Rudy and Rebecca were walking on the street at night.
Rebecca was in a hurry, and she was repeatedly looking at her watch to check the time.
"I am 45 mins late!" she panicked.
Rudy glanced at her from the corner of his eyes and asked, "Does it matter? I mean, would you get in trouble?"
"No, but they will cut my pay as I am getting paid on an hourly basis," Rebecca responded.
"Then it's fine." After a brief pause, Rudy said, "I want you to enjoy your work rather than stress over it. You don't have to worry about the money anymore. We have been living just fine before, so we can surely live the rest of our life."
"I am your mother, and I have certain responsibilities like every mother has," Rebecca stated. "You can't change that just because you want to. The adult world is full of compromises and sacrifices."
"I will change that," Rudy uttered in a low voice.
"You can't change the way this world works; it's impossible," Rebecca remarked.
"I know. But I am not talking about changing the world for everyone, I am talking about changing your world."
"..." Rebecca was confused, so she tried to understand what Rudy just said.
"Everyone in this world lives in their own world. They have their own rules, morals, ideas, and perspectives. They think they are right in this world. They rule that world. That's why, I want you to rule your world," Rudy asserted in a solemn voice.
"Yeah, I don't understand."
"My life could have turned out differently if you had made different choices in your life. Maybe if you had focused on your dreams and hadn't made sacrifices for me, our relationship wouldn't be the same as it is now. But surely, you would be living a happy life if you had achieved your dreams, am I right?" Rudy asked with a curious, yet calm look on his face.
Rebecca stopped walking and turned to Rudy.
"What…?" Rudy asked.
"What if I tell you that my dream was to become your mother?" Rebecca asked with a judging look on her face.
Rudy pondered for a while to think of a reply, but he gave up and shrugged his shoulders.
"Checkmate, huh?" Rudy let out a loud groan and said, "I can never win against you."
Rebecca grinned at Rudy but didn't say anything. But Rudy felt good after seeing the grin on Rebecca's face.
The streets eventually got empty as the time got past 9 PM. They lived in a town where everything closed at 7:30 PM, and only one convenience store was open where Rebecca worked.
The convenience store was located near the main street that led to the highway, and many passersby and travelers stopped there to get refreshed after a long ride. It was truly the best place for the convenience store.
'Well, Eleanor is the smartest person I have ever known. And everything she does is perfect. Her choices are always right. It's almost as though she knows what will happen in the future,' Rudy uttered inwardly.
As Rudy and Rebecca were walking, the streetlamps went off after flickering a couple of times. Then, the rest of the lamps on the street went off the same way and filled the entire street with nothing but darkness.
The full moon was covered with clouds and there was no other source of light to illuminate the street. Due to that, Rebecca couldn't see anything that was one meter away from her, but Rudy could easily see everything thanks to his superpowers.
Rudy knew Rebecca was scared of darkness since she always slept with her lights on even in the daytime, and when they didn't have electricity, she used her phone's flashlight.
When Rudy saw Rebecca stopping in her tracks, he grabbed her hand and said, "Don't worry, I am here."
"...!" Rebecca clenched Rudy's hand tightly and said, "This hasn't happened in a while."
There were frequent power cuts in the town and that was the normal thing. But the streetlights remained on most of the time as they were connected to the different power grids.
'Her hands are trembling…' Rudy uttered inwardly. 'I am glad I came with her.'
To calm Rebecca down, Rudy decided to start a conversation while walking. He slowly opened his mouth and said, "Even after the apocalypse and pandemic, nothing has changed around here."
Rudy wanted to know about the apocalypse, but he was more curious about how it affected Rebecca's life.
"Yeah, even when the entire world was having a hard time, this town, and the few neighboring towns and cities, remained untouched. The zombies never entered the area," Rebeca responded.
'So that's the reason why. And most of the things are damaged due to lack of maintenance, not the apocalypse.'
"It was almost as though they were afraid to enter the area, like something was stopping them," Rebecca added. "Once, a zombie entered the neighboring city, and it killed itself out of panic after realizing that."
"How is something like that possible?" Rudy wondered. "Zombies don't have any intellect."
"According to the officials, the zombie leader— T.A, had the power to control the zombies, so they theorized that T.A had ordered them to not enter the area, and when that zombie did, it killed itself because it went against T.A's order," Rebecca stated.
"Now that's one loyal pawn…" Rudy murmured.
After walking in the dark for a while, they finally reached the other side of the town that had the lights on.
SIGH!
Rebecca sighed in relief and said, "Thank god, the power is on here. I didn't want to spend the night in the convenience store without lights."
Rudy glanced at Rebecca from the corner of his eyes and said with a knowing look on his face: "I am sure they have a generator for times like this."
"Oh… yeah…"
A minute later, they reached the convenience store. But Rudy met someone in the store.
It was the first girl who had forgotten her purse and also saw Rudy and Alice flirting in the park. Not only that, but she was a former bully who used to bully Rudy.
Thanks, @david_boyer, and @winup, for the gift!
