“The stump,” Marcus and Lex said at once. He remembered when they cut that tree down. It had been before everything changed. Marcus had been so young then. They both had, really, but Lex was 20 and technically a consenting adult enough for his mother to present him with a suspension belt and a saw. It was funny now that he thought back to it. Their mother had been so serious, with her hands on her hips and doing her best to seem intimidating while she had to look up at him. She had claimed that they would need the firewood, even though it was in the middle of the hottest month of the year. So Lex climbed one of the tallest trees in Termina and cut it from the top down, and sure enough they were hit by a hundred-year storm a few weeks later. The electrical grid had gone offline, and they were the only ones around with firewood to spare. Their mother had always been perceptive like that. He wondered idly if she predicted the end of the world, too.<br/><br/>Lex’s hand snaked out, feeling blindly for Blue’s hand, which he found after a second. Her thumb still hovered over the transmit button, so he just pushed her thumb down onto it with his own. “Guns, clothes, food, light. Get packing, we're on our way.” The transmission cut, and Lex delicately plucked his com device out from Blue's hand. “That's our house. I've got a key if Marcus didn't leave the door unlocked.”