Dias' range of activities, outside the school, had increased after the pilgrimage event as he was personally supervising the ins and outs of the domain and interacting with the people that had chosen to stay. A total of one thousand five hundred people; including adults, university students, and civilians—

 

One thousand people in total who believed in his words.

 

Nowadays, he was always accompanied by one or two of the generals at his side, guarding Dias as he slowly worked to bring electricity to areas outside of the two universities and the supermarket. 

 

The results of his hard work showed face after some time, as an area one hundred meters around the touchstone started to be able to use electricity again, so long as their cables or routers remained unscathed.

 

And during that time when Dias and his men were busy, Tira had not taken a single step out of the route from her new abode to the school. 

She was not called, not invited, nor greeted beyond the normal passing by on occasion. 

 

The council, as she dubbed them, may have decided that she would be shelved until something substantial should happen; to use her as bait to buy some time.

This simply meant that, aside from helping out at the library, she had suddenly gained quite a lot of free time.

 

 

Fortunately, or unfortunately– depending on who was asked to give their opinion, Hannah had been hogging all of her time by showing up randomly out of blue and pushing them around to do a myriad of activities—Including today, where the girl had dragged them to clean the abandoned fried chicken joint so the logistics team could utilize it as a cooking-slash-food depot.

 

Not that she minded doing even more cleaning this week; at least it was less mentally draining than helping at the psych ward. Tira wondered how long the latest personnel would last, considering that the last one had quit after only three days.

"-So don’t let me see you slacking, you hear?" Hannah puffed her moderately sized chest with the pride of a supervisor just appointed on her first day, and spoke with a touch of teasing humor in her eyes. "We're here to do a good—no, make that great—job!"

 

"Aye." Tira answered listlessly and continued scrubbing weeks' worth of dried grease and grime from the floor with only the help of her hands and scrubber.

 

The other volunteers were working hard in the background, the team was mostly made up of the cooking club's members who had stayed behind. All their eyes had been so fired up to see that professional cooking equipment had been left behind in the store that not a single complaint had made its way through the first five minutes.

 

But that didn't mean that they weren't chatting as they did the chores. Tira took the chance to also catch up with her friend after not seeing her yesterday. "I heard you transferred out of the Red Cross?"

 

"...Yeah." Hannah sighed as she joined in with the scrubbing after her pep talk. The girl was armed to the teeth with thick plastic gloves, a waterproof apron, and pulled-back hair—of which the curls at the end bobbed each time her hands moved to and fro. "It was getting a bit much for the rest of us… so sis Rina said we could have time off, but it's been so…"

 

"Boring?"

 

"Right?" Hannah huffed dramatically as she took a deep breath before going hard at the adjacent stain, "Workaholics, we band together strong!"

 

Tira gave her friend's offered gloved hand a very gentle high-five, not wanting to splat out the suds and oils that had stuck onto them only to have them flying everywhere again. "Do you have any ideas on how to spend your time off, aside from volunteering to clean?"

 

Hannah grinned. Smugly. Which meant she was about to say something either very smart or very dumb, depending on her mood. "I—"

 

"Propose that we go visit the mall!"

 

"What mall—ah."

 

Digging into a bit of her geography of nearby landmarks, Tira's mind came in clutch as it projected the image of an all-too-familiar mall, located just outside the one-kilometer mark of the barrier radius. "Why?"

 

"You should know by now why I’m dragging you to a mall." Hannah frowned jokingly, pursing her lips in such an exaggerated fashion to the point that her display of displeasure turned into a silly face instead. "If I'm dragging my friend to a shopping center, it means we are going...?"

 

"Shopping."

 

"Exactly!"

 

Of course, it was for shopping. What other answer had Tira expecting? 

 

Despite the predictable ways of Hannah forcing her to do girly stuff every once in a while as they hung out, she couldn't really get mad at her. Hannah had always acted like this ever since they'd known each other on the first day of school after a random chance of seat arrangement. 

 

Eight months was a long time to get used to someone, especially if you had to sit next to them every single weekday.

 

Tira felt sure that, by now, she could openly admit that Hannah had wormed her way into friendship. But would she? 

