For Some Odd Reason (pt. 1)

Nothing that follows is a coincidence. Everything that follows should either stop following, or become a coincidence. The world would be better for it.

Part 1

In Which Things Stop Happening, and Other Things Follow in Their Stead

Ratchet looked around. For all she knew, a nuke had just gone off. For all she knew, everyone was dead.

Ratched paused.

No, not quite everyone, she thought. But why the heck was she alive?

These thoughts caused Ratchet great pause. Whether she continued to pause, as in "stop temporarily," is yet to be seen.

Ratchet assumed a fittingly bemused expression and looked at her surroundings. Around her, in largely random array, were a large assortment of bodies, in varying states of disembowelment, dismemberment, or disintegration. Ratchet nodded firmly. Yeah, that guy over there did really look like he had mold on his nose. All of a sudden, Ratchet also gripped her nose with rather unwomanly ferocity.

Although it was hard to see (for she did practically break her nose in the process, what with the speed she moved her hand), Ratchet momentarily had to prevent herself from choking, coughing, or sneezing. The smell was attacking just about every dimension of sensory perception she could remember possessing, and it was slowly scrambling her brains.

No, she thought. My brains would take a lot of heat to scramble. On a later day, she'd wonder why she thought this, but at the moment, all she could think of to do was run.

Ratchet was good at running. No, to be precise, Ratchet thought she was good at running. In reality, she was only the second-best runner in her neighborhood. On the other hand, she wasn't sure she had a neighborhood anymore, so she might be number one. This thought somehow slowed her down, and, just downwind from the whole massive mess, she slowed to a begrudging walk. It occurred to her, as she slowed, that she probably had been breathing such foul air as she'd just recently properly acquainted herself with for a good few minutes.

Ratchet was just wondering if she'd see the unfinished products of her digestive system today when she went unconscious.

For reasons not privy to either the author or Ratchet, her dreams flew immediately to such uncannily happy domains that she did, at least in her dream, acquaint herself with some undigested elements of her breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In reality, she was taken off to an abandoned warehouse and tied to a chair.

!Noah!