The Day After

[a_mere_child]

Alyx stirs, and blinks muzzily at the wall next to the bed she's lying in. That's not a wall in White Forest, or Milliways. So what

Comments

[remindmeof_me]

People are out and about in the ... well, they're paths between buildings wide enough for multiple people to walk side by side if they have to; might as well call them streets. A lot of them are people from White Forest, in clumps of one local and two or three evacuees. It's difficult to place just how many people are in this part of the cave system at the moment, as there are inevitably echoes all over the place (including tantalizing snatches of echoing music). There's light, at least, and warmth despite the depths. It's evident now that people here not only look after their buildings and keep them in good repair, but go to some lengths to decorate them with such paint and paneling as can be made to look both tidy and appealing.

[a_mere_child]

The latter is something that the Resistance rarely bothers with. In fact, it's not uncommon to deliberately leave Resistance-occupied buildings in disrepair--on the outside, at least. Signs of regular maintenance might as well be a sign that says 'Hey, Overwatch, Somebody Lives Here.'

This place... well, it's cramped to the point of claustrophobia, especially with all the new arrivals, but... it feels homey. It's a little weird, from Alyx's perspective.

She finds her footsteps drawn toward the source of the music, or what she thinks is the source of the music.

[remindmeof_me]

It takes some work to track it down. The echoes can be awfully deceptive here. Eventually, though, Alyx finds her way to the source- a dark-haired young woman who can't have been more than two or three years old when the Combine came, putting an acoustic guitar through its paces just outside a building whose front door is marked EMERGENCY.

[a_mere_child]

Alyx settles down on a convenient horizontal surface (hey, she's four months pregnant with twins and she's been walking on bare stone for the past half-hour. She has a right to sore feet.) to listen to the other woman play.