 

No. The answer her self confidence gave would be a big fat no. "I’ll ask around since it’s going to be a bit far from the usual patrol route. When?"

 

Hannah's eyes sparkled when she saw the chance.

 

"How about tomorrow? Not that it matters, but since it's the weekend, it should be easier for you to get permission to go!" For some reason, the girl tried to persuade her one more time with those bright hazel eyes, pleading at her sadly.

 

Oh, right. She wasn't aware that Tira was no longer doing guard duty for now. She had completely forgotten to inform her at all. "I’ll try asking, don’t get your hopes up too much."

 

"Yay!" 

 

Hannah smiled as if she had already bagged the promise and won and went back to scrubbing again, all while humming happily to an earworming song of the fried chicken brand's jingle they were in, that soon enough had Tira and everyone else stuck with the tunes for the rest of their cleaning time.

An hour later, showered and changed into fresh clothes, Tira strolled around the school hunting for Lydia. 

According to her observation of the past few days, Lydia should be around during this hour since she would have to change her shift with Armand before dinner time, and would be wandering around either in the backfield or at the canteen, both of which were located near each other at the northern side of the school. 

 

Her memorization of the schedule was soon proven correct as Tira spotted Lydia almost immediately upon entering the backyard, where the lady could be seen walking out of the canteen with a cup of iced tea in one hand and her phone in the other.

Unsurprisingly, Lydia looked like she also wanted to run away upon noticing Tira, but perhaps she thought better as Tira saw her try to sigh discreetly and let herself be approached by staying still and smiling once Tira finally entered the talking range. "Are you looking for me?"

 

"Yes. Hello," She greeted the woman and, in case she was busy, gave a sorry bow of the head to show some respect. "I’m sorry if I’m bothering you. Mind if I ask something?"

 

"Oh no, no problem at all! What is it, cutie-pie?" Lydia took a sip of her iced tea, which gave Tira the time to voice her question.

 

"I know you’re going to change shifts for the evening soon, so I’m wondering, can you... Sorry, are you okay, senior?" 

 

Raising her brows, she paused as the woman choked on her drink. It didn't devolve into anything serious, thankfully, with Lydia still managing to tap her chest rapidly and answered back with a hoarse, broken voice.

 

"No… I’m guh! I’m good." 

 

Then, with a highly raised pitch tinted with slight panic, Lydia asked, "How did you know about the new shift??"

 

"Observation."

 

That didn't seem to help the woman to calm down at all, but at least it had stopped the coughing. After a few deep breaths, Lydia was finally in the condition to understand Tira's explanation of her situation and question. "So let me get this straight. You want me, to ask Dias’ permission, for an outing at the mall tomorrow?"

 

She nodded.

 

Gears seemed to be turning fast on Lydia’s face as she processed what she had just said, for the first time, looking so transparent in her expression that Tira could tell that she was considering the offer.

 

"Would you mind if some other people came along?" The woman asked after another slow, careful sip of her tea.

 

For security reasons? There had been a few survivors who had come inside the barrier the past few days and used their place as a pit-stop while on the way to the sanctuary, bearing news of road bandits and the like as a trade-off for some supplies.

 

If so, Tira shrugged nonchalantly, as she saw no reason to refuse a good offer. "Not really. More people means more safety, right?"

 

Lydia's eyes glittered brightly despite the near evening hour, true excitement bleeding into her voice, while her pearly white teeth made their display from smiling too wide. "This… this works perfectly!! Go bring as many girlfriends as you can tomorrow! I’ll let you know what time we’re going to depart at dinner! See you later!"

 

"Thank you..." Tira said to Lydia in a daze as the woman had already walked off in excitement, her steps skipping in large strides. 

 

Weird, but she wasn't about to question what made the woman so happy.

Also, Lydia had come through with the permission, sliding at the table she and Hannah were eating to inform them to get ready right after breakfast. A bit early, sure, but Hannah hadn't complained and only looked more ecstatic. After a moment of meeting with others whom Tira would consider herself friends with, she went to bed after getting confirmation from both of them to come along.

The next morning, after eating a light meal based on a bad feeling over Lydia looking like she was scheming something during breakfast, the group had assembled in an identical minivan that Gunawan was driving before, sitting prettily and ready to make their way to the mall.

