Flipside Firefly

He kept a radio on him. Just a little pocket kind that wasn't too difficult to enchant to run off magic. He'd sat through Mr Weasley's time-spending lectures on the how often enough that it hadn't been hard to put into practice.

Most of the time, it only gave him static.

In certain areas, however, the radio waves were almost lively. A city up north, just south of the Canadian border, had easy listening on one channel, classic rock on another and public access on a third - on top of the usual army frequencies. That had been a nice place. He'd even crept inside the city for better reception, living in a tiny room with broken windows in one of the border buildings. The staircase was just gone so he didn't much need to worry about people finding him. He didn't have the ration card things that people wanted so he still had to go out flying to find food and that wasn't a long-term option, but…

But he could go to sleep with the sound of recorded laughter and talkshows in his ear. He could wake up to an orchestra. He could watch people moving in the streets below. He could feel less alone, a part of something, without risking the pain that came from inevitable loss.

He shouldn't have stayed as long as he did.

Food started getting hard to find in the outside so he took to wandering the streets, looking to find someone to trade with for the various items he'd scavenged. Clothes and medicines were in demand, books less so.

He didn't notice anything was wrong until people stopped trading, or tried to give him fistfuls of cards instead. He never accepted the cards - you had to show ID when you redeemed them - so he spent longer on the streets.

He heard the background noise of the city change, frothing with something violent and desperate. People started brawling in the streets, over a single bit of mangy bread. The soldiers seemed to break down too, some of them shooting down those who got violent but others turned their weapons on each other.

Inexcusably naively, he thought the infection had broken quarantine.

But no. This was very human.

The Fireflies are rising he heard whispered, a code, a prayer. Explosions started to shatter the peace. Men and women shook with fear, but kissed their friends and families goodbye before joining the fight.

You'll die before we starve.

They all just wanted to eat. To survive. Trapped in a city, free from infected but not free to leave, the people rose up.

His radio started to hiss and crackle, the non-military channels going silent. Every so often, a voice would announce the goals of the Fireflies - democracy, all branches of government, food for all. All the dreams of the Fireflies he'd known, spoken down the barrel of a rifle.

These weren't hippies. These were the bloody survivors, the descendants of that first purge. They were as violent as the world that birthed them.

And behind the crack of gunfire and slaps of concussive force, always, was the sound of frightened people screaming.

Because most of them didn't want to fight, or kill, or disobey, or make trouble… they just wanted to eat. They just wanted to live.

He left before the war concluded. It was not the sort that could have a victor, no matter who was left standing at the end.

The food had stopped coming for a reason. Killing people wouldn't make it come back.

He dropped his radio from 2000 feet and wondered when he'd learn his damned lesson.

fin