SMNTY Fiction: Terminus, Part 3 (Chapter 3)

Desperate to reunite with her son, Tilda searches for supplies and information, but the situation is grim. As she debates her options, a outsider approaches her.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and what coome stuff?
When ever told you? Prediction of I heard you? And
welcome back to our fiction series. This is a once
a month thing we do where we read a fiction

(00:25):
that I wrote for National Novel Writing Months. So the
editing is minimal, but Christina makes them sound amazing and
I like bringing them back because they're kind of fun
for us to do, but also they're interesting to talk
about what I was thinking, especially since most of this
story revolves around motherhood and I'm not a mom. So

(00:48):
that being said, this is the third of the trilogy,
the Terminus Trilogy. I can't stop you from listening wherever
you want to start, but I will say you'd probably
be lost if you start right here. We've got quite
a decent amount of these now. Might have to put
a playlist together, obviously. Yes, this this is the shortest

(01:11):
of the three. I think we'll be done in two more,
maybe three, but probably two more. So it's coming to
an end. That being said, content warning, this is a
it's pretty dark uh material. I laugh because I'm someone who,
for some reason seems to find relief in that in

(01:33):
dark times, but I know that's not the case for everyone,
and I appreciate that, but yes, this deals with disease,
end of like humanity discussions, discussion of injuries and painkillers
very brief, but just put that in there. Infertility, weapons
and guns, child and daygermint. That doesn't really happen in

(01:55):
this chapter, but the threat is there the whole time.
And so two recap. We have our main character, Tilda,
who has grown up in this world where there is
a disease that has made pretty much everybody infertile and
it's very rare to have a child. She happened to
have a child. There's all of these government and religious

(02:17):
institutions in place if that happens, and she basically escaped
with her child and has been hunted ever since. Has
been roaming the abandoned United States trying to stay away
to escape from these enforcers as they're called. She runs
into a resistance who reveals that not only did this

(02:40):
religious organization create the virus, they also destroyed the vaccine
when it had been created. So Tilda goes with her
son Madison into the heart of danger in Washington, DC,
finds the one remaining vaccine and learns that the leaders
of this religious organization are her child's grandparents, and so

(03:07):
there's a scuffle and they are injured, but Tilda and
Madison managed to escape. After they broadcast out on the
National Broadcast System the truth of what's happened. They've been
on their run. Tilda and Madison are wrestling with what
to do because now the resistance and her mother are
coming onto this system and saying, hey, we've taken back

(03:28):
control of Washington, DC. We really need you to come
back because you kind of have this vaccine and this
kid and we need to study it. And she's saying like, no,
we can't do that. I don't trust them, and Madison
feels really torn about it. And then Madison is taken
by a rogue, very militaristic group and so she is

(03:48):
without him for the first time. She doesn't know who
she is or what to do with that. She doesn't
know where he went, she doesn't know what she's facing.
So she's trying to grapple with all of that while
being farly injured. No weapons, no medicine, nothing, So she's
still in a really low place. I feel like every
time I start with this one will be happier, but

(04:12):
it's still she's still in a really bad place, but
she's trying to come up with a plan, and that
is where we are, so let us get into it.

(04:34):
After a fitful rest, Tilda woke just before sunrise, feeling
like she'd gotten no sleep at all. She unzipped her
sleeping bag, goosebumps rippling across her flesh underneath her clothes
almost instantly, as the cold air nipped at her skin,
biting into her uncovered face and hands. Teeth chattering, she
emerged from her cocoon as the sun broke over the horizon,

(04:58):
rays of bright orange yellow lights towards her, a rosy
hue dappling the sky. Clumsily and having to start over
several times, she rolled up her bag and reattached it
to her backpack, her knee throbbing at the weight she
put on it. With a grimace, she leaned back towards
the tree trunk, opening a new bottle of water since

