Floodlands

    "We're not going to get anywhere if we have to swim," Jarrod says wearily as we look over the infant sea stretching over what used to be the Great Plains.
    "You're telling me you can't swim, farmer boy?" I ask. "Didn't you have a pond in your backyard?"
    "That was a cow hole. This is too much," he groans, sliding to the ground with a weary cough. "The Fed will pick us up on their helicopters if go out in that thing. There'll be nowhere to run."
    "Maybe it's not as deep as it looks." I wade into the still water, my boots unpleasantly soaked. I keep going for a while; it doesn't get any deeper, though the water is so murky I can't even imagine what lies beneath. "It seems okay."
    No response. I turn back and see Jarrod slumped over his backpack, asleep again. Sighing, I go back. He's been sleeping more and more these days. I'm afraid. The Void is beginning to tell on him. His eyelids are shadowed with weariness, and his breathing, even in sleep, is unsteady. Won't be long before the fever takes him, and then I'll never be able to drag him to Red Dawn for the cure. We need to go. I shake him.
    "Wake up, sleeper. We need to move. Time's wastin'."
    He's up again, blinking quickly and scrambling for his pack. We fight over it for a moment. I want to take it for him, but he won't let me.
    "I should be carrying yours," he even said, despite swaying when he swings his own over his shoulders. "I'm stronger."
    "When you're healthy, you're stronger."
    "I am healthy!" he protests, even when a fit of coughing racks him.
    "Come on, Jarrod. We're going to cross."
    "You're sure it's safe? We can't just go back to City 13666 and get a plane?"
    "It will take too long. We need to get to Red Dawn before you collapse."
    "I'm not going to collapse."
    "Or the fever goes to your head and you start trying to murder me."
    "I'm not going to do that either," he states, wading quickly into the swampy land, as if trying to prove he can. "I'm okay, got it? I'll make it through."
    I shake my head, before following him over the flooded land, the land that will now always be a wasteland of swamps and puddles.