Lydia was the one driving this time, and, apart from Donny sitting in the front passenger seat, everyone else was, for the lack of a better word, of the feminine pronouns. 

 

Consisting of Sariya and Felicia, invited by Tira herself, Hannah, Lydia, Miss Erisa, Rina, and lastly; a woman she only knew from photos that her homeroom teacher had shown to the class due to losing a bet over the class' average score.

 

And it was only after the car had driven off that she found out the reason why Lydia had invited Miss Erisa and Mr. Triya’s fiancé for the ride.

"You’re getting married?!"

Bashfully, Miss Farah cupped her reddened cheeks and looked away in embarrassment. "I suppose so… I did pop the question about two weeks ago, but we thought of just maybe finding a pair of rings for us and just having a little ceremony for friends that made it through..."

 

"Oh. my. god! I’m so happy for you two!!!" Felicia squealed from the middle seat, sporting a conspiratorial grin at the sight of the bride-to-be. "If we’re going to do this, we’ll do this right! Wedding dresses, betrothal gifts, make-up! Lydia, did you–"

 

"Do I get permission to host an extravagant wedding party? I sure did bestie!" came the sing-song answer from the driver’s seat.

 

"So, so, so~ how did it happen?"

 

Hannah leaned forward from the backseat, so eager to hear the story that she leaned all of her weight on the top of the seat. "Come on, Miss Farah, it’s gotta be fate that you two made it so far."

 

Still blushing furiously, Farah smiled as she recounted the event that led her to, unexpectedly, propose to her man. "At first, he wanted to send me away to the sanctuary, but he also stated that he wouldn't be accompanying me. Honestly, I thought this meant he wanted to break up, but…"

 

Miss Farah's voice trailed at the end, perhaps reliving the moment once again, the reflection in the upper mirror showed her closing her eyes as she kept talking. "He told me it would kill him if I died, that if he knew he lost me when he could have prevented it, he would lose all hope."

 

"And I told him I felt the same. I told him that the only way he could send me away was if he could say to my face that he doesn’t love me anymore." 

 

A giggle escaped her lips after that, and the lady's eyes opened once again, curving from the mirth of her smile. "Of course, despite him trying to, he couldn’t. So I just... went for it, asking him to allow me to support him by his side, to protect each other in our times of need."

 

A chorus of cooing and "D'aww!" echoed loudly in the car, accompanied with many warm smiles, giggles, and twinkling eyes as the girls grinned from ear to ear. Even Donny on the front seat couldn't help but to chuckle, with Miss Erisa shaking the most amongst them, holding her mouth to hold back her snorting from getting any more embarrassing as she slapped Miss Farah's shoulder in jest. 

 

"What you’re not telling them is that he also—"

 

"Shush!" Miss Farah elbowed the chem teacher in the ribs to stop her from spilling the tea, "Save that for the wedding speech, if you want to spill!"

Time passed faster with the merry mood in the car, and they arrived at the mall earlier than expected. Tira thought it was mostly because the conversation never went stale and kept jumping around topics. Along with the empty road where no other cars could cause traffic to stall, they had made it to their destination in less time than it would have taken normally.

And thus, the grand, majestic skyrise of a local mall welcomed this little group's arrival.

Abandoned, yet not sporting as much damage as she had thought it would have. Tira's eyes traced up the height of the building to inspect its condition as she climbed out of the car.

 

Donny was the last to disembark and walked forward with Lydia, weapons drawn faster than Tira remembered them doing previously. With their stance guarded and eyes open, the two immediately showed the utmost vigilance upon arrival.

 

Good. The training camp seemed to have paid off. "Everyone else should wait here while I and Lydia clear out the place." 

 

That sounded highly ineffective. No wonder Lydia had asked them to come out so early if they had to put sweeping the place into the itinerary. But there should be a better way to do it instead...

 

"There’s another way to scan without going, you know?" 

 

Tira told the two as her brain suggested an idea, which garnered her two confused-looking faces in return. 

 

So, instead of wasting more time explaining, she decided to just walk forward and demonstrate what she meant.

 

One of the best things to do when one was faced with an abundance of time and power should be to experiment. Tira had tried doing all sorts of things with her newfound power, pulling up every trick she could think of to mess around and see if there would be any useful applications of those tricks.