(05:19):
her other was empty, and swallowing another handful of painkillers.
The cold liquid frozen in some parts, stinging her throat.
Hungrier now than she had been in days, she ate
a tin of fruit, some almonds, and some crushed candy,
watching as the sun rose over the horizon, wiping crumbs

(05:39):
from her pants. She cleaned up after herself and repacked,
all the while looking and listening or any sign of
the cars or the people occupying them that she'd seen
last night. She found none, but that did not mean
that they were not near. She weighed the pros and
cons of returning to the flat and easily traversible asphalt
of the road, or if she should travel parallel to

(06:01):
it at good distance back if it was the Resistance. Well,
as much as she didn't like the idea, she could
not deny she could use the help, and they might
let her stay with Madison if they were able to
secure him, or she could use them to help her
with the rescue and then make a run for it.

(06:22):
They were the more known evil. But if it wasn't
the Resistance, if it was the group that had taken
Madison being captured, while it came with the same chance
of being reunited with her son, it greatly diminished their
chance of escape. In the end, Tilda decided to walk

(06:43):
alongside the road, though the lack of trees or anything
really would not provide her much in the way of cover.
The sun had still not completed its initials sense. Untilda
shouldered her pack, pulled up her hood, and started walking
toward the hazy skyline of the next city, hoping the
movement would warm her up. She started humming aimlessly, her

(07:05):
eyes darting shiftily to and from the road, expecting at
any moment the car to come roaring down it and
spot her. There were no signs of wildlife, no birds,
of squirrels, no mice, giving Tilda the unwelcome impression that
she was the only thing alive in this vicinity, that

(07:27):
every other living thing knew better than to embark on
the journey she'd undertaken. Her back and feet ached. As
the sun arked higher and higher into the sky, the
air around her losing some of its bitter coldness. The
outline of the city grew more and more in focus,
but it was still quite a ways off. As much

(07:49):
as she didn't want to admit it, she had to
concede she would probably not make it there today either,
unless it perhaps had a sprawl of suburbs, so she'd
probably be spending another night on the coal hard ground,
jumping at every snapping tree branch and grass rustling in
the breeze. She came upon another turbine when the sun

(08:10):
was directly overhead, and she stopped sitting and resting her
back against the cool metal, stretching out her sore and
aching legs as she slowly sipped at some water, completed
her new pill regiment, and munched on a granola bar
apple cinnamon. With careful hands, Tilda inspected her nose, still
sensitive to the touch, and the part of her ankle

(08:32):
accessible outside of her shoe. The swelling had gone down considerably,
but some still remained. Her wrist had returned to its
usual size, and apart from some pain from rotating it,
it was almost completely recovered. Her torso was still extremely
tender to the touch and flared at any prodding or movement.

(08:53):
As with most things, she'd just have to live with it.
While digging for her pills, she found the dry shampoo
she'd taken from the pharmacy. Despite the nastiness of her hair,
hard and stringy on her face and neck, she'd forgotten
about it. She read the directions and worked a small
amount of the fresh smelling gel into her hands and

(09:15):
massaged it suspiciously into her scalp, combing her fingers through
her tangled and unyielding shrands. Specks of dark blood fell away,
and some crimson streaked her hand as she worked the
substance into her hair. Wait, the directions instructed next, so
she did, wishing she had some type of reflective surface,

(09:39):
and that was it. She replaced the bottle, wondering if
it had worked it all. Her hair did feel lighter,
and it was definitely smelling better, but now it had
a greasy quality that she could only hope when away
as it dried. After her brief respite, she walked several
hours more or eventually coming upon to sign that red

(10:02):
white pine, and just ahead of that she could see
a smattering of buildings. Beyond that was the small city
Tilda had been seen for the past few days. Set
against the mountains, Tilda felt a quiet relief that she
wouldn't have to sleep outside again tonight. That was dampened
by the roads she could see smoking off in different directions.

