All that is left is Kaitlyn and the wind. She stands alone, balanced precariously on a picnic table. The brown paint is mostly worn away, and graffiti litters the surface, left behind from happier times when people could fret about whether the hearts and names they etched into permanence on the wooden surface would really last forever. Now, people worry if their food will last until tomorrow.

The wind whips Kaitlyn’s long curls around her face. She is poised on her tiptoes, peering west in an attempt to see the the sun. Her sketch book, all that is left of the life she lived before, lies open on the table, pages waving frantically in the wind to reveal brief flashes of brilliant color. Kaitlyn sighs as she slowly drops to her heels, brushing rebellious curls behind her ear. She has no hope of sketching beauty, not unless the drawings stem from memory alone.

Around her, the wind gusts, blowing debris over empty streets. Trees, white and stunted, reach desperately into the air, searching for the sunlight that they will never reach. There is no sky for Kaitlyn to sketch, no endless blue dotted with fluffy white cotton balls or black velvet studded with diamonds. Instead, there is an endless sheet of gray, smothering the desolate landscape like a blanket thrown over the Earth, hiding it from the sky.

Kaitlyn drops from the table, light on her feet, and picks up the sketchbook. She examines drawings of her past, drawings where people smile and the grass is green and the sun is shining. In they gray half-light, the colors are too bright, almost garish in their brilliance. Suddenly, the notebook slides through her numb fingers and tumbles to the ground, resting there only briefly before it is caught by the wind and blown away down the empty street. Kaitlyn takes a half step towards the notebook, the last relic of her past, but then she turns away.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Kaitlyn whispers.

And then the storm breaks, and Kaitlyn walks away, but the cold rain is all that slides down her pale cheeks. She doesn’t have any tears left to cry.

****

Kaitlyn creeps through the museum, her feet nearly silent on the cement floors. She knows Anthony is there, in the building somewhere, and even the idea of another human presence is enough to make her vaguely uneasy after being alone for so long. The electric lighting is bizarrely steady and flat compared to the dull gray sky, and Kaitlyn finds herself jumping at shadows, convinced every flicker at the edge of her vision is her new companion, coming to do her in.

She comes around a corner--the place is a labyrinth--and gasps softly at what she sees. The little roped-off area resembles an antique living room. There is a writing desk in the corner, black and white portraits on the walls, and an old-fashioned leather sofa. What has caught Kaitlyn’s attention, though, is the beautiful old piano in the corner of the false room.

She ducks under the ropes and sits at the bench, brushing her fingers lightly over the keys without producing a note. There is sheet music, old and yellowed: Piney Ridge. With a deep breath, Kaitlyn presses her finger to Middle C. The elegant note tumbles through the silent museum, which suddenly feels too small, pressing in on Kaitlyn like a tomb.

Almost frantically, Kaitlyn launches into every scale she knows, assaulting the air with music, chasing away the silence she’s lived in for so long. Slowly her frenzy fades, and her fingers find the correct tempo of almost their own accord. Piney Ridge is full of treble clef scales, her fingers flying through eighth notes, and offbeat quarter notes on the lower keys.

Kaitlyn plays, and the music makes her forget. She forgets to jump at shadows, and that she’s hiding in a museum in the middle of nowhere, and that the whole world has crumbled around her and she has nothing and no one left. She plays, and she forgets everything, until the song is done and she remembers, gasping for air over the keys while silent tears stream down her face and the words that have become her mantra echo over and over in her mind.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

And then she shoves away from the piano, away from the memories assaulting her mind, and the only music left is the sound of the piano bench clattering to the floor.

****

She finds Anthony in an easily-defensible corner, dragging old furniture out of the way. It’s a good place to hide, but she already knows he’s good at surviving, because he’d be dead already if he wasn’t. She’s glad he doesn’t hear her until she clears her throat, because it’s always safer to be able to escape someone you’re with, always better to stab them in the back before they stab you. But then he looks up without a drop of surprise in his dark eyes, and she realizes that he’s thinking the exact same thing about her.

“I didn’t know you played,” he says, and she’s instantly even more wary of him. His voice fills up the silence with the same sort of warm melody as the piano, and she can’t let herself escape the silence, even for a moment, because when she does it hurts all the more.

“You’re very good,” Anthony adds.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Kaitlyn says flatly, and she thinks she sees the first hint of emotion in Anthony’s dark eyes. Sadness, maybe, or bitterness.

“No,” he says, matching her cold tone, “I suppose it doesn’t.”

