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    We left the nomads in the morning, Kai and Carlito flying on Saia’s back and I with my own wings. We waved as we made our way back to the coast, then continued north.


    I was worried that my sire was wrong, that the States weren’t where he said they were. Or that big chunks of it were moved elsewhere.


    I’ve already taken too long to come looking for Aurora. It’s been just over a week since the second challenge, which had come a month after the first. And we still haven’t even found what used to be North America.


    Despite that, I didn’t rush us. I choose to trust that Aurora could handle herself, and looking for more survivors was important.


    We didn’t find any. We encountered rifts though, which we cleared, allowing both Kai and Carlito to hit their Second Investment. I only got a single Carving, and without a skill.


    It was two days after we left the nomads that we finally reached the states. I knew it because we found a coastal town with signs that hadn’t corroded fully, and that told us that we were in Texas.


    It was barely hours later, as we flew over the coastline, that Saia interfered.


    “Input: We cannot continue further,” the part of her that was my shirt said as her drone swerved and headed for the ground.


    I followed.


    “What is it?” I asked as soon as we landed.


    “Feedback: The area ahead of us contains a significant amount of radiation.”


    I blinked, not expecting that answer. “Uh, radiation?”


    “Feedback: That is what I said. I do not believe that my drone will be able to survive in such an area for long. I do not know how resistant human or vampire physiology is to such effects.”


    “Yeah,” Carlito spoke up. “We ain’t surviving that.”


    “Someone fired nukes,” Kai added.


    I grimaced, then my eyes widened. “Wait, is here safe?”


    “Feedback: Of course, the zone is ahead of us.”


    “I mean, radiation is carried by the wind, it spreads. Is it going to reach here, head south to our town? How much of it is there?”


    Saia’s drone tilted her head. “Feedback: That is incorrect, radiation doesn’t spread in that manner. It bonds to the Source-Weave itself.”


    My brow furrowed. “What? That… that wasn’t how it used to work.”


    “Feedback: I don’t know how it worked in your Source-Weave-less world before, but from what I’ve detected and observed it is behaving in the same manner it would on Erzi. The radiation will corrupt the Source-Weave, destroying anything in its area of influence and creating a dead zone.”


    “What is a dead zone?” Kai asked.


    “Feedback: A zone where Source-Weave cannot exist, where all engram constructs fall apart.”


    “So, a zone without magic?” Carlito asked. “Like what we had before?”


    “Feedback: It will eventually become safe for living beings to enter, but in its current stage, the zone is highly volatile toward biological matter.”


    “We need to go around then,” I said.


    “Statement: It would be more prudent to do so.”


    “Well, let’s head out then, I don’t want to waste too much time. We’ll head inland, look for survivors.”


    Kai and Carlito got on Saia’s back again, and then we were back in the air, Saia leading the way as we tried to move around the radiation zone.


    The more we flew, the more I realized that the radiation zone was massive. Like almost the size of the entire State of Texas. I couldn’t imagine what happened to make people do that. I knew that in the opening days of the Grand Spell’s arrival there wasn’t a complete breakdown of all technology. It took weeks for that to happen.


    But for them to do something like this…


    I could see the death in the zone, from the few times I flew closer to try and see. Plants were withered and dead as far as eyes could see. I didn’t want to risk entering the zone, I didn’t know how radiation would affect me.


    I didn’t remember ever reading about the effects of it on vampires. For all I knew, it would kill me just as fast as it would a human. From what Saia told me, it was bad, like lethal dose in minutes type of bad.


    I wasn’t going anywhere near it.


    It took us almost four days to reach Oklahoma in the north, or north-west actually as the States appeared to be slightly tilted. The zone extended all along the southern parts of the next state, so we flew away from it, looking for cities and towns where there could be survivors. We found only abandoned cars on the highways with dead bodies littered everywhere. Some decomposing, other eaten clean. Oklahoma City was a ruin, it was shelled and bombed into a crater, but at least no one had dropped a nuke on it.


    There were no survivors. Or if there were, they were hiding in the wilderness, and we didn’t stay to look. I was hoping to find clear signs of life, like smoke and fires. I saw none, not even at night.


    A massive horde of beast was trampling down the route 40, which we flew above, following the road. Wolves, rats, even mutated deers, all charging as if they were part of the same herd or pack. It was strange to see predator and prey together like that, and I wondered what made animals act that way.


