The Brilliance at the End

In a world ravaged by war, famine, and death, a lone orphan struggles to survive in the ruins of civilization. Sana, now twenty-seven, carries a secret that scares her; a secret that she would sooner wish to forget.

Logan has picked his place in the Huckleberry Mountains, a sixty acre parcel that was never meant to be open to outsiders. For many years, he's kept a dark secret to himself, but when a hungry, desperate woman breaks into his property, he finds that she quickly breaks through all of his defenses--even the one that surrounds his heart.

The Brilliance at the End is a 7,000 word short story.

Moonlight on an icy autumn night slipped like a silken sheet over his face, a welcome cold luminescence that he'd missed the last few nights. The storms had been constant, returning night after night, angry clouds roaring in the sky. The rainwater had been welcome--but the barrels had filled up fast on the first night, and still, the rain continued, overflowing, cascading down the Huckleberry Mountains of Stevens County, Washington.

Waste. Waste. Waste.

He didn't like that, Logan. Fresh water was hard to come by with the government nearly shut down, barely surviving, and no infrastructure to support a world that was--dying. Nearly dead.

The pandemic had come so swiftly. One month CNN reporters were making jokes about another Covid-19-esque toilet paper shortage, and the next, entire empires were falling. Hospitals overflowed. Millions died in mere days, and it kept going for weeks. Logan remembered that all he could think was waste and more waste.

He'd bought this land before the first wave of the pandemic, all sixty acres of it. With his cabin situated on a hill, he could overlook the valley below, and the rushing Columbia River that flowed through his property could be heard on quiet nights. It had been safe then.

Before the world came crashing down. Before bandits and scavengers started picking through the wilderness. Before he'd had to put up high-voltage electric fences and trip wires around his cabin. Not to keep them out.

He was keeping himself in.

Logan had never planned to let anyone in. He'd planned to stay on his parcel and live out his days with the land sprawled out before him, beautiful sunrises and sunsets even though out there, everything had gone to shit. He'd planned to take Nightmare, his stubborn steed, out for rides in the craggy mountains, climbing between all the timber. Just his horse and the fresh air, his land an abundance of beauty to explore.

But he was lonely.

Isolation had become a part of him, strung like a thread through his soul until he knew nothing but the silence of solitude.

He truly hadn't meant to let her in--but that was the thing about Sana. She didn't ask permission. She broke in, just as she'd been born and bred to do. She was like the light between the curtains, running like a seam down his cheek, deceiving in its warmth.

It wasn't until he got to know her that he found out she was just like him.

A waste.

He almost shot her.

Rifle pointed at her chest, his eyes wild with anger, glaring at her like she'd personally shat in his coffee that morning.

"Get off my land. Go back to where you came from."

Easier said than done. Where she'd come from had just gone under. Vancouver Seclusion--VS--was overridden with hunger and the violence that stemmed from it was not pretty. The government had been overthrown, and the last of the remaining Seclusion Cities in Canada was officially down.

Just when the world felt like it had reached its lowest point, it dug just a little deeper and fell even lower.

She put her hands up in surrender. "Don't shoot."

The man's jaw tensed. He lifted the rifle to aim it at her head.

"How did you get through my fence?"

She turned her hands so he could see her dirty fingernails.

"I dug under," she said.

He tilted his head to the side, a curious expression on his face.

"What?"

He frowned. "The others never thought to dig."

"I thought this place was deserted. Someone told me back in Spokane--"

"Seems like someone lied to you." He pointed his rifle behind her. "Go back. And do not return here if you wish to live."

"Then pull the trigger. I'd rather die than go back."

He raised a brow. "This isn't a fucking weekend getaway, woman. Get the fuck off my land."

"There's nothing to go back to," she said in a harsh voice. "VS fell. Spokane is a scary place. The community in Wyoming--" The man snorted. "--it's done for. Famine. War. Death."

"Not disease," the man said quietly.

"Not since--not for a while, no."

"Thanks for the riveting chat. Now leave, or you will die."

She backed away, grabbing her backpack straps.

