Chapter Forty-Seven - Ashfall

  As they continued to walk forwards, the ash thickened and lessened. It really was less like snow than she'd initially imagined. It was more like sand.

  She had visited Hypertense Breakpoint's home in Egypt a few times, at least before the girl moved out of the region and further out into the Sahara where she could be left alone. In either case, the sand there had been annoying to deal with. It was thin and light and tended to slip into homes and cling to clothes.

  As magical girls, they of course had ways around that kind of issue, but it was still present sometimes. The ash here, it was like that sand, only it clung far more.

  Alice sniffed at the air. It smelled at once like an old fire, and metal.

  "The air tastes like copper, iron and that feeling when you're outside next to a campfire, deep, deep in the night, and the last embers of the fire turn so weak that the fire gives out and all that's left is a heap of warm coals," Crystal said.

  Alice blinked and eyed Crystal from the corner of her eye. That had sounded rather poetic and, dare she think it, beautiful.

  Crystal had her head tilted way back and her tongue was sticking out so that she could catch some ashy flakes out of the air.

  "I see," Alice said. "It's strange, as are most things around the Zone. I don't recall radiation being an issue outside of here, or the ash."

  "I think I--" Vasilisa started to cough. They paused in their walk, and Alice realized just how far back Vasilisa had fallen. It wasn't that far, just a couple of metres, but it was still worrisome. The girl coughed a couple more times, then took a deep breath through her makeshift face covering. "I think I need a little break? Please?"

  "Sure," Crystal said automatically. She looked around, then pointed to one side where there was a grocers just around the nearest intersection. "Over there?"

  Alice watched Vasilisa nod, then start in that direction. Her boots were shuffling through the ankle-high ash, kicking up a bit of it with every step. The stuff was slowing her down.

  She shared a worried look with Crystal, who stepped up and wrapped an arm around Vasilisa's shoulder.

  The grocers front was broken in, but some of the glass remained. It opened to a space with three cashier tables and then turned into a much larger room with a few rows of shelving. All empty, or nearly. A few rotten loaves of bread had been left behind, as well as some cleaning things and inedibles.

  They moved back and away from the entrance, and almost as soon as they were around the corner and away from the glaring while of the ash, Alice felt like she had stepped into the shade on a particularly sunny day.

  Crystal helped Vasilisa jump on the spot a couple of times. Each bounce dislodged a small puff of ash that was clinging to her, then they moved in a little deeper, and Vasilisa turned to sit up against a produce counter. "Are you okay?" Crystal asked.

  "Yeah," Vasilisa said. She tugged down the scarf over her mouth. "Just, the ash took my breath away, I think." She coughed a few more times, then spat off to the side.

  "How are you feeling?" Alice asked. She was more clinical about it than Crystal, more firm.

  Vasilisa shrugged. "Fine? I'm fine. Maybe a little queasy? I think those MREs earlier might have been a little bad?"

  "Feeling a little queasy?" Crystal asked.

  "Yeah," Vasilisa said. "Do you think this place has a working washroom?"

  "Probably not working, but it might be usable anyway," Crystal said. She nodded, then moved to the back. She returned a minute later and pointed to the washrooms. "At the back, around the right. No anomalies too, which is nice."

  "Thanks," Vasilisa said. She shucked her pack off them left her rifle behind before moving towards the washroom.

  Alice watched her go, then turned to Crystal. "We've been walking through the ash for what, an hour? Two at most?"

  "I guess, yeah," Crystal said. "It feels like the sun isn't moving."

  "I don't think it is," Alice said. "And I think the amount of radiation we're walking through is only going up as we move closer to the centre of the Zone."

  "Oh," Crystal said. "That's what has Vasilisa sick?"

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "I think so," Alice said. She frowned and tried to remember what she could about radiation sickness. There wasn't much. "Can you check her for burns? Around the ankles especially. And her face too, where it's exposed."

  They both heard it as Vasilisa vomited in the washroom. They both had magical girl hearing, and were used to politely pretending not to hear things from washrooms, but this was different.

  It took a few minutes, but Vasilisa returned, and she looked a little better. More colour to her skin, her eyes more focused. "Should we keep going?" she asked.

  "Sure," Crystal said. "But I think that ash is, uh, not good for you. Let's wrap you up a little better, yeah?"

  "Sure?" Vasilisa said.

  Crystal smiled and then knelt even as she summoned up a scarf. She wrapped it around one of Vasilisa's ankles, over her pant legs and boots. Then she checked her other leg. There was a strip of red skin over her boots where a bit of ash had slipped in under her pantleg.

  "Crystal, do you think you can carry her?" Alice asked.

  "Carry me? I can walk."

  "For now," Alice said. "I should have realized there was a problem earlier. I'll create a barrier as we move on. It'll make things a little dark, but I think we can manage."

  "Yeah," Crystal said. "Vasilisa weighs nothing, I can give her a piggyback ride, no problem."

  Crystal crouched and placed her hands on her knees. "Hop hop," she said. "I promise I probably won't drop you!"

  Vasilisa eyed her for a moment. "I can walk," she said.

  Alice folded her arms. "We know. But you're sick, and we want to move faster. Don't argue too much and get on the magical girl's back."

  The girl hesitated, but she picked up her bags all the same and then slung an arm around Crystal's shoulders. A hop later, and her legs were around Crystal's waist. "Is it comfy back there?" Crystal asked.

  "It's fine," Vasilisa said.

  Alice nodded. Good enough, as far as she was concerned. She started to weave a spell before they were even out of the grocers. It was a little tricky to have her darkness be there and yet be unseen, to block some light but not all. Her magic enjoyed being unseen, however, so while it was paradoxical for it to be dark and yet not visible, it wasn't too far off from how it wanted to act.

  There was no nightmare quite like knowing that the darkness was right there, even if you couldn't see it with both eyes opened.

  They stepped out of the broken storefront and shadows gathered around her feet before turning into a barrier than enveloped all of them. The glare of the too-white ash wasn't nearly as strong now. It wasn't pleasant, still, but it didn't feel as intrusive.

  Radioactive it might be, but there was something more to it than that.

  They continued, Alice taking the lead and scanning the road ahead. Surprisingly, there were fewer anomalies here, and the deeper they went, the fewer still they encountered. That didn't meant that there were none. Windows on storefronts showed reflections of a world that wasn't this one. A dreary one, but active and alive, with cars and people moving about.

  "This street," Vasilisa said after a while. "I recognize it."

  "You do?" Crystal asked. "From before this was the Zone?"

  "No, no this is... this is Pripyat."

  Alice frowned and looked up and down the road. It took a post office for her to see that the girl wasn't far from the mark. As she started to look for it, she noticed more signage that said they were in Pripyat. Only that shouldn't have been possible?

  Then they moved past another intersection and there was a large ferris wheel in an open park to the side. It was covered in ash and rusted through in places. Bits of vegetation clung to the lower half of the wheel, but there was some paint left on it still.

  "Well, that's not supposed to be there," Crystal said.

  "No, it's not," Alice replied.

  "If we're in Pripyat again," Vasilisa said. "Then where are we going?"

  "That's a fantastic question," Alice said. "I think... if we continue this way, we'll be heading in the general direction of that power plant, won't we?"

  "Oh oh," Crystal said. "I think I see what you're getting at, and I'm not sure I like it."

  ***