(10:24):
Her path forward was no longer clear. Not only that,
but she would only guess that the people she'd seen
drive by the previous night were holed up somewhere in
this medium sized town. Tilda cut across the field diagonally
as she neared the outskirts, old signs for restaurants and
hotels peppering the horizon. She wondered if there was anywhere

(10:47):
that she could go that might not have been cleaned
out of weapons, if her next best move would be
to search this place for something to help her get
Madison back and safely away while she figured out what
direction they'd taken him. Every sense alert, Tilda entered the
boundaries of White Pine, walking past to spread out large
white houses with large fields at first, but then the

(11:10):
streets grew more populated, punctuated with a pop of color
in the form of bright red fire hydrants. She crept
along the side of these buildings, every window she imagined
to have someone peeking out of it, just waiting for
the opportunity to sneak up on her. Everyone who had

(11:30):
lived in these houses would have taken anything of use
till the reasoned she needed to go further in town,
closer she was sure to the danger posed by the
people she'd seen the night before. She cut through backyards,
staying low and pausing at the corners of houses, listening, assessing.
At one point she reached for Madison, only to be

(11:53):
reminded unforgivingly that he was not there. Swallowing tightly, she
crossed the street as quickly as her injured ankle would allow,
closing in on the signs hovering overhead. Her heart pounded,
eyes bouncing from one abandoned car to the next, searching
for any side of movement of life. She turned onto

(12:15):
the main strip, finding many signs she'd come to recognize
in her years as a nomad wandering through the lands
abandoned cities, signs that dotted every mid size town to
a large city. If Madison were here, he'd make guesses
to their purpose what they used to be. Tilda also
knew from experience not to expect anything useful from most

(12:38):
of these places. What she was looking for now was
a store, or a police station, maybe a jail, all
of which was largely hit or miss as well. As
she walked down the street, her next sore from her
constant craning and twisting, she sought out road signs, hoping
to maybe look at her map and figure out possible
destinations of the people she was seeking. From what she

(13:01):
could gather. There were two main highways, one going north
and one southwest, as along with the one she was
currently on. A smaller interstate. Heading west, her mind went
back to that tank. She didn't know much about them,
but she figured that it took a lot to fuel
something of that size, and that it used a specialized fuel.

(13:25):
Tilda started to search for any signs of a nearby
army base, promising to peruse her map for one. When
she found a place to settle for the night, she
found a sign that read police station and county jail.
Pointing right, Tilda followed them to a dingy looking cement building.
There were still some police cars parked outside in surprisingly

(13:46):
good condition. Tilda peered into their windows, tested their doors,
but they were all walked and the insides looked bare. Next,
Tilda followed the sidewalk alongside the edge of the building
to the front door, but it was chained shut. Frustrated,
she shook the chain and wedged the doors apart as

(14:07):
far as she could to see if she could slip through,
but to no avail. Glancing over her shoulder, she circled
around to the back, but that door too was locked.
Unwilling to give up quite yet, she made sure there
were no windows along the wall before looping around to
the other side, where she found a sizeable vent high
off the ground, large enough for her to slip through

(14:27):
if she could reach it. Looking around for something she
could move and climb on top of, she saw some
toppled trash cans. She lifted one easily with only the
smallest twinge in her wrist, and carried it over, settling
it just underneath the opening of the vent. She tested
the top of the trash can to see if it
would hold her weight. It seemed sturdy enough. She was

(14:51):
more worried about the balancing act she'd have to pull
off to keep it from toppling over and injuring herself.
More carefully, using her her good wrist to brace against
the wall and her good ankle to hoist herself up,
she climbed onto the lid of the can, almost crying
aloud at the sudden pain in her knee, swiftly followed
by a constellation of pain in her side. Taking several

(15:13):
steading breasts, she ever so slowly stood one leg at
a time until she was upright her forehead. Even with
the bottom edge of the vent's opening. She'd have to
hoist herself up. On a good day with no injuries,
this would not have been an easy task, and what
if she got trapped inside? What if there were no weapons?