"I'll be by the river, if you change your mind."

She was almost out of earshot when he replied.

"Change my mind about what?"

"Letting me stay," she said over her shoulder.

Sleep evaded him that night.

He laid there all night--in the loft of his cabin with only a bed and a big slanted window on the roof that'd splurged on, doing his best not to look through it toward the river.

Logan hadn't been very successful with that. He'd glanced more times than he'd care to admit, and each time, he'd seen her there by the river, huddled up with not a tent or a blanket to shield her from the bitter cold.

It was distressing how thin she was. He'd known it was bad out there, but the people he'd encountered in the mountains were wild yet well-fed from nature's abundance in these parts. The woman was a rail of a thing, all bones and copper brown skin with high, round cheeks and big, sunken, mollifying eyes that made him wonder why he hadn't just shot her.

It was tempting. He could end her and be done with it.

Then she'd be gone and the deafening silence would return to his soul.

"Here."

The tin box rattled to the ground by her feet. It was a food container with a metal spoon stuck into an indent on the lid.

Sana plucked the spoon out and opened the box to find--beans! Barbecue baked beans. She hadn't had any since... Well, a long time. Her memory wasn't what it had once been. She wasn't well. She hadn't been well in a while.

"I'm feeding you so you'll leave," the man said.

Sana looked up at him as she shoveled a spoonful of beans into her mouth.

Oh, fuck. That was good. Really, really fucking good.

"Thank you," she said between mouthfuls. "So, so much. This is great!"

The man frowned down at her. "You will leave my property."

"You don't own the fucking river."

"I own the riverbed you're sitting on."

"What if I crossed to the other side?"

They both looked at the wide river and the rushing water and knew that she'd never make it.

"I own that, too," he said.

Sana chuckled, throwing her head back as she nearly choked on the beans.

The man took a canister off his shoulder and threw it to her. Fresh water wasn't an impossible find in a rainy place like Washington, but usually she was drinking out of rusty pipes or shallow puddles. A fresh sip of water--that was a real treat.

"Slow down. You'll choke on that."

Sana guzzled down the water, ignoring him.

The man crossed his arms. She liked his shoulders, how broad they were. And his face. She was certain she'd never seen another like it. His features were all hard yet soft, like he was both yielding and unyielding. His stare was hard, but his brows had softened. His lips were pressed into a line, but he didn't look angry. Just concerned.

No one had been concerned about Sana in a long, long time.

She did not realize how quickly she would become addicted to it.

There were many things she did not know then.

He meant to close the hole she'd dug up, but didn't.

All day he listened for her. Wondered if she'd come crawling out of there and set off another trip wire.

But she didn't come, and still, he waited.

When it got nearly dark, he climbed up to his loft and looked out the window. She was still there, standing straight and looking out at the river. It could swallow her up in an instant, and the thought alone made his chest constrict.

Maybe he hadn't meant to close the hole, after all.

"You'll die of hypothermia."

Sana turned around to find the man there.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Logan."

"I'm Sana."

"I don't care," he said, turning around. "Come, if you want a warm place to sleep."

She followed him. "I think you do care."

He turned to look at her and said in barely a whisper, "I wish I didn't."

Sana had made her way to the Huckleberry Mountains with the hopes of finding a group to join before winter creeped up on her. She'd expected to find a group of scavengers to join, if only to earn enough for a meal a day.

This man... He'd come without any warning.

His sharp eyes. Jaw always tense. Never friendly, but always kind.

In that world of war and famine and death, kindness was the most she could hope for.

Sana. Sana. Sana.

He repeated her name in his mind over and over, tasting the word like a hard candy, sucking and sucking and never quite running out of the sweetness.

"This is cozy," she said when he brought her inside his cabin. He'd never done that before. Never brought anyone inside his home. It was private, something he'd kept to himself like a dark little secret.

She touched his things. Drifted her fingertips over his dusty surfaces. She lifted her chin, catching his eye.

"You need a woman's touch, I think," she said.

"I don't need anyone," he replied gruffly.

She gave him a small, knowing smile. "Tell me I'm not wrong."

