Second Wave

The Second Wave was a migration of survivors from Baja whose passage through the irradiated ruins of San Diego left consequences that endured beyond the journey itself. Elton’s birth, blindness, and unknown parentage connect this period of displacement to the precarious lives of the settlements that followed.

Migration and Route

The Second Wave came from settlements in Baja after those communities were overrun, roughly fifty years before the events in which Elton’s history is recounted. The survivors walked through the irradiated ruins of San Diego. By the time they reached their destination, the group numbered twenty-eight; those still able to walk carried the others. The account presents the journey as a collective passage marked by both survival and severe physical vulnerability.

Elton’s Birth and Family

Elton’s mother was pregnant when the group crossed the ruined city. Delirious with fever, she gave birth shortly before dying. The account does not identify either parent by name: his father could have been anyone, and no one learned his parents’ names. Elton was born blind, with the radiation identified as the cause. His life therefore bears a direct, lasting consequence of the route taken by the Second Wave, while the missing names preserve how little individual history survived the migration.

Legacy

Elton’s background is introduced through the practical life he later makes for himself: he uses a cane beyond the Lighthouse, spends much of his time at its panel, and knows more about the batteries than anyone except Michael, despite never having seen them. The contrast makes his blindness part of an ordinary, capable life rather than its sole definition. At the same time, his parents’ anonymity and his mother’s death show the cost of a migration whose survivors carried one another through an irradiated city, but could not preserve every person’s name or story.