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Tell me about life,

for I already know about death.

Destruction holds a deadly beauty.

Most people overlook it, only noticing the harsh lines, bitter scents, and deformed edges. The lingering damage triggers an innate instinct to keep moving ahead.

Your eyes float to the ground. Your pace quickens.

If you stop, the ensuing devastation could ruin you as well.

But if you take a moment and peer closer into the wreckage, images flicker of what it used to be. Something beautiful, yet pointedly ignored by most.

Because appreciation rarely comes until what you thought would never leave is gone forever.

Khalani Kanes breathed in destruction and all its possibilities. It stretched in front of her, further than the eye could see.

Within the first hour of escaping Apollo, she discarded her grey prison jumpsuit through the broken window of a rusted…

Car?

Yes. That’s what Winnie had called it.

Hundreds and hundreds of corroded vehicles lay scattered across the road like an intricate maze.

The sweltering heat of the desert bounced off the thin, beige top and loose-fitting pants that fluttered around her legs amidthe strong wind.

Khalani was thankful for the extra,cleanclothing stowed in their backpacks.

Sweat stuck to her back, and a part of her wanted to strip off her clothes to cool down. But Brock warned her that the long sleeves protected her pale skin from the sun’s powerful rays.

For a girl who grew up in darkness, Khalani never believed she would gaze up at the sun, much less walk the surface under its raw power.

Sand whipped against her cheek as she trudged forward, clutching the straps of her black backpack tight around her shoulders.

No greenery was visible on the desolate road. No vegetation or signs of life. All was eerily quiet in the forgotten remnants of civilization.

Khalani’s eyes flickered to a black-and-white rusted sign, barely hanging off a metal pole jutting from the ground.

Arizona, Route 66.

She had no idea what those words meant.

So many things on the surface remained confounding to her. Like the tall beams in the sand with thick metallic wires dangling down. The faded numbered and lettered plates stuck to the back of the vehicles. The long road in the middle of an endless desert.

The strangest part was that nearly all the decrepit cars they passed had their doors wide open, as if the vehicles had been hastily abandoned by their owners.

Khalani often wondered what that fateful day must’ve been like. Witnessing fiery bombs streak across the sky, utterly helpless to stop the impending doom.

If you managed to survive the initial nuclear blasts that devastated the surface—especially the old United States—you most likely would’ve perished from poisoned groundwater or starvation due to mass hoarding of food. But when nuclearreactors were destroyed as well, the explosive meltdowns unleashed radioactive havoc across the world.

By the time people realized the surface was uninhabitable, the few underground cities had reached maximum capacity and shut their doors. She shuddered at the thought of patiently awaiting your death while your family and loved ones disintegrated before your very eyes.

Up until several days ago, Khalani believed the surface remained uninhabitable. She and every other citizen in Apollo were taught the high levels of radioactive fallout promised nothing but a fatal end to any who dared venture on the surface.

But they’d walked across the Death-Zone for a few days now, and Khalani felt no different.