The Fork In The Road They had finally broke free from the tree-line; the sweltering sticky air now traded for the brisk salt-tinged air of the shoreline. A road could be seen distantly, cutting through the sand like a man-made tectonic plate. The thrashing of the waves was almost reassuring after the suffocating stillness of the insect-laden forest. They were a party of eight; six human males, one grey-haired elderly elf and a hound as big as an ox and as black as midnight. They moved with an organised fluidity not unlike that employed by kingdoms military factions. The elf broke the silence, "the path ripples before us; two directions, two choices, two fates". "Do not all roads lead to Dalenthir, Old Man?" asked a hulking man, with a haggard beard and oval-shaped eyes. "All roads lead to death." The elf replied, with a dark grin tugging at his face, "some roads are just quicker than others..." The party went as quick as they came; the clash of steel, the whispering of sandals and the fading grunts of exertion left in their wake as they approached the fork in the road, and ultimately their fates.

The Nowhere Man The world had changed; gone were the governments, the law enforcers and the righteous. Only the strong survived. Civilisations were a thing of the past, memories of a more stabilised time. Wanderers and Ramblers, Walkers and Strays were the norm now. Sure, you might cross paths with a group of people, but more often than not they would be an unsavoury bunch; the kind of folk who have been teetering on the edge of sanity and finally took that final nosedive. They would sooner eat your innards than spare you a chug of their radiated water. The Nowhere Man, however, had not seen a living soul for well over six months now, and like the cannibals and the rapists, he too, was at the very edge, the precipice of sanity. His resources had been running dry ever since he crossed the London Plains, and he had not seen the merest flicker of a building upon the dusty horizon; his prospects weren't looking good. He still had his Shotty though, an automatic 22nd Century shotgun with as much bite as a group of hooded 21st Century chavs. But even that was dangerously brittle and breaking unto itself with every discharge; things weren't looking good at all. Five hours of trudging through the sand later, the view had not changed much, save for the darkening of the sky. A year or two ago, The Nowhere Man, would have laughed at this meagre distance but he was older now, wiser. Now he knew what awaited him at the very end of this stretch of sand, knew that the great body of salt-sea lay in waiting. Hell, you couldn't drink it, as he had thought then, but you can dunk your whole body beneath its cool surface and alleviate some of your aches and pains... But thats still a ways a way...still a couple leagues ahead and this time he was going at it alone; no Alia, no Elrick and no Dalen. Back then they had been the Company Of Four, a mercenary outfit who dealt in blood and bullets in exchange for gruel and drinkable water. They're all dead now, he thought, all murdered...I'm the last adrift in a world full of nothing and no one. I'm the man travelling here and there without a destination in mind; I'm the Nowhere Man. Then, just as the thought came so did a sudden wash of searing pain, distantly he could hear murmurings and the unmistakable sound of running sand; ahead of him, he even saw a hand reach out from the recently still unbroken sand, then another followed by a masked face.