****

Kaitlyn gazes at the old courthouse. It’s majestic, regal, in the sort of way people were before the world reminded them just how dangerous it can be. It’s made of some sort of pale brick that probably was once a pretty pink pastel, and has a pair of Greek-style columns by the entrance. Her fingers itch to sketch the image before her, to capture the way the half-light of a dying world seems to gather around the building. It’s an urge she’s been suppressing, but now she feels she would give almost anything to have a pencil in her hand and paper beneath her fingers.

"Think it’s safe to go inside?” Kaitlyn almost jumps.

“I didn’t hear you coming,” she says to Anthony, trying to hide just how startled she really is.

“I’ve been practicing,” he says with a smirk, and it’s a struggle for Kaitlyn to stop herself from smiling back. “I did learn from the best, after all.”

“Oh?” Kaitlyn says, and then blurts out, “You’ll have to introduce me.” She immediately berates herself for responding to Anthony’s teasing--she’s far too fond of him already--but his delighted laugh makes it rather difficult to be disappointed.

“Come on,” he says, “there’s nothing in there too dangerous for Tony and Kate to handle!” She rolls her eyes at the nicknames and scowls when he slings his arm over her shoulder, but she doesn’t push him away. She’s too busy trying to remind herself that she shouldn’t care if he has a nice laugh, and to remember when she started wanting to see him smile so much.

It doesn’t matter anymore, she tells herself, but she can’t help but wonder where all her conviction has gone.

****

Kaitlyn knows she’s dreaming, because the sun is shining. She’s sitting in the shade, sketching a small bush across from her, capturing all the details. The branches are the palest tan, almost white, and covered in delicate buds, pastel green. The bush is spring in all its glory--it practically glows with life, surrounded by the brilliance of afternoon sun.

“Hey.” She looks up and sees Anthony, but her dream-self is not all confused by this specter of the present appearing in what must be her past.

“Hey, Tony,” she says, the words falling easily from her lips as though she greets him like this every day. Anthony sits beside her, so close their knees touch, and rests his chin on her shoulder to examine her drawing.

“It’s very good,” he says, and Kaitlyn smiles back at him. His brown eyes are bright and carefree, and so wonderfully happy that she’s still smiling when she wakes up, only to find her perfect dream world tarnished by the shadows of reality.

The little bush is dead. It is nighttime, and, while Anthony sits close beside her, they are only huddled together to fight off winter’s chill.

“You alright?” he asks, and Kaitlyn shrugs.

“It was just a dream,” she murmurs. “It...”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, I know,” Anthony says, annoyance replacing concern on his face. “Get some more sleep. We’ll have to leave soon.”

He turns his head, pulling away as far as he can while still sharing body heat, and Kaitlyn instantly misses the feeling of leaning against him. While she tells herself that Anthony is completely right about the dream, a small part of her can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, it does matter after all.

****

Kaitlyn tilts her head upward, still disbelieving that the sun is finally shining. She can see mountains in the distance, far enough away that they’re blue, crowned with white snow. It is the sort of sight she thought she would never see again. I should be happy, Kaitlyn thinks. I am happy, she adds firmly, wishing she could convince herself.

She sits on the ground and picks up the scraps of paper she’s found, along with a pencil. She writes her name in neat cursive across the lower right corner, savoring the touch of lead to paper, and then she begins to sketch. She tries to lose herself in the art, to find the perfect shape of the mountains, to catch the way the golden light plays off the landscape, but she can’t. Too many emotions rest at the edge of her mind; they are emotions she can’t identify, but they’re distracting, keeping her from completely focusing on the task at hand.

Frustration takes over as she flips over the paper and tries again. Two tries becomes four, and then four becomes six, and Kaitlyn finally begins to lose herself in the art.

She is lost enough that she doesn’t notice when her sketch begins to change, to evolve into a new shape. Her drawing deviates farther and farther from the mountainous landscape before her, until she finally finishes and looks at her drawing again.

Kaitlyn gasps softly at what she sees. Anthony stares back at her from the paper, his face etched in careful detail. His beautiful dark eyes gaze steadily up at her, and then Kaitlyn begins to cry.

Around her, birds sing. The green grass waves in a soft breeze, and the air smells of spring. All around her, Kaitlyn sees a shattered world that is beginning to mend.

“But it doesn’t matter anymore,” she whispers, and though the golden sun dries her tears, they taste more bitter than any she’d shed under that darkened sky.