Heat crawled up the nape of his neck. "You're not entirely wrong. But you're not right either."

She smiled and--fuck. His heart skipped a beat. She wasn't conventionally attractive. Too skinny. Nose with a noticeable dorsal hump. Eyebrows too thick and bushy.

But she had a brilliant fucking smile. High cheekbones. Long, fluttering lashes. Eyes warm as honey, brown as chocolate.

How could a person be so sweet? He hadn't tasted her, and yet he felt like he knew all the flavors of her.

A night ago, he'd hated her eyes. Maybe it was because of how easily she could disarm him with just one look.

"Are you hungry?" Logan asked, struggling to make small talk.

"Starving."

"I cooked us dinner."

Her eyes trailed over to the kitchen, to the pot bubbling over the fire. She made her way there slowly, taking deep whiffs of the rich aroma.

"Is that meat?" she asked, glancing at him, eyes wide.

"Yes."

"I haven't had meat in... Well, I don't know how long. I can't remember the last time I had some."

He nearly walked out to butcher one of the cattle for her. Nearly.

But that'd be absurd. This woman was nothing to him. Just a skinny thing that the gale had brought in.

He wouldn't know for a while, but that was simply untrue.

Sana was the gale.

He smelled like the land. Woodsy and fresh and a little ancient, as if he'd been around a long, long time. There was a hint of spiciness as well--something she'd later learn was aftershave.

Sana was a pandemic orphan. She'd grown up in Vancouver Seclusion in the North Zone with all the rest of the kids in a society that would've very much preferred to have forgotten them.

There was never enough of anything there. Never enough supplies. Never enough food. Never enough medical care.

When she'd run away, she'd left with the knowledge that she was dying. The doctors had diagnosed her with their limited equipment, but they said they couldn't be sure.

Sana knew they were right. The cancer was inside her and she could feel it. She was dying.

She'd accepted it. There wasn't much to live for, anyway.

Not until she met him.

Desire sprung in her bones. For the first time in her life, she wanted something that was attainable. She wanted the hardened, rugged man that stood before her to want her the way women needed to be wanted.

She wanted him for herself, and something deep in her chest told her that he would let her.

Logan fed the girl.

She ate like an animal. No table manners, outside of the "thanks" that she'd mumbled with a mouth full of stew. She ate one bowl, then another, and when he offered her a third, her eyes went wide.

"I couldn't," she said.

Ah. So maybe she had some manners.

"Why not? I'm offering you more," Logan said, reaching for her bowl. She handed it to him with a sheepish smile.

"I can't be sure, but I think I'm full," she replied.

"Why can't you be sure?"

"I've never been full before."

It was quiet in the cabin. The fire crackled and fresh rain pattered down on the roof.

Logan took her bowl to the sink, his heart hammering in his chest. This girl had never known the comfort of a full belly. She'd been hungry her entire life. That made him deeply sad, and he was surprised how much it gutted him to think about it.

"Do you want to take a shower? I have hot water."

The chair scraped behind him. Sana walked over to him, placing her palms down on the counter beside him. She leaned against it and looked up at him.

"What do you want in exchange?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you."

Logan washed her bowl. "I don't care what you think."

She snorted. "That's not true."

She was right, of course. He already cared too deeply what she thought.

"I have a loft bed. The sheets are clean and white. If you want to sleep there, you'll need to be clean," he said. "You can borrow some of my clean clothes."

"And where will you sleep?"

"I have a couch."

Sana tilted her head up and down, checking him out.

"You'll never fit in that couch," she said with a little giggle. "What were you, built in a lab or something?"

Logan shut off the water and set the bowl down on the drying rack and turned to face her. The light from the fire gave her brown skin a beautiful copper glow. Nothing about her should be as appealing as it was, and yet he was enamored with her. Her full lips. Those thick eyebrows. Deep-set, wide eyes. High cheekbones with a blush blooming.

"What?" he said, confused.

"You're very handsome."

Logan cleared his throat, walking toward the bathroom. A small hand closed around his wrist, tugging him to a stop. He looked over his shoulder.

