Hell Or High Water As Cities Burn | Zip

He went walking. And the cities burned behind him, one by one, like fallen stars.

Behind him, Chicago was a furnace. The skyline he’d grown up under—the Sears Tower, the Hancock, the lakefront towers—stood skeletal against a boiling orange sky. Hell or high water , his father used to say. We go through both. His father was three months dead now, shot in the grocery riots. Kael had buried him in the backyard next to the dead apple tree. hell or high water as cities burn zip

Ahead, the sky was darker. Not from night—from more fire. Another city burning. Toledo? Columbus? He couldn’t tell anymore. They all burned the same. He went walking

The train lurched. Kael grabbed the rim of the hopper car and held on. Wind screamed past, thick with smoke and the sour smell of the river burning somewhere to the west. He had no food. No water. One canteen half-full and tasting of rust. A pistol with three bullets. A photograph of his sister, Mira, who’d taken the family car two weeks ago heading east. “Find ZIP,” she’d said. “Find me.” The skyline he’d grown up under—the Sears Tower,

Morning came dirty and gray. The train slowed near a collapsed overpass, and Kael jumped, rolling into a ditch full of charred cornstalks. He lay there a moment, listening. No engines. No helicopters. Just the whisper of ash falling like dirty snow.