There is no fate. That’s what the tall man told himself. Easy to tell himself that, since there was no one else left to talk. He needed no one, that’s what he told the others before they became nothing. But he stood, still triumphant in the knowledge of himself. High as the highest rubble around him, standing up in his own suit of protection. A lack of affection granted him the way out. Needing nothing but a suit to escape the others as they dropped by their belief in fate. No one left to beg his help, he laughed at their fate, secure in the knowledge of his triumph.
The world was his now, he told no one. Except for the other man that followed. His fate was not belief, but fact in the following steps from behind. The other man looked like those beggars, but his need for affection granted him a triumph against the sickness. The tall man could not understand it, laughing in his knowledge that it must be a mistake, that no fate would grant two survivors in this world of rubble. But the tall man did not believe in fate, and kept the steps in front of the beggar that he needed to keep to himself. Because one may be two might be ten, and maybe they knew it was all his fault.