Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

flames licked wood and planks began to fall. “They’re gone.”
    Everyone was dead, except for him and Boricio, until Will showed up with the gun one minute later, shooting Luca, only God knowing why.
    Now Luca had to decide who lived and who stayed dead — assuming he was really able to bring anyone back. How could he choose? His heart immediately chose Rebecca, Paola, and Mary. But he felt a high wave of guilt for not choosing Desmond. Then a smaller wave for not saving Linc. He didn’t know Linc as well, but the man had risked his life to save them on more than one occasion. If not for Linc, they wouldn’t of even made it to the Sanctuary.
    How am I supposed to choose?
    Luca looked to Will, but his eyes were barely open.
    “I need to rest,” Will exhaled, allowing his lids to close fully.
    “Help me move him to the car,” Luca turned to Boricio.
    Boricio looked about a decade older, and still seemed half in shock.
    They lifted Will’s sleeping body, then carried him to the car. Snow started to fall faster as the wind began to howl around them, whipping his hair into his eyes. Once they set Will in the back seat, Luca hopped into the driver’s seat and started the car. The gauge showed nearly full, so he turned on the heat and closed the doors, leaving the driver’s window open enough to reach inside, in case the doors locked.
    Luca and Boricio stood three feet apart in awkward silence, staring at one another.
    Something happened between them, something Luca couldn’t fully understand. He had fixed something inside Boricio. He knew that much. Yet at the same time, there was something else happening — something Luca didn’t understand at all.
    Boricio had seen inside him, just like he had seen inside Boricio. Had Boricio “fixed” him in some way too? Or was Luca now broken? Is that why he hadn’t been able to heal earlier? Had Boricio taken his power, giving it back only after bringing Luca back from the brink?
    “I don’t know what to do,” Luca shook his head, looking down at his boots.
    “He said you can save three, right?” Boricio asked.
    Luca nodded, then looked up at Boricio. “Yes.”
    “I’d say save that girl you like so she can play with your acorn. Then save Black Godzilla. And even though I don’t trust the beady-eyed fucker a bit, I’d say Desmond’s as good a bet as any. He looked like he could handle himself and smarter than the average bear.”
    Luca shook his head. “I can’t just let Mary and Paola die! They’re my new family.”
    “Yeah, that may be truer than the titties on your girlfriend, but right now, family might as well be the fucking flu,” Boricio said. “Right now, it’s survival of the fittest, and saving either Mary or her little lamb will be a smear of fuck-butter on your bread. You weren’t fast forwarding through the commercials when that shit went down, right? You saw them creature features fuck this shit up, right?” Boricio swiveled his hand up in the air, indicating the charred lot that used to be the Sanctuary.
    “Yeah,” Luca said, trying not to cry. At times like this, he still felt like a child, which made him hate his adult body even more. At least he could cry when he was a kid, and no one would ridicule him or tell him to act like a man.
    “When shit went down, who was left? You, me, and Black Godzilla.”
    “His name was Linc,” Luca interrupted.
    “What?” Boricio said. “It’s not like I called him Niggerzilla. Truth, when shit went down, we were the ones standing. You, me, and him! You think that’s by accident? Fuck no, that shit is by design. Strongest plus youngest plus smartest equals Fuck Yeah! That’s the only math you need to get through this shit.”
    Luca flashed back on Paola dying, and how he’d been unable to stop Brother Rei from pulling the trigger. He had to undo that.
    Luca turned from Boricio and walked toward the Hole. The door leading to the basement was still intact, not burned like most of the rest of the attached house.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Boricio said, following close.
    “I’m saving Paola first.”
    “Paola?! Dude. That wasn’t even the girl you liked! Was she letting your bald butler get away with the crime and I don’t know about it? Because if not, leave her in the dirt.”
    Luca kept walking, ignoring Boricio’s lewd comments.
    “Listen, man,” Boricio tried to reason, “you save her, and you’re gonna have to save her momma too. And unfortunately, I left my Men