Lightning streaked across black clouds, furious and blinding. Looking up at this dark sky were the last vestiges of humanity.

 

Ross looked up, briefly distracted by the dance in the sky. His smile warmed a bit, and he breathed deeper. The last of their supplies were tightly packed away inside the rucksack and slung over the old man’s shoulder. Tencent, Roy Roger, and Benji the Younger stood by the city’s gate, waiting impatiently for their crew leader.

 

“Time to go, old man!” Benji called out. “Can’t you see the light’s running out?” This last bit caught a few short laughs. Since the atmosphere broke, the black clouds prevented almost all light from falling to the ground. Many of the younger crowd, those born under the darkness, found those kinds of ironic jokes top humor. Ross’s smile, however, didn’t budge.

 

About fifteen miles from Deerdrop, their oasis in the dark, was another city, only this one was dead and ruined. Salvage crews like Ross’s were the only way for Deerdrop to continue living. Motors, provisions, materials; all were needed and necessary. Today they were searching for the holy grail: purified water.

 

The lights on each of the crew’s shoulders clicked on after they left the cargo truck. On the wall, high above the entrance door, read Alpine Spring Bottling. A place like this would have been picked over clean a dozen times, but the fact was clean water was becoming harder and harder to come by, and so, it was time to look for anything that may have been missed.

 

“If we go back empty-handed, what does that mean?” Tencent asked. He had a habit of asking ‘ten-cent questions’, that is, stupid ones. Roy Roger gave him a swift strike on the shoulder.

 

“Means we wasted two gallons of fuel and a day’s battery to tell our people they’ll still be thirsty,” Roy Roger said.

 

“We’ll find some,” Ross said.

 

“See? Mr. Optimism himself said so.”

 

Tencent shrugged and reached for the large double doors, holding one side open for the crew to enter. Inside, from what little their flashlights could illuminate, was a disaster. Debris and rotted wood lay in piles from where the roof and rafters had collapsed. Dead and broken machines lay in strange metallic rigor mortis, half of them with their guts ripped out and repurposed. Benji the Younger walked a few paces away from the group, picking up empty and crushed plastic bottles. “We always need more plastic string,” he said when he caught the looks of the others.

 

“Over here!” Tencent had called out, his light shining through a small passage. “Something must have shifted, this wasn’t here the last time. I think I see… wait, I do! There’s water here!”

 

The rest of the crew turned instantly and they all walked quickly, almost ran, towards Tencent’s position. As their compounded beams of light joined his, they watched refracted streams dance back towards them, caught and released by dozens, maybe even hundreds, of plastic jugs filled with the miracle liquid.

 

“Help me make the gap bigger,” Ross said, urging the rest to action. They pulled away stone and debris until they came to a large wooden beam that wouldn’t come undone.

 

“Hold on,” Benji the Younger said, “I’m the smallest. Let me get on the other side and pull it, might be easier.” When he was in position, he called out and began to pull. The others pushed in unison, feeling it begin to give slightly.

 

“Careful! It’s about to come–” Ross began, but was too late. The beam dislodged itself with a crack and caught Benji off-guard. The young man, not even past his twentieth year, stumbled back and fell, the beam falling on top of him and a sickening squelch was heard.

 

“Benji!” Roy Roger screamed, clambering through and down the small flight of stairs to where the boy lay. A sharp rod of rebar stuck straight out from Benji’s chest, pierced through his heart. By the time the rest of the crew reached him, the boy was dead.

 

* * *

 

There wasn’t a word shared between the crew as the last of the water was loaded on the cargo truck and the trailer it pulled behind. Roy Roger had gingerly laid Benji the Younger in the rear of the vehicle. The lightning of the black sky kept vigil as they returned to cheers and hollers from the people of Deerdrop. Cheers that silenced as the cost of their water was carried through the streets to its final resting place.

 

All the while, Ross stole glances at the sky, wearing a smile that was both familiar and not to the crew he led.

 

“How can you smile?” Roy Roger yelled, nearly pushing Ross over. “We lost Benji today! And for what? A few weeks, maybe a month’s worth of water? A life has to be worth more than that!”

 

“Aye, it is,” Ross said, not looking at the man but instead at the sky. “But this is what it means to live as a human. In a world that does not care for us one way or the other. Whether we struggle or we thrive, the world goes on.”

 

“So… what? We just keep going because there is no point to it all? Keep going to spite the world, the broken sky that stole away all the water?”

 

“It is a cycle. Everything is, that’s the truth of this world.” Ross’s smile turned into a toothy grin, revealing an enigmatic understanding. His face turned, and piercing blue eyes bit deep into Roy Roger’s own. A sharp crack of thunder echoed throughout Deerdrop, tearing a small rift throughout the obsidian expanse. From it streamed a radiant beam, crashing onto the earth below..

 

“Sometimes, we die,” Ross said, a tear trailing down the side of his face. Then a second came, though his eyes were dry. Finally, a torrential downpour began to fall from the heavens. “And sometimes, it rains.”