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Manon offered her hand to the boy. She was too big to fit into the play structure so the gesture was the best she could offer. The boy stared at her, trying to assess whether or not she was a threat. Manon herself was wondering if it was such a good idea to take the child back to the store, she had enough trouble providing for herself. Still, she could never go on knowing she had left a child to die.

Finally, the boy crawled to Manon and from under the play structure. She took his hand and led him back to the store, checking over her shoulder as if there was going to be someone or something at the playground waiting. Once in the store, Manon offered the child the remnants of a can of beans. He looked at her with tired eyes before beginning to eat.

The child ate as if he hadn't in days, shoveling small handfuls of canned brown beans into his mouth frantically. Manon watched him eat contently, the two sitting in the shadows behind the counter of the store with nothing but the sounds of the child chewing his food. "So what's your name?" She asked, pulling her knees to her chest. He did not answer, nor did he look up at her and instead continued eating. Manon wondered where his mother or father were before grimly realizing that they may had fallen victim to a group of bandits-or worse.

"What's your name?" She asked again, leaning in to listen. The child looked up at her, his face filthy from his supper, his forehead caked with dust, the blue irises of his eyes looking brilliant against the grime. Just as before, he did not answer her. Instead, the child took off the small back pack he had been wearing and held it out to her. Manon took the pack and unzipped it, looking at him before rooting through its contents. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, a small plush elephant, a long sleeve shirt, a toque, a toy train, then at the bottom a small picture in a black wooden frame. It was a woman, her hair a soft blonde, eyes just like the child before her, smiling brilliantly at the camera. In this picture, the trees were full of leaves, the sky was bright blue, so much colour that Manon felt her eyes pulsing. She placed the photo back in the knapsack and took notice of a tag that in big, black markered letters read

JAQUES M.

She slid the bag back to the boy and nodded, then handed him a wet nap pack for his face and hands. The child looked at the packet, then back to her, Manon stared confused for a moment before realizing he had no idea how to wash himself with it, then took it from his hands and wiped the dirt from his face.

Not long after she had washed him, Jaques fell asleep on her bedroll. He slept like the dead, so much so that Manon felt compelled to press her hand to his chest to feel the rise and fall of breath. Grimly, Manon thought of how on Earth she would take care of a child when she had no idea where she was going. While the store had proved to be a stable shelter, it was only temporary. Once she was ready, Manon would have to move on in an attempt to search for more human contact. There were rumours of a survivors settlement, but Manon had no idea where, and her radio had picked nothing up. No emergency transmission promising a warm bed and food for all, no questions about survivors. Nothing. Her father had talked about it with another traveler once beside a fire. He talked about how if there was a settlement, there would surely be some sort of transmission to other survivor's. Now Manon would wander with her radio, hoping to pick up any kind of signal. She ran a calloused palm across her forehead tiredly, wishing she could sleep as easily as her new travel companion.