left. The kids were enough of a torture already, even he could sympathize with that.

She was quick to answer. “Only where they are, from word of mouth.” She suddenly turned and pointed to the direction where Vali had come from. “In that direction. Around 3 hours of walk away. Just half an hour ago, we sent someone… a teacher, to learn more about them.” She stopped and gazed behind herself, her eyes sweeping through the kids. “We have more than our own lives to look after. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be waiting for more news before heading there.”

Vali shivered at the thought of being shackled to take care of the middle schoolers. How she hadn’t just run away, Vali couldn’t comprehend. “How long have you guys been here? Why send someone so late if it’s so important?” He couldn’t help wondering.

Instead of answering, she scrunched up her face as if in pain and started rubbing her bloodshot eyes. “Don’t even remind me. It was hard enough keeping them from running away with all of us here.” Vali gulped. He knew what his next nightmare was going to be about. “I wonder if this will make me fail my internship.” She chuckled to herself, but her eyes didn’t have any joy in them.

Vali looked at her with pity. Maybe coming here naked wasn’t as bad as he thought? “Anything I should know about before heading there?” Vali didn’t have any questions to ask, and he didn’t intend to waste time trying to think of one.

After a few long seconds of thinking, the teacher answered. “I’ve got nothing. If you’ve nothing left to ask, I will go back. Just please, don’t hang around close to our group.” She paused to look back once again, this time with eyes filled with concern. “We are all on edge.”

Vali didn’t need any incentive to get away from the potential time bombs the kids were. He waved her concerns away, turned around, and walked away.

It seemed like his only hope was the group to the east. He doubted others would be any more informative. Asking random people who were as lost as he was only a waste of time. And if what the teacher had said was anything to go by, he couldn’t even communicate with some people because they didn’t even speak the same language.

Vali suddenly came to a stop, realizing where he was heading towards. If he didn’t take a small detour, he would be going through the group he ‘borrowed’ his clothes from. ‘I already got what I needed; I don’t need to waste any more time with them.’ In a rare moment of clear-headedness, Vali decided to take a small detour around their group.

He still didn’t miss waving at the donor, who was staring at him with contempt from the edge of their circle. And he kept walking.

The first thirty minutes were hectic. Every few minutes, someone would come to ask him questions. The first two people didn’t speak a word of English. A lot of hand waving on Vali’s part was required for them to stop pestering him. The third one spoke English, but Vali firmly shooed him away when he kept trying to ask the same questions Vali had. When Vali spotted the tenth person coming at him, he had no patience remaining. So, he had opted to shout expletives to whoever was approaching, and telling them off before they approached. Worked like a charm, as even people who didn’t understand the language got the message. ‘Fuck off’ turned out to be a universal language, when spiced up with a good glare and aggressive hand gestures.

The number of people Vali saw around him got progressively more as he went on his way. But the number of people that tried to approach him was getting lower.

It wasn’t until an hour later, when he passed a small hill that was blocking his vision, that he found something worth checking. Amidst gouged earth and scattered debris, there was a crashed train.

“Now that’s interesting.”