(15:34):
Tilda hovered indecisively, staring at the opening, maintaining a tenuous
hold on her balance. She curled her fingers around the
edge of the vent, now entertaining the possibility that there
was a grate that would prevent her passage if she
should somehow make it up there. You've got hope sometime
for something, her mom's words echoed in her ears. Taking

(15:58):
a deep breath, she pushed herself off the trash can
with her calves while simultaneously pulling upwards with her arms.
The trash can clattered to the ground with a loud
clang as Tilda's chest hit the metal edge of the vent.
Her feet scrabbled against the slippery cement wall, and she
used her elbows to slowly lift her body until her
torso was inside, and she crawled forward, pulling her legs

(16:21):
in after her. With a tired breath that reverberated off
the metal walls. Sore and hardly believing she'd done it,
she went forward on her hands and knees, stale air
drying out her throat. She came to a grate. Looking
through it, she could make out several machines, papers, pins, pencils,
supplies like that. Her fingers felt along the edges, looking

(16:45):
for a weakness. Something snacked on her sleeve. Upon investigation,
it was a metal switch. Tentatively, she pulled it, startling
violently when the grate clanged open and fell with a
loud racket. Once again recovering her breath, she poked her
head out the opening, doing her usual scan for threats.

(17:06):
The room was dark, the hallway it opened into even
darker chess Below her was a bulky machine topped with
what appeared to be a plate of glass. Tilda righted
herself and dangled her legs out the opening, and with
as controlled emotion as possible, dropped onto the machine. It
wobbled disconcertedly, but held her weight. Blinking against the dark,

(17:31):
she lowered herself into a crouch and then slid off
the side of the machine, exhaling in relief. On her
feet came into contact with solid ground. When looking around
did little to clarify her surroundings, she reached into her
pack side pocket and pulled out the flashlight, cooking it
on and illuminating the gloom. She stepped into the main hallway,

(17:52):
shining her light down both ends, listening intently. To her
right was the back exit. Directly across from her was
a room marked evidence room and weapons check. Stealing herself,
Tilda tested the handle, only to find, of course, it
was locked. Why did it matter whether they locked up

(18:14):
when they left? Tilda thought and annoyance, staring at the
pain of metal and hoping it would disappear. Giving up
on the idea that she'd somehow managed to melt her obstacle,
Tilda proceeded towards the front entrance, testing the doors. Along
the way. She explored what looked like an interrogation room,
which was completely barren, and an office across from that,

(18:36):
where she found a small handgun taped beneath one of
the drawers. It didn't look like much, and peruising through
the other drawers and shelves produced no AMMO, but she
did feel better having it. The desk was decorated with
pictures of a happy looking family. She wondered if they
were still alive somewhere. The next two offices offered much

(18:59):
less in terms of usefulness. One of them did have
a pack of dry noodles, some hand sanitizer, and tissues.
The other had a number of childish drawings pinned up
to the back wall that made Tilda's heart peek. Though
she searched, she still found no keys for the evidence room.
The front office was outfitted with two desks in the

(19:20):
back corners, rows of chairs lying the walls just inside
the entrance. Tilda swept her light along the wall over
most wanted pictures, flyers for lost loved ones, mostly children
reading have you Seen Me? In blocky clinical text, and
safety posters. Tilda went through the desk to her right, first,

(19:40):
looking with some confusion at a line of dolls with
gently bobbing heads. Most of the characters looked to be animals.
The drawers were filled with papers, office supplies, candy wrappers,
nothing useful apart from a pack of batteries. A sound
outside caught Tilda's attention, and her head shot up just
as her body dropped behind the desk. Out of instinct.

(20:02):
She waited, holding her breath to better hear, but all
she detected was silence. After a while, she stood slowly,
feeling on edge, and made her way to the other desk.
As her fingers searched underneath the wood panel under the
computer she felt something. Her flashlight revealed a small red button.