    Two days later we were flying over Arkansas. This was where we found the first signs of army presence. An open field was littered with broken down tanks, artillery, and corpses. The worst thing about it was that I was pretty sure there were two sides, and that they fought each other. We didn’t stay for long.


    Later that same day, I saw smoke in the distance for the first time since we left the nomads. I flew on ahead, hoping to find survivors.


    I was too late. A large camp in the forest was destroyed, burnt down to ashes. I saw remnants of tents and simple wooden buildings. I saw corpses, half eaten. Something had gone through the camp and killed them all.


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    It was recent too, days at most. I closed my eyes, then pushed away the guilt I felt at not getting her quicker. It wasn’t my fault, and scenes like these had to be happening everywhere.


    We continued on. It took us another three days to reach Alabama. There we headed back to the coast. Aurora had explained to me how to reach her town from the coast, gave me the numbers for the roads. From what I’ve seen, aluminum seems to be holding up better than most other metals, it is corroding, but it looked more like moderate rusting than complete collapsing into dust. Thankfully, the U.S. used it for most of their signs.


    On the coast, we found another abandoned town, though this one’s story looked to be different. The city of Mobile looked like a war zone. Craters, toppled buildings, and the dead. Piles of beasts were still rotting in places, thousands of them, with even some piles that were had been burnt a while ago. Dead humans were everywhere too, some in half eaten states. Carrion birds were everywhere, feeding and nesting in the town. They didn’t seem that interested in us as we flew over, but I saw one that looked vulture-like that had grown at least hundred times its size. It looked more like a passenger plane than a bird.


    It was laying in a large square, a massive nest beneath it.


    We hurried away. I could feel its Investment from the distance. It was at least Fourth Investment, it was the first Earth animal that I had seen that had reached that far. I wondered what happened for it to grow that much.


    We followed Aurora’s instructions, and reached Monroeville a few hours after. It was abandoned, as Aurora had told me it had been. I didn’t see many signs of struggle, though there were some. Broken down cars, a few corpses on the outskirts, but not the type of violence that I saw in other larger cities. I hoped that the people managed to get out, but what I saw on the way here had made my hopes dwindle.


    According to Aurora, she was holding up in a shop across the street from the town’s Old Courthouse Museum, a building that I easily identified from the air based on her description. The white clock tower stood out against the other buildings.


    We landed in the street, the nature had reclaimed much of it. Trees had grown larger, bushes and grass had spread onto the road. But there was still a path open. The Lemon Lollie Boutique shop was clearly visible.


    “That it?” Carlito asked as they dismounted.


    I nodded. “It is.”


    I was relieved, we found it. I walked over and pushed the door open.


    “Aurora?” I called. I heard no one inside, there was no heartbeat or anyone breathing. I took in a deep breath and smelled nothing fresh. Something had spoiled in one corner, and I walked over to find some food. That worried me, if she was here then that would’ve been cleaned up. At least I hoped it would, Aurora didn’t strike me as a slob.


    I walked through the shop, focusing on my senses. There were faint whiffs of Aurora’s scent, but it was old. Days old. She was here recently, but she hadn’t been here within the last few days.


    I walked back over to Kai and Carlito who waited next to Saia outside.


    “She’s not here?” Kai asked.


    “She was, recently. But not now.”


    “Could she have moved somewhere else in town?” Carlito asked. “I mean, if I had all the real estate in the world, I probably would’ve picked something better than a clothes shop. Just saying.”


    I frowned. It wasn’t out of the question.


    “Pick a direction and go searching, together,” I gave them a long look. “I’ll circle the town from the air, Saia too. Scream if you see something or you’re in danger, I’ll hear.”


    I didn’t give them a chance to respond before I flew into the air and started flying around, looking for anything out of the ordinary.


    There were living things in the town, now that looked closer. Birds flying or nesting in the trees, squirrels, mice and rats. But not in any large numbers, or too mutated. Some of the birds had strangely colored feathers, and some of the mice were a bit faster than I expected them to be, but nothing too dangerous.


    Finally, I noticed something strange, and landed. On the northern side of the town, I came up on a stretch of the road that was… disturbed. There were stone spikes sticking out of the asphalt, a wall of stone was raised on the side of a street, and a crack along a bunched section of the earth. Aurora had fought here.


    I took in a breath and detected a faint scent that was familiar to me. I knelt down, then smashed my fist into the ground, ripping through the concrete. The ground shook and the crack widened.


    “Saia, could you give me something to dig with?”


