Yesterday's Gone: Season One

descended, blanketing the street and reducing visibility to less than 20 yards. The New York streets had fallen mute for the first time in centuries. Every step echoed not just off the buildings, but off the fog as well. They climbed into Luis’s car, a black BMW.
     
    “This should keep us somewhat safe,” he said proudly. “Polycarbonate sandwiched between two panes of glass for the windows, and ballistic steel armor on the body. As close to bulletproof as you can get without being in the belly of a tank.”
     
    “But,” Brent said, “Can it keep out whatever the fuck was in those videos?”
     
    “The company I ordered this from was fresh outta alien-proof materials.”
     
    Brent laughed as Luis put the car in gear and hit the gas.
     
    “Where are we going?”
     
    “Gonna look around, see what’s doing. See if we can find our families and wipe that look offa’ Melora’s face.”  
     
    Brent was surprised by how hard he laughed.  
     

     
    **
     

     
    If the streets were eerie when empty, the fog took them close to terrifying. It hung thinner on the ground, giving limited visibility. But above the streets, the fog swirled in thick clouds that seemed to swallow buildings like a sentient being. Though the city had never seemed less populated, nor the streets more wide open, Brent felt an intense claustrophobia, as though the fog held unseen mass that might crush them at any moment.
     
    After minutes of silence, Brent had to fill the cabin with idle chatter to distract his mind from the looming danger above.  
     
    “Is it just you and your daughter?”  
     
    “Yeah” Luis said, “My old lady died last year. Cancer.”
     
    “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Brent said. He never knew what to say when someone mentioned death. And he always felt like “sorry” was one of the worst things you could say. It was so ... trite. Yet, he could never think of anything better. He’d tried other phrases, like “sorry for your loss,” but that felt like a cheesy cop show line, even if it was slightly better than “sorry.” If he were being honest, he’d simply say, “that sucks,” because death truly did exactly that. But “that sucks” seemed almost flippant. So he always fell to the old uncomfortable standby, “I’m sorry.”
     
    “It’s okay,” Luis said.
     
    And they always say that, too. ‘It’s okay.’ No, it’s NOT okay. It’s never fucking okay.
     
    “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Brent began, “But if you’d been having these dreams, and you knew some shit was gonna go down, and were even preparing for it, why did you settle down and start a family?”
     
    “Way I see it, we have a limited amount of time on the planet, right? I just happened to know how limited mine might be. You can spend your time fearing inevitable death, I mean, shit, we’re all gonna die, right? Or you can make the most of the time you’ve got. Live the fuck outta those years! Do everything you can. Live, learn, laugh, love. Dance like no one’s watching, you know, all that shit.”
     
    Brent smiled, tears welling in his eyes.
     
    “Though, to be honest, I didn’t intend to have Gracie. She just kinda came along. And that shit weighed on me, knowing we’d brought a child into this world for such a limited time. It seemed so fucked up. But what was I gonna do?”
     
    “Did you tell your family about the dreams? I mean, how did you prepare? What did you do last night with Gracie?”
     
    “No, I didn’t tell my wife. I wanted to a million times, but she had her own shit to deal with. She’d had cancer as a teen and it was in remission for years. I don’t know if stuff like worry can cause cancer to come back, but I always felt like it sure as hell couldn’t help . So I tried to make things as easy as I could for her, make sure cancer never came back. But, as it turned out, shit came back anyway.”
     
    Luis’s jaw clenched on some misery just beneath the surface, but he kept talking.  
     
    “Last night, I thought about telling Gracie, but I didn’t want to scare her. So I took her out of school for the day and we went to the park, saw a movie, and had dinner and ice cream. All her favorite stuff. When we got home, I read to her. And we made a tent in the living room with blankets and couch cushions, and then went camping. We talked for hours. I asked her stuff I’d never thought to ask her before, so I could really know her. I asked her about her earliest memories, what