 

One of them being this. 

 

She concentrated her energy on the tips of her pointer fingers, ensuring that it formed the shape of a ball, tight enough to pack a punch but loose enough to shoot out when released.

 

When it was ready, Tira closed her eyes and snapped her finger.

 

A web of strings that she used to weave into the shape of the ball transformed into finer particles and shot out in all directions, spiralling out into threads of energy, which penetrated through the walls and into the building. These waves bounced off every surface they came into contact with and more, forming a three-dimensional map in her head as they passed through each floor, looking for a target to lock on to.

 

Seeing and sensing that there was no living being larger than the size of a rat was detected, Tira let the waves disperse as it reached the very top and deepest basement of the building, and gave her verdict on the situation.

 

"There are some rats running around at the little supermarket on the first floor, by the bakery, and at the food court on the fourth floor. But other than that, there is no leftover canned food supply or other humans."

 

Concluding her report, Tira opened her left eye to see the bewildered faces of the group, ogling at her as if they were looking at some exotic animal in the zoo. "...Is there something on my face?"

 

"You’re just too pretty today!" Hannah tugged on the ends of her sweater's sleeves and pulled Tira into the mall with a huge toothy grin, "Let’s go! We’re going to have so much fun today!!"

Helplessly, she let herself get strung around by the fearless girl, and the others soon followed Sariya, who had immediately stepped forward to match their starting pace.

The interior of the mall was dark, as expected of an unpowered skyscraper, though it wasn't so bad as some of its exterior facing walls had glass installed instead of concrete. At least from the second floor upwards, there were more windows from abandoned shops that let the sunlight filter in through their transparency.

Despite the horrible state of disarray of the place, the damage done to its surrounding facilities was minimal. Did nobody try to enter and seek shelter during the first two weeks? Or had they left once they heard the announcement coming from space?

 

Either way, none of these speculations would power up the building. Thus, they still had to climb up the escalator like it was a normal flight of stairs.

Thankfully, most of the fancy boutiques and clothing stores were not as badly raided as the produce and other food sections downstairs. Most, if not all, of the fashion displays stood untouched, collecting a bit of dust around the clothing. The story was completely different when compared to the jewellery stores, which appeared to be devoid of any valuables based on the ransacked display window.

 

Lydia clapped her hands to gather their attention once more.

 

"Alright, here’s the game plan!" She gestured to the entire floor with both arms flung as wide as possible, "First of all, we’re going to look for a dress for our beautiful Miss Farah over here! I don’t think there’s going to be any accessories left outside of the Bratz store, but let’s do our best bridesmaids!" 

Falling along into the chant, although not completely understanding when she had been appointed bridesmaid, Tira followed Hannah, who was going wild perusing the dresses. "I think we’re looking for white? Ivory?"

 

"Ivory will look yellow on her skin. Try something lighter." Sariya commented as she read a thick journal while walking, Tira’s hand steering her from the back of her bag in the direction to go, so the girl wouldn't walk into a wall by accident.

 

"What material are we talking about here? Style?" Hannah held her chin with her left hand, thinking aloud as she riffled through the sad-looking display and tossed any dresses she approved of into the basket. "Like, of course, we're already limited in terms of exposure because Miss Farah wears a hijab, so the only other thing we could play with is the motif."

 

"There’s a hijab dress store on the fifth floor," Tira recalled the map in her head and perused the black and white signage of the stores, "and another one on floor seven, but I think that one got emptied pre-apocalypse."

 

Hannah clapped her hands and whispered with a gleeful smile. "Let’s go now then, while the other team hasn’t noticed yet!"

And so, the three of them quietly make their way up where they find the store was indeed, a lot more intact than its commercial counterpart downstairs. Now, with more options to flick through among the rack, Tira felt assured that they were bound to find one or two that'd fit Miss Farah's style.

 

"Ok, so we have three possible outfits." Hannah narrowed her selection in the store down to three dresses, one of which was a traditional two-piece. "What should we do about the accessories?"

 

Tira once again scanned her mind map to look at their options.

