I needed to get out of my jacket, but I couldn’t stop paddling for even a moment. Not even to take off the ostentatious coat that was no doubt helping my pursuers track me.

My breaths were coming in sharp pants, my muscles squeezing tighter and tighter until they could barely function; but still I kept moving. I couldn’t afford not to.

I hadn’t seen anyone this side of the Mississippi River ever since the Yellowstone super volcano blew. As far as I knew, it was only me in my small cottage, doomed to die alone once the ashes in my lungs finally became too much for my body to handle.

My lungs had certainly forgotten how to work when the men clad in all black stormed through my rickety front door. They hadn’t seen me, slumped in the patchy red chair conveniently close to the back door. I had slipped out somehow; but someone must have heard me as I put on my jacket. There had been deep shouts, the echo of gun shots penetrating the quiet. I raced to the boathouse fifty feet away, dodging tall evergreens that had come back even sturdier after the explosion.

My canoe was probably the most functional thing I owned. Everything else was constantly covered in a small dusting of gray ash. I pushed it into the water and paddled madly away to the sound of boots storming onto wooden planks.

I had been paddling madly ever since my hands first gripped the oars.

I think I’ve gotten ahead of them. The bank slopes up so they can’t come down to the shore, and the trees make it hard to see the river for a clear shot.

Well.

It would have be a nearly impossible shot if only my jacket and it’s stupid highlighter yellow fabric wasn’t broadcasting my location to everyone.

A quick “bang” reverberated across the water before it filled my ears.

That was the only warning I had before I was thrown sideways, a searing pain in my shoulder causing me to cry out.

I glanced towards the trees, my vision rapidly going dark. Smoke drifted away from a nearby copse.

I collapsed on the floor of the canoe.

Stupid jacket.