"I know I'm not very pretty but--"

"You are," he said immediately.

"Do you want to maybe take a shower with me?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yes," he said breathlessly. "I would like that very much."

It wasn't that she'd never done this before. She'd brushed shoulders with rough men in the wilderness, and she'd learned to survive any way she could.

She knew this would bring her host pleasure, but she hadn't known that it would bring her pleasure, too.

"God, you're so beautiful," Logan murmured, and she felt those words all the way to the pit of her belly.

They undressed slowly. There was no hurry in the cabin. With every piece of ratty fabric that fell away from her skin, Sana worried that maybe he wouldn't like to see her naked. She had a body made up of scratches and cuts and bruises and scars. There was nothing pretty about her skin or her hair or her nails.

She was damaged. Broken. Dying, even.

"Can I touch you?" Logan asked. His voice was hoarse.

Sana blinked in surprise. She wasn't used to anyone asking permission.

"Yes."

His hands came to rest on her bare shoulders, trailing up her neck, her jaw, and cradling the back of her head. His hands were in her hair, tugging gently and tilting her head back. Sana's belly fluttered with butterflies.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked.

"God, please."

His lips flooded warmth into her body. He kissed her slowly and firmly, his mouth moving with hers, tasting all the pain she had tried so hard to hide from him. It burst through her, and before she knew it, she was crying.

He pulled back.

"We can stop."

"No," she said as a tear rolled down her cheek. "Kiss me, Logan. And please, for the love of God, don't stop this time."

Logan kissed her through the tears. Softly. Gently. His lips gave her comfort, and though the world was broken and she was dying and there was no one that had ever loved her, she felt hope.

Sana had never prayed for anything before, but standing there in that tight kitchen, she asked every power in the universe to let her have Logan.

Even if it was for just that one night.

Logan tasted a sea of sadness on her lips. Sadness and despair and pain, so much pain. And there, beneath her skin, he could sense the decay. He'd felt its presence the moment they had met, but he had ignored it as he'd ignored the ailments of all the other people he'd met in his time on Earth.

He supposed they called it cancer here.

Sana was dying.

A hole opened up in his chest, so wide and so deep that it could've filled with the entirety of the universe. It was cruel, so very cruel to take a gentle creature like her and allow death to be her destiny. It did not seem fair.

Logan did not think the end of the world was fair, period. Perhaps that was why he had unsaddled his horse all those years ago. His brothers continued their destruction of everything humanity had built while he'd chosen a patch of land and hid away.

It wasn't that he didn't want to do it. He did. He understood his purpose. It was why he had been created, after all. When the Four Horsemen had been set loose to reclaim the Earth, he'd known what his objective was. He'd spread the plague. Laid waste to the lands with infection and disease.

Logan had wanted to complete his objective, but he just... couldn't.

He'd killed millions before it occurred to him that, like the rest of humanity, he possessed free will. He didn't have to cause pain. He did not have to make them suffer. He did not have to hear their agonized cries.

So he stopped. Retired, as the mortals called it. Retreated to the mountains and hung up his bow.

Sana was proof that his presence wasn't necessary. The cancer that was inside her was not his doing. She would waste away as all the others before her.

He kissed her and hoped that she understood how very sorry he was. She did not deserve to die.

None of them did.

He was so gentle with her--and she did not understand it. The way his palms flattened against her skin, hands trailing down her body, touching her with such tenderness that she felt she could cry again.

When he lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bathroom, she couldn't help but tremble. She was not used to this; she did not know how to be cared for.

Sana knew that if things had been alright in the world, he might not have noticed her. In that world, she would've been like one transit on a bus; just a stop, easily left behind and forgotten.

A part of her was almost glad that she'd grown up in this broken world--because it had led her here, into Logan's arms, with no other woman to compete with her for his affections.

Here, he was hers. Even if only for a night.

Settling her on the bathroom counter, he got the water started. By the time he'd stepped back to her, the room was already steaming. In that thick mist, their mouths met again, kissing away the last of their doubts.