Chapter Text
Mumbo was not a strong man.
That’s not to say he was weak- not at all. He could do at least one pull up, which itself is impressive given his long and lanky body. But no one could really describe Mumbo as physically strong. They couldn’t quite describe him as mentally strong, either. He was riddled with all kinds of anxiety, and had the confidence and self esteem of a wet cat.
So he wasn’t strong. But he wasn’t weak.
Because Mumbo was incredibly smart.
He knew a lot of things. He knows his way around cars, computers, fuse boxes, and even a toaster that one time. Anything mechanical, he can fix. Probably. And he loved to fix things! He loved to not only repair, but modify, and make whatever it was work better. This was where his confidence was, where his strength truly lied.
Which is why it was odd that it took him around a month to fix a radio.
On April 14th, Mumbo stepped outside and found that the world had ended.
Actually, he stepped outside to find that the world was currently in the process of ending. Mumbo decided he did not want any part of that and swiftly turned around and closed the door. It seemed appropriate to shove a bookshelf in the way as well.
Outside he saw things he could not describe.
The sky was a sickly orange and raining stars. There were creatures with feathers and creatures where feathers should have been. The sun was black and stationary. People were screaming. People were running. Entire chunks of the earth were missing with smooth black glass in their place. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to.
The sounds only stopped when he duct taped a pillow to his head and covered every window in blankets.
He couldn’t stop the smells.
He decided that it wasn’t a very good idea to think about them all that much, as whatever he saw he certainly couldn’t fight, and worrying would make everything worse.
So he decided to simply take everything as it came, and do what he could.
When something started stomping around the upper level of his house, he blocked off the stairs and moved to the couch. When something or someone knocked frantically at his backdoor, he pretended he wasn’t home and let whatever was upstairs do the talking for him. When he got lonely, well.
That was a problem he’d had before the end of days.
Mumbo wasn’t very good at being alone. He also wasn’t very good at being around people, but he was better at one than the other, and that was why he lived in a house by himself.
It wasn’t that he wanted friends, and just couldn’t find any, no. It was because he was better at being alone, and he liked being good at things. Yes.
So it wasn’t because he was lonely that he started fiddling with the radio.
He just wanted to see if anyone else had… if there would be anyone broadcasting. He wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t running out of water. He wasn’t scared because he didn’t get hungry anymore. He just wanted to see if he could fix it. It was something to do, that was all.
And maybe because he had nothing else to do, maybe because he didn’t want to know if anyone else was out there, maybe that was why it took him a month to fix the radio.
Maybe he didn’t want to hear the static on the other end.
But there was nothing else to do but wait for it to rain and fix the radio, and he couldn’t control the weather (as far as he knew), and so he fixed the radio.
And here it is now, fixed. In his lap.
Waiting for him to turn it on.
Mumbo fiddled with the batteries in his hands, rolling them back and forth. They were the right batteries, he’d checked. Multiple times. He’d tested them, too, in other devices, like an old remote and a toothbrush. He didn’t brush his teeth much anymore. He didn’t like looking at how his canines had gotten longer.
Whatever was on the second floor thumped and stomped, and Mumbo stilled his hands.
It was either do this for eternity, or answer the question gnawing at the back of his mind.
He didn’t want to do this for eternity.
So he slipped the batteries back into the radio, screwed the cover on, and tried not to think about everything he should have been thinking about as he turned the radio on.
He knew he would hear static.
It was expected.
But it hurt so, so much more than he thought it would.
There was nothing on 97.5 fm. That was the classic rock channel, if he could remember correctly. Nothing on 97.9, either. Or 98.3. He scanned as far as he could go in both directions. And then he switched to am radio and scanned again.
Static.
But maybe they were transmitting at intervals, right? Maybe it wasn’t a constant signal. Maybe they haven’t started signaling yet. So he hooked up the radio to a spirit box he had stored away (the second floor had always been a little weird) and listened for something. Anything.
There wasn’t any night, anymore. The sky was the same dull, mottled, brown-orange, and the sun never moved. At least, the hole where the sun used to be never moved. He wished there were clouds, still, to cover up the sky, but there weren’t. It never rained.
He opened his door, once. Once after the first time he saw the sky raining stars and the creatures and the people. When he opened his door this time, he didn’t see much. Entire houses were leveled to the ground. No one was in sight. There were splatters of things he didn’t want to think about. Anything that moved was a horrible creature with feathers and teeth and sickly, slimy limbs
The sounds were over. The smells weren’t.
Anything.
And then, as he contemplated venturing upstairs to get it over with to try and find water, he heard someone.
A British voice, like his. For only a split second.
A split second was all it took for him to scramble for the radio and disconnect the spirit box scanner, manually searching for the channel he’d stumbled upon. And he found it. 100.3.
“Hello, hello, hello? This is uh… X. Yes. Broadcasting from, uh. A safe place. If you can hear this, it means you are within 50-60 kilometers of me, unless the lack of clouds or something has mucked up how far fm radio travels.
I’m south of the mountain range, east of the lake, and north of the river.
I’m, uh. I’m lonely.
I’ve got food, I’ve kind of figured out how to set up a farm. The… things… whatever they are, they refuse to come near here. There’s space, lots of space. I’ve even got a well for water. It’s safe here.
I know it sounds too good to be true, but… well, I don’t really know. I don’t think anyone has any other options right now.
If you can move, get here. Please.”
The message repeated, but Mumbo had already memorized every word.
South of the mountain range. East of the lake. North of the river.
Lonely.
He could see the mountains if he moved the blankets to see through the window. He almost had a panic attack when he realized he couldn’t tell north and south by the sun anymore, but the compass he found at the bottom of a duffel bag of unused camping supplies miraculously still worked.
Mumbo was north of the mountain range.
This was less than ideal.
The camping supplies, however, were ideal. He knew there was a lake on the other side of the mountains. He didn’t know the way exactly, but there was bound to be a road he could follow.
He could pack everything into his van. He didn’t know how to siphon gas. It couldn’t be that hard. Would the creatures attack him in the van? It was safer than walking. Why did he have to leave? He was running out of water. But the house was safe.
A series of thumps from upstairs reminded him that it wasn’t.
X was right. He didn’t have any other options. So he stopped thinking about it and just did.
He opened the door to his house, and seeing no creatures about to end his life, he started to pack.
He threw all his unused camping gear, pillows, blankets, clothes, a first aid kit, the last of his water, and anything else he thought he’d need into the back of the van. He carefully set the radio onto the passenger seat and made sure it was secure. He scavenged as many batteries as he could find from the rest of the house.
He packed food as an afterthought. He was hungry, but he wasn’t hungry, and he didn’t understand, and he didn’t like not understanding, and so he stopped thinking about it.
The smell stopped making him nauseous a while ago. It almost made him hungrier now. He didn’t like thinking about that either.
He had a canister of gasoline and a spare tire and no more excuses to keep him there.
And so he put the keys in the ignition and, with knuckles white and arms shaking, put the car into drive.