 

"The safes in one of the gold stores were left intact." She inspected the ransacked store across the way and said, "Either they closed it after robbing it, or it was left as is since they couldn’t remove the base bolt."

 

"Bet." Sariya finally closed her book, interested in the challenge as she pulled a thin roll bag from the side of her backpack while they crossed the road to enter the store. "Time me properly this time."

It didn't even take Sariya five minutes before the safe was unlocked and its contents spilled on the nearest table. Gold, silver, and many other precious gems glittered under their noses as Hannah did her best to sort their fairly limited options.

 

"Hm, not many actual wearables or accessories."

 

Hannah put aside the literal bars of gold and a couple of loose gems to the side, separating them from the ready-made jewellery as she weighed a bracelet with one hand. "Most of these are good, but none of them go along with the concept of the three dresses. The ring was simple enough and not etched with a name, though, so that could work... Argh, this is hard!!!"

What a conundrum. Though the depressed mood didn't linger for long when Sariya reminded them of someone else who had come with them. "We can also ask Felicia to transform the gold, silver, and jewels into the shape that you want?"

 

"Ah! You're right! I completely forgot!"

 

Hannah slapped her forehead and exited the store to do just that, leaning over the railing where she spotted the senior girl just as she was climbing the stairs. "Hey you three, what’s up? Why are you looking at me like that–"

 

"Felis, sit down and hear me out. I have this great idea..."

After a brief explanation and a few drawn sketches of how Hannah wished for the accessories to look, Felicia went to work—transforming and molding the bars into the blueprint’s design, creating failure after failure in the first two-digit tries. Which was rectified only after Lydia, who passed by, told her that she should mix a bit of copper for integrity.

 

After that, Tira passed by a tissue when Felicia nearly cried when the prototype hairpin was no longer too soft to the touch after it was fixed in shape.

 

"Wow, that’s so weird!" Hannah remarked as she touched the solid gold accessory, no longer putty when given some pressure between her fingers.

 

Lydia chuckled as she got up from the seats, "Gold as a metal is too soft on its own—especially if you’re making it into a hairpin that thin. There's not much structural support if you use pure gold. You need other metals added to make it stronger." 

 

The girl took the hairpin and stabbed it into her bundled hair and walked away, perhaps taking the gold pin as her payment for the generous advice, considering she was supposed to be on the other team.

 

After making the rest of the props that they needed and taking a bit for herself, Hannah decided to give Felicia the rest of the precious metals and jewels for self-experimentation. Those items were safely tucked away in a bag taken from the store next door, wrapped under layers of clothes to prevent them from jingling when walking.

Once the accessories issue was solved, the three of them assembled the final fit for the fitting.

Rina, Ayu, and Lydia had submitted three dresses to match theirs. The other team probably figured out the number of their dresses from Lydia, who had swung by their group earlier, though it didn't matter much to Tira since it sounded like a fair trade for the help.

 

Six dresses. And only two will be picked for the ceremony and the reception–as Felicia informed them while holding a microphone she took from god-knows-where or maybe even fashioned from scratch. 

"And now, without further ado, we shall present to you—the first look!"

Walking out of the changing room was Miss Farah in a white, long trailing dress. The dress was decked out with small Swarovski crystals that glimmered under the dim sunlight, with an equally stunning silver crown to match, and wearing low-heeled shoes also in plain white.

 

In short, she looked divine.

"Well, our judging panel, what do you think of this look?" Felicia shoved her microphone to the side, where Miss Erisa was sitting on a comically tall stool.

"I mean, wow?" The chem teacher could only smile widely at the sight presented to her. They all could see her eyes going a bit watery, and she struggled to breathe slowly to calm down, though her holding back tears only caused her voice to crack. "I’m just... Sorry! You’re just—you’re so beautiful..!!!"

 

"Awh, why are you the one crying, Eris?" The bride sauntered over to the bench and gave a hug, "If you’re crying—oh no, I’m going to weep..."

 

They took a few minutes to calm down, as a few of the spectating students could not help themselves and shed a few tears at the opportunity to have a normal event in their ruined world.

 

Only when Miss Erisa got her sobbing under control did they continue to breeze through the rest of the dresses. One by one, fitting after fitting, each dress and every accessory were shown and judged.

