| -9 years

“Give it back,” the thunder said. The city of Melbourne collectively looked up, unsure if they could believe their ears.

“Where did you hide it?!” the wind said, drowning out the screams of pedestrians in Lagos.

“We want it back!” the bird said as it landed on Gatlinburg, buildings groaning under its weight.

“Oh,” a woman in a black suit said, lip twitching as he stares at his phone in New York, and after a moment, “It figures. Fucking figures.” She had bet a coworker that when the cabal of creatures that grazed on humanity finally found cause to appear in the open, it'd be the bird.

The first five dollars earned in the new world were spent on a bag of ketchup chips.

| 0 years

"Supper's ready, Paige!"
"I'll be down in a moment!"

| +30 minutes

Paige wedged herself into the couch, getting ready for a long night of nibbling at her supper. The shrimp had gone cold, to her dismay and admitted expectations. Her mother smiled patiently from across the room. The Tuesday previous Paige had taken three hours to reach her dinner from the dark recesses of her bedroom. She wasn't an urgent kind of person.

On the television,