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I was born to a mother in a camp half-pillaged. She and my older sister were picking all the berries in sight and stashing them in baskets. They looked like they were in a hurry, and I feared for my life. Then she picked me up and told my sister to take her bag and leave, and I heaved a sigh of relief. I would not be left behind.

We ran. West, Ma told us, and west we ran. Our little three-member family was fully clothed, so we could go long periods without eating. Soon I was big enough to walk, and she put me down and picked up a basket. I did not ask for my name. There was no time to talk. We were nomads, she said. We would not stop.

We ran, and as we ran we came across the remnants of civilisations long since dead. They were doomed because they had no seeds and no way to bring water to the farms. Ma told us to keep moving. West, she said. Keep moving west.

My family grew. My mother birthed another son, and briefly debated abandoning him. But he kept on running after us, and eventually she caved and took him in her arms. That was a mistake. After taking him in, Ma could no longer bear to abandon any more children. And so couldn't my sis, who had a golden haired girl and many, many others.

They all died.

We reached an abandoned farm, the last I would ever see. Ma realised that there were no berries to live off on, and so she told us to farm for a bit. Then we would keep moving. We were always moving. But there was, like I said, no way to farm because there was no way to bring water. I gave my brother my hat and my loin cloth, but it was too late. He died. My sister asked me to make fire, and then she died. Theydiedtheydiedthey

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And then it was me and Ma. I asked Ma what we would do next. I told her sis was dead. I put on her old white woolen hat and waited for Ma's guidance. But I already knew what she was going to say.

"We go West," she said. "We keep going West."

And so we went. We walked and walked and walked for years.

Ma turned contemplative. She was too old to bear children, and I was a man and could not continue the line. Our family line was done for, but it meant that we had more time to talk. Ma paused after a food break, and told me that she had tried. She had tried to keep them all. She had tried so, so hard.

I didn't know what to say, so I kept silent. Ma regained her strength. She told us we would go on. She walked West, and I followed.

There was time, now, and so 40 years into my life I asked Ma what my name was. She called me Albert Bubu. Pronounced Bubu. And she told me that when she died, she wanted me to find civilisation. I told her that I would. Of course I would. We walked west. We knew nothing else.

After a time, the berries that we had stashed in our backpacks had rotted (despawned). I only noticed when I was hungry and reached into it to find nothing. My Ma had two carrots. She ate one. She put ther other in my basket. She told me to hurry.

We ran west (of course, it was west) and I knew that she had to be hungry. I told her to stop. I put down my basket. I told her to eat. I didn't want her to die.

She stopped. Turned to me. Said: "No hun."

and then she died.

I took her bones and buried her near a flowering milkweed. Then I left for civilisation. I left west.

I never reached it. A wolf jumped out from behind me and killed me. I died at 45, still clutching my sister's woolen hat.