(20:24):
Although she knew pressing it would almost certainly not result
in any action, since power here had long been out,
she did not risk it, thinking of how loud an
alarm would sound in this new silence that settled over
everything like a shroud, a thin layer of dust coating
their very existence. In the drawer she found a stack
of newspaper clippings. She was going to ignore them, but

(20:47):
one of the headlines caught her attention, and she spread
them out on the desk. New virus renders victim sterile
CDC stumped this must be from the first outbreak of
HSV five, before people knew that it couldn't be cured,
what it could do, that it was relentless and would
bring humanity to its knees. She skimmed the article, wanting

(21:10):
to scream into the past. There were quotes from doctors
confessing that they'd never seen anything quite like it before,
but that they were confident they could contain it, that
a cure could be found. The next few clippings detailed
HSV five spread around the world as doctors tried to
stop it, thousands of cases all over the globe, and

(21:32):
those were only the ones reported. Some teenagers were stoned
to death at the proof written on their faces that
they'd had sex outside of wedlock, and then a piece
advising parents to talk to their children about the dangers
of having sex and for young adults to refrain until
the underlying cause of HSV five was covered. Some charts

(21:53):
showing the projected decline of the population at the current rate,
estimates of the number affected. An opinion piece about how
it was our punishment from God for having sex so
casually and lacking so much moral fiber and respect for
the life of a fetus. Some stories from a local
paper about cases shutting down the high school. Interviews with

(22:16):
frightened people on the streets. An emergency task force formed,
a new government brought in, granted more powers than ever
before in a democracy. As panic spread, the President asking
residents to refrain from looting from destruction, the government announcing
conception centers, the rise of arm the creation of the

(22:40):
Board of Better Parenting, the relocation of people into bigger
cities near five main hubs. Tilda froze staring at some
pixelated dots that came together to form the image of
Arin and Angela Delanne, standing seriously to the side of
the then president. Everyone had gone along with this. There

(23:03):
have been little resistance, But what could people have done?
What else was there to do? Tilda's fingers rifled through
the papers for the next headline, but there was none.
She supposed that the person who had been collecting these
had either relocated themselves, or paper had ceased being delivered

(23:25):
or stopped being printed. Altogether, the story fell incomplete. Even
though Tilda had experienced what happened after this, there were
no papers anymore to give her the context of what
was going on, no detailed analysis and interviews, another lost

(23:46):
to lament. After a moment, she decided to place the
clippings in the front pocket of her pack. She resumed
her search, rifling through the top drawer and then the bottom,
lifting the plastic organizer, more out of anee to be
thorough than any expectation of discovery, only to touch something
jagged and cold and metal keys, she thought, excitedly, retrieving

(24:09):
the jangling keychain, hitting her hip and cursing loudly in
her eagerness to get out from behind the desk. Recovering quickly,
she went to the end of the hall and began
testing each key in the lock both ways. The fourth
key slid home and she twisted it to the left
with a heavy thunk. Tilda pulled the key free and
pushed the door open, coughing against a puff of dust,

(24:29):
the particles of which danced in the light from her flashlights.
Hinges groaned as they were opened for the first time
in many years, and Tilda stepped inside, waving away the dust.
Inside were rows of metal shelving behind a glass pane
and a chain link door. Tilda tested the door. When
it didn't give, she went through key after key until

(24:51):
she heard the click of the right one, grimising at
the squealing sound it made when she swung it free
without wasting any time, Tilda started to sort through the
evidence boxes, finding mostly powders and pills, some needles knives.
She pocketed the ones that had a housing from the
blade inside the handle, a rather large handgun, and a
box of AMMO, which she took as well. The next

(25:14):
row produced much of the same, mostly drugs. What did
they need to cope with? Back then, Tilda wondered. The
row over was weapons checkout. Tilda looked down at it
for a moment, thinking about the god machine and the tank.
A lot of the weapons were missing, taken when the

