As they reach the grey, churning sea, the Man’s strength finally fails. He lies on the cold sand, the fire in him flickering out. He tells the Boy he must go on, to keep looking for the others—the ones who still carry the light.

The Man and the Boy move like ghosts across a landscape of ash. They are walking south, toward a coast that might be warmer, though they haven't seen the sun in years. Every step is a gamble against starvation and the "bloodcults"—the desperate remnants of humanity who have turned to the unthinkable to survive.

"Yes," the Man says, though his hands are scarred from the things he’s had to do to keep that promise. "We’re carrying the fire."

They find a house. In the cellar, they hear the scratching of the dying. They run. Later, they find a hidden bunker—a miracle of canned peaches and clean water. For a few days, they remember what it feels like to be human. They eat, they wash, and they sleep without one eye open. But the Man knows they cannot stay; the road is their only hope and their greatest enemy.

"Are we still the good guys?" the Boy asks, his eyes wide and hauntingly old.

The Boy weeps, but he doesn't stay. He joins a family of strangers who have been following them, people who carry their own fire. Behind them, the Man becomes part of the ash, and ahead, the Boy walks into a world where the only thing left to believe in is the person walking beside you.

The world didn't end with a bang, but with a slow, grey suffocating silence.

The Man coughs, a wet, red sound he hides from the Boy. He carries a pistol with two bullets: a final mercy if the world ever catches up to them. Their entire lives are contained in a rusted shopping cart filled with scavenged blankets and tins of food.