bait

After the dust had settled, when the chaos of the collapse had calmed into something more stable, a steady slog of survival, I started getting dreams--dreams where all of us were back together again, where instead of fighting just to survive we were fighting to fix the world. Yes, we'd failed, but in the dreams there was still time to be heroes. The dreams were so clear and so vivid it was hard to imagine they were just the product of my sleeping mind--these were visions. Someone wanted me to go back.

It was, of course, a trap. How could it be anything else? How could anyone imagine that this world could be fixed, after everything we let happen to it? Whatever had sent these visions, it did not have my best interests at heart--the hope it offered was false hope, and whatever fate awaited me if I heeded them was not, I was certain, a happy one.

And yet. The others were still out there somewhere, lost in the chaos, and I had no doubt they had received the visions as well. What if some of them decided to follow, to head back to that dead city? Could we avoid the worst of it if we returned knowing that we were walking into a trap? Was it worth risking everything for a chance to see some of them again, to maybe save them from whatever horrible fate awaited us?

If I was the most sensible of us, and I was considering heeding the visions despite knowing they were a trap, certainly some of the others wouldn't even hesitate. I settled my affairs in town and hit the road once more. No one here would miss me.