(25:35):
town emptied. Tilda imagined whoever had locked the doors had
probably had the intention of staying here, of coming back.
She wondered what got in the way of their plan,
or if they had just up changed their mind one day.
A large part of her suspected it was the person
who had sat at that desk where she'd found the
newspaper clippings and the keys, but it didn't matter. She

(26:00):
she wandered into the room as one into a museum,
pulling down a shotgun from the rack, caging its weight
good for close encounters. She remembered a lot of firepower,
a lot of kick. She'd never shot one, though this
was information she picked up during her brief stay with Resistance.
Underneath the shotgun she found a box of AMMO with

(26:21):
only a few shells. Placing her light in her teeth,
she opened her front pocket and put the box inside
with her growing stock of weapons, and put the shotgun,
after awkwardly making sure it was not loaded upright in
the main pocket, just managing to tug the zipper closed.
There were a few handguns remaining, but no ammo. For them,

(26:42):
so she left them untouched. There was a rack of
bullet proof vest till the felt material between her fingers.
Wondering if they'd do her any good, She slid her
pack off and looked for the smallest one and slid
it over her shoulders, but it was still huge on
her It would definitely imp her ability to run her
general movements. She took it off and replaced it, putting

(27:05):
her now heavier pack back on with a grunt. Opposite
the vest was a wall labeled anti riot and crowd
control that was mostly empty, but Tilda did take the
two canisters of tear gas and three smoke bombs left behind.
She remembered, as if it was a lifetime ago, the
hunting knife, matches and lighter she snagged from the State

(27:28):
Park gift store before she and Madison chrecked through the
National Forest. She wondered if she could set something on
fire as a distraction, and then was promptly stunned that
she was so seriously considering a scenario that involved a tiny,
frail insignificant her storming what she pictured to be a
military fortress lined with soldiers, and somehow coming out on top.

(27:51):
Tilda left the weapons room, wondering if it might be
best for her to stay here and plan. It was
locked up, fortified, and there were no windows save for
the ones in the front entryway covered with heavy blinds.
The only danger she saw was from anyone else who
got the same idea that she did, and it was
so dark in here. She went to the back door,

(28:16):
celebrating silently when she slid the lock open without a
key and cracked it open, bright afternoon light assaulting her eyes,
the croak of old, rusty hinges loud in her ear drums.
Once the door was open, she took a moment for
her eyes to adjust, looking around behind the building, her
eyes lingering for a second on the fallen trashcan she'd

(28:36):
used to boost herself up. Hearing nothing, she stepped out
into the day and shut the door as quietly as
she could behind her, so as to hopefully erase as
much of her presence as possible. She hated this feeling
she was haunted. She wondered if she'd ever live free
of that feeling again. Tilda turned right down the town

(28:59):
center and in the jail in all direction she'd been heading,
darting from building to building, keeping her eye on the street.
Another town, another main square, this one decorated with banners
of blue and yellow for the local college. She circled around,
knowing the only buildings she'd find inside would u souvenir
shops and restaurants. Another row of restaurants lined the main square,

(29:22):
most of them the ones that she and Madison had
seen before in other towns. Those she passed quickly as well,
wanting to find shelter as quickly as possible, to get
out of sight and consult a map so she could
formulate a plan. A couple blocks down, she passed in
an elementary school, but dismissed at as well. Schools were
some of Madison's favorite places. She'd never be able to

(29:43):
concentrate surrounded by a constant reminder of him. In the
stakes that she faced almost immediately after was a graveyard,
which Tilda found odd to have a school for young
children so close to a church and a graveyard. It
practically shared a border with the plague. Across the way
was a church. While Tilda did not like sheltering in churches,

