Urban slid down to the floor as he peeled off his gas mask and breathed in cool, crisp wasteland air. His brow was drenched in sweat, chest heaving to replenish precious oxygen. Outrunning feral dogs was not an easy feat, but he was sure he finally lost them. For now, anyway. They at least had probably gotten bored with chasing him.

Taking his flask out of its pocket on his belt, he unstoppered the cap and took a deep, refreshing gulp of water. He had more bottled up in the backpack currently sitting between his knees, but it wouldn't be long and he would have to either find more or hope for some snow that he could boil and try to treat for radiation. He wasn't even sure his purifier was still working correctly anymore, and with the "settlements" being nomadic it wasn't going to be easy to find someone to repair it.

He didn't even know where he was. He was just following the path laid out by his parents, and his parents' parents, and their parents, and so on. Over two hundred years of this, passing a torch to the next generation with a singular goal of "survive and keep going west." But then what? What was west? Poland? What if nothing remained of Poland? Or Germany? Or anything? There was no proof that his was ever going to pay off, but it was not just his life's work; it was the life work of those who came before him. It was not his legacy to abandon, it was his to uphold.

His raven, Anka, swooped in through a broken window and landed on a tattered office chair, watching him intently as she waited for him to finish resting.