 

Some were hits, some misses, and some fits were clearly meant to be silly to lift the spirits of the group when they were presented.

But finally, it came down to two choices, one by each team for each wedding event. Tira was about to head out when, all of a sudden, Felicia armed her microphone once more. "But wait, folks, there’s more! You don’t think you can come to a wedding with just jeans and plaid shirts, right?"

 

"I know where you sleep, sister." Sariya threatened in a monotone, indifferent voice, as her eyes went cold and blank the moment she saw the direction of this interlude. "Don’t even try."

 

Felicia backed off immediately and toned down her speech back to a normal one. Smart.

 

"Alright, alright, we won’t! Just look around and get formal wear for the event, is all I’m saying!" 

 

Felicia laughed dryly as she loosened her collar to brush off the panic that had seemingly overwhelmed her. "The boys are on their way, and they said they'd be here in the afternoon, so we need to hurry!"

Formal wear. Tira found herself in a bit of a loss about that matter. She never had to attend any wedding events, and felt some kind of panic about to rise in her head until Hannah tugged on her sleeves again with a plan.

 

"Come on, I've found something that will suit you! And no, it’s not backless, don’t worry."

 

If Hannah was saying as much, then it couldn’t be so bad to check.

 

So, once again, they went to the store directly below the jewellery shop they had just broken into, and Tira looked at the dress Hannah had pulled from the pile of broken glasses and handed her another one that was folded over the hanger at the back.

 

How she had even spotted that from a mile away in the dark was beyond Tira’s comprehension.

 

"Here! What do you think of it?" Hannah held up the two dresses for her to see in full length.

 

"Looks good." The floor dress looked intact, at least. And they both had long sleeves. They should be fine for her to wear. "Want me to try it on?"

 

Hannah instantly nodded with vigor so intense that there was no need for Tira to ask twice.

 

Taking the dresses, she went into the room right behind the register, as it turned out to be a small storage compartment, tight due to the items in the shelves surrounding her– but there was enough space for someone to change clothes. 

 

As there was no mirror in the backroom, Tira couldn't tell how the dress looked on her, aside from the fact that it was definitely designed for someone taller and better endowed than her. Better too loose than too small, her mother had always said. So she could at least get it resized to her specification if she truly liked the design.

 

The other dress was good as well, but the color wasn’t exactly auspicious for a wedding, so Tira folded it back and put it on the rack storage.

 

Having seen enough, she changed back to the pants and shirts, folding the dress she chose with careful plaits so it wouldn't snag on the metal bar off the walls, and walked out to see Hannah's disappointed face. "Not your taste?"

 

"They're alright."

 

"Then why aren’t you wearing it out?" Hannah pouted with a pucker on her lips and made her puffy light brown hair look like a kitten heckling its fur, to which Tira could only sigh and shake her head at her friend with her excuse at the ready.

 

"It's a bit too big on me. I’ll have to resize it to match my—"

 

"Want me to do it?" Lydia popped in from the doorframe without warning that she had startled Hannah so badly that she almost jumped to the ceiling. "I’m not going to use my degree anywhere else after this event is over, anyway. So let me have my try at it!"

 

Hearing that, Tira forgot her self-control and impulsively asked, "Have you touched a sewing machine yet?"

 

"Of course I have!!! What do you take me for?!" Lydia shot back, clearly somewhat offended by the question.

 

Now, thanks to herself, Tira had to face two women pouting in indignation at the store, with the second one coming in with a prideful stride of her heels and met with Tira's eyes as she sincerely spoke.

"I promise it’ll be fine, come on, say yes?"

There was no need to get this desperate over a dress, so Tira handed the thing with another long-drawn, tired sigh. "Alright, here you go. Now let’s find some suits for Sariya."

 

"Yay." The girl in question cheered unenthusiastically. "Let's go and finish this quickly, I'm tired."

 

By the time the agreed hour for the guys was about to arrive, all of them had picked their outfits and had packed them into the back of the car. With her mind so tired, Tira vowed that she would say no the next time Hannah tried to bait her to go on another outing again.

 

Never again. Never ever. Tira decided their friendship wasn't worth this kind of bone-deep exhaustion and went to sleep as soon as her head hit the pillows for the rest of the day.