(30:05):
they did generally have a bed, doors, usually unlocked, and
were often the last place most people liked to hole
up in these days, so she made her way to
the small white wooden structure that spired jutting into the sky.
She skirted her way along the outside of the graveyard,
though it took longer, Tilda told herself it was because
it was wide open and exposed, it was atop a

(30:29):
small hill, and with her recent injuries, Tilda was uaving
a little by the time she reached the devil doors,
wishing she could see inside the red stained glass windows. Anxiously,
she shouldered open the door, unsurprised when it opened at
her touch. The wide open space inside was well lit,
light streaming from the rafters, the stained glass painted diamonds

(30:51):
of blues, purples, greens, and reds on white walls and
wooden pews, a red carpet down the middle, leading up
to a raised level with a podium, and the familiarly
unsettling statue of a man hanging by nails from his
hands from across a stone, tear on his cheek a
crown of thorns on his head. Tilda looked around as
she entered. A spiral metal staircase was on her left,

(31:14):
and another pair of double doors were down the hallway
to her right, tearing her gaze away from the statue
that sent a chill up her spine every time she
took the doors, unable to see through the dirty, dusty windows,
she found a small meeting and dining space, an office,
a room filled with kids toys and games, and, as
she had hoped, a small room with a cot. Tilda

(31:37):
slid off her packet shut the door behind her, taking
a seat on the bed. There was a small rectangular
window above her head for light to stream through, but
other than that square white room was enclosed. Tilda opened
her pack and pulled out her recently collected weapons, laying
them in their respective ammos in front of her, as
well as smoke bombs and tear gas canisters. She produced

(32:01):
her map and unfurled it, her eyes, tracing the road
she'd been on until she found White Pine, Virginia, just
outside Christianburg. It occurred to her then that a military
base would most likely not be labeled on her map,
but she searched the outlying area anyway, looking for anything
out of the ordinary, anything that could help her, but

(32:22):
she found nothing, so instead she traced the roads leaving
from the city center, thinking of where she'd go if
she had a base. To hide tilt it. Did her
best not to dwell on the unlikelihood of this. Gingerly,
she stretched out her legs, eyeing the weapons laid out
before her. She picked up the shotgun, getting a feel

(32:43):
for its weight, running her hands along it, looking down
the barrel of it, hesitantly, sliding the hefty bullets to
each chamber. Unsure if she was loading it properly, she
snapped it shut with a loud click that sounded very
final in the silence. Tailor blinked carefully, placing the weapon
back on the floor like an animal that could strike
at any moment, afraid it would go off and kill her. Methodically, slowly,

(33:08):
she opened all the weapons, turning them over in her hand,
imagining pointing to them at someone squeezing the trigger and
quickly aim kill her peak. All of them felt dangerous
and heavy in the grip of her small hands. She
felt diminished holding them. She could never do this. Who

(33:31):
was she kidding? Tilda thought of medicine, of everything she
did to protect him, and knew it wasn't a question
of her being able to summon the anger, find the
rage to punish those who would treat her child with
such disregard. She had to be realistic. Tilda had never
fired any of these weapons, much less at a person,
and a trained one that was trying to kill her.

(33:54):
With all the weapons she'd been dead set on collecting
in front of her that she'd been convinced would be this,
and she so desperately needed to solve all of her problems,
they now appeared in her hands, completely useless. She felt
so incredibly, fatally stupid. She drew her knees up to

(34:17):
her chest and buried her head in them. The first
saw bracking of her throat, followed in quick succession by
another and another, as she finally gave into her grief,
each one accompanied by sharp, fiery pain. Hot tears cascaded
down her cheeks and stained her jeans absorbed into denim
hardened with blood. The bulky bandage around her knee pressed

(34:38):
into her forehead. The room closed in on her as
she wept, smaller and smaller, and her shrinking with it.
Grief smothered all rational thought, until all she was left
with was the raw, gnawing guilt that haunted every decision
her very existence, and the unyielding hopelessness the truth that