    My shirt flowed from my body and turned into a small shovel. I started to dig.


    It didn’t take me long to find what I’ve detected. There was a decomposing corpse, buried. By the look of it, it couldn’t have been there for more than a month.


    The man was armed with a sword, and he had died by being crushed beneath the Earth. Someone had attacked Aurora.


    I narrowed my eyes, then took to the air, continuing my search. At the edge of town, I found another place where there was a battle. Earth was disturbed, and spikes made out of stone. Here, I found dried blood, but no bodies. I got low to the ground and sniffed, parsing through the scents.


    One of the blood splatters smelled familiar, it smelled like earth and stone, like Aurora. Anger rushed over me, and I let it push me forward. I started to look closer, searching for any signs that could point me in the right direction.


    Trampled grass pointed the way, until I came upon a small clearing just outside of the town. There used to be a campsite here, the wood that was burnt had turned to ash. Someone was here a week ago at most.


    There were big set of tracks, two of them, something rolling over the ground, a wagon perhaps, leading away from and the second track to the here. Footprints were everywhere.


    I flew into the air, and almost headed after them, but then I remembered my companions. I turned back and found them in the city. Then explained what happened.


    “We going after them?” Carlito asked, looking excited.


    “I’m going, I’m faster on my own,” I added.


    “Ah man,” Carlito deflated.


    “I’m sure you’ll have the chance to stab something soon enough. For now, I need you to stay here in case I’m wrong and Aurora comes back. Head to that boutique and wait with Saia.”


    “We will,” Kai said. “What are you going to do if she’s not… alive anymore?”


    I paused, I didn’t think that Aurora was dead. I would’ve found a body, or more blood. This was humans, and they were… assholes. If they came after her, there was some stupid reason for it. Perhaps I was wrong, and they didn’t take her, maybe she went with them. Maybe there were more groups of humans, I didn’t know. So I wasn’t going to rush in blindly. But if she was dead…


    “I’ll spill blood,” I answered Kai’s question. “But… let me get ready for this actually.”


    I entered one of the shops on the street and quickly found what I was looking for, a pair of dark sunglasses and a mask to cover my face.


    “You going incognito boss?” Carlito asked.


    I nodded. “Don’t want to spook people immediately,” I said as I looked at Saia and the gear she was carrying. I decided against taking my weapon, it was too big for me to fly fast while carrying it.


    “Can you form me a jacket or something?” I asked Saia. “Add some extra mass so that you can shift into a weapon for me?”


    A small piece of her drone broke off and flowed over me, creating a tight half-jacket that accommodated my wings. I also kept my revolver and the dagger that Shadow gifted me.


    With everything ready, I waved at my companions and took to the air, heading back toward the camp in the forest. Then I started following the tracks from the air.


    <hr>


    They headed north, following the roads mostly. Only getting off them in areas where they had been completely taken over by nature. The mutation of plant life wasn’t equal everywhere. From what I could see, it was a lot tamer this far north. The more tropical forests of my home had become even wilder, swallowing up roads almost completely.


    Here, in the U.S. one could still see and somewhat use the roads. There were cracks and breaks as a tree’s roots suddenly burst through the asphalt, but not as much as it happened down south.


    I flew slower so that I could keep my eyes on the tracks, but eventually I saw a change in terrain. Large mountains rose from the ground, and the nature changed. I’ve reached another area that had been switched around. There was no more road, and the tracks led into the forest, but I could see the likely destination in the distance.


    I rose higher in the air, so high that I would be just a tiny dot for anyone looking, easily mistaken for a bird. I flew forward, and over a small town on the coast of a lake in the foothills of the mountains. I didn’t see much destruction in the town, and there was movement below. From this high up, I struggled to tell if it was animals or people, but I leaned toward people.


    I triggered [My Blood, Surge For Power] and felt my senses sharpen, letting me see better. There were definitely people, and I saw around a dozen wagon-looking things moving through the streets of the town with tiny dots around them.


    This was a group of survivors, a lot of them by the look of it. This was going to be a bit harder than I thought. I couldn’t search for Aurora from the air, if she was here she was probably somewhere inside. True, she could be fine. She could’ve just decided to move here with other survivors. I didn’t know.


    The best course of action would be to just approach the people and ask. The only evidence I had of foul play was a scuffle back at Monroeville and some blood spilled. This was a dangerous world, that could’ve happened for a myriad of reasons.


    Choices, choices.


    I turned around and flew back to my companions.