(35:01):
she'd probably never see Madison again that she'd so far
avoided because her very existence depended on it. Must be faced.
She'd been lucky to have him in her life for
so long, especially when she was never supposed to have
him in the first place. All of their time together
was stolen, and now she felt ungrateful and foolish for

(35:22):
not cherishing every moment they got to share together. She
stopped crying, not because the demands of her grief had
in any way been satisfied, but because she had no
energy left to continue. The grief was seeped into her bones,
into her very being. Her face felt puffy, her nose

(35:42):
stuffed with mucus. Tilda lifted her wary head. The first
thing she saw was the guns and knives carefully spread
out in front of her. She drew in a shuddering breath,
unfolding her legs. She didn't feel like a real person,
but something made of straw, held together only by the
tattered fabric of her clothes and her damaged skin. More

(36:05):
to distract herself than out of any semblance of a plan,
she re examined the map, wiping at her nose and
apathetically deciding to go to Christianburgh. She folded the map
and put it in her backpack, and carefully stashed her
weapons in the bag, making sure to turn the safety
on each of them. The smaller handgun that she slid
into the waistband of her jeans. The tear gas and

(36:26):
smoke bombs she put in the side pockets for easier access,
failing to picture an instance where she deplore them successfully.
The low rumble of a vehicle caught her attention. Tilda
crouched outside the window in time to see a black
seb drive slowly by. And it wasn't fear, she felt,
or at least not entirely, but trepidacious hope. Keeping her

(36:48):
eyes on the vehicle's path, she hoisted her pack on
her shoulders and went out of her little sanctuary, back
down the hall and into the main entrance. She paused
at the door, listening, when a voice from inside the
church said, I thought I'd find you here. And that

(37:24):
brings us to the end of this edition of Sminty Fiction,
And it's a cliffhanger. Do you like cliffhanger? Samantha? You
know I don't. I'm a binger. You're a bet. We've
had some people write in and have asked me like,
when will it be done? Then I will bene it. Yep,
I appreciate that. I appreciate that this is a cliffhanger,

(37:44):
but it will be resolved. All will be revealed. I
would love to I'll believe you. Oh why not? I
know I talk about this all the time, but you
can clearly see how how much map research I did
for this. I don't know why, but I really went

(38:05):
in on like the road names and the town names. Also,
there's a lot of religious undertones in this chapter that
I'd kind of forgotten about. But the church that's being
described in here is definitely my church. That was what
my church looked like. Yeah, yes, very small, kind of

(38:25):
like it's. It was beautiful, but it just had this
creepy vibe. But I say that as someone who watches
a lot of horror movies, so who's to say everything
has a creepy vibe. My house is haunted. I forget
my fee. This is also such a video game chapter,
Oh my gosh, Like the Finding of the documents. You know,

(38:45):
when the world has ended and you find all the
newspaper clippings before it happened, and you're reading those and
opening up the map and marketing locations, the weapon discovery,
the flashlight like it's a very video gamey chapter. Again,
I wrote this before the Last of Us came out,
I swear I did, but I had still played like

(39:07):
a lot of Resident Evil or Silent Hill, similar kind
of mechanic games. But I'm excited. I'm excited to get
to the end and share the ending of this, this
whole saga, so I hope you're excited to Thanks again,
double thanks to Christina who makes these fantastic, who deals

(39:28):
with my outline that just has vague sound cues like
creepy door opening, and makes it work. And thanks to
you for listening. Yes, if you would like to email
as you can, we are at Hello at stuff I
Never Told You dot com. You can also find us
on Blue Sky at Mamstaff podcast, or on Instagram and

(39:50):
TikTok at stuff I've Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
We have a tea public store, and we have a
book we can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always too, our super producer, Christina. I're excited to
produce my and our contributor Joey. Thank you, and thanks
to you for listening Stefan Never Told You inspection of
iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
can check out the art radio app, Apple podcast or
where you listen to your favorite shows,