“The morning after that party was a big blur. I couldn’t remember a thing,” I admitted to Andrew. “I have the picture printed out somewhere. I'll have to find it in my bag later.”

  “That’s awesome. Jacob went on about that party for weeks. I saw it posted everywhere, too,” Tristan added in. All of us were laughing.

  “I was passed out three hours into it. I don’t know how some people lasted until the morning,” Breelyn grinned. These were the conversations that never changed. We reminisced even before the end had started, only now it meant something a little different. Back then, we knew that we could do it again, but now it just wasn’t possible anymore.

  “Speaking of Jacob,” Peter pointed his thumb towards the road. We could see his truck coming down the gravel, and a few seconds later, he turned into the driveway. Dylan and Hunter were still with him, but all the paint cans were gone from the truck bed.

  They came walking out, and Jacob had a smile, shaking his head at us as he approached. “Man, my cousin? Really?” He walked up and hit Colton in the shoulder. He laughed a bit. It was an ongoing joke the three of us had going for years. Colton had always teased Jacob about me, and here was was, standing right next to me. Hunter always messed with me, too, when it came to Colton, and Andrew teased Jacob about Hunter messing with me. It was one big loop, and Blake added a bigger flame to all of it, especially with him being closer to Jacob and Colton. Peter, though, must have only gotten close with them in the past two years. I had seen him once in the stands at a football game, and only heard his name one other time when we were younger. “What happened to you two?” Jacob looked between Breelyn and me. I almost forgot how much dirt was on us. I didn't forget it was there, though, since we were wet and the wind was making us colder.

  “She fell through the floor of the old house you showed us,” I shook my head. “Then these guys tried to kill us.” I pointed to Tristan and his friends.

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on now,” My poor hostage, Andrew, threw his hands into the air. “You started it. You almost killed me!”

  “For good reason. Peter almost killed me too, can’t forget that part,” I crossed my arms with the next coming breeze. It was funny to tease Peter about it because of how bad he felt for doing it. Jacob seemed amused, but I could tell he was starting to take it a little bit seriously. He got defensive when it came to his family. “Just a misunderstanding, is all. We can explain later. It’s getting kind of cold out here. Can we take this thing inside?”

  “Yeah. We wanna have a fire tonight, you guys down for that?” He looked around at everyone. They nodded. “Alright then. Ya’ll go in, whoever wants to help me cut some stuff down, feel free.” He started walking towards the shed. Phoebe and Emma went to help Jacob, and so did Peter and Tristan.

  “I need a shower,” I said, having some old grime from the house on my hands. “I think you need one too.” Breelyn’s hair was drier now, but the dirt had dried into it too.

  “Seriously? I thought I looked great?” She struck a pose. I couldn’t help but laugh. Everything she did looked so animated. She reminded me of a cartoon, even in the most serious situations.

  “We’re gonna go help them. Feel free to join us,” Colton gave us a quick nod before joining Andrew in their walk to the back of the property to meet the rest of the group. Breelyn and I released our sighs at the same time and walked back to the sliding doors.

  “Y’know, Colton sounds familiar. Have you talked about him before?” I couldn’t help but release a small laugh at her question. “Is it the Colt I'm thinking of?”

  “Yeah, he tried to get with me a few times back in high school. The one Jacob fought to keep away from me for so long before he finally took his chance, remember?” She started laughing too as we opened and closed the door, taking off our wet shoes inside.

  “Dude, that Colt? What are the chances you both are some of the lone survivors of the world going to shit? Or the chances that both you and prom night guy are alive and in the same yard?” I shook my head and opened one of the bathroom doors. I assumed they still had running water if everything else still worked.

  “Chances are very low, I'll tell you that much,” I stepped to the side. “You can take this bathroom, I'll take the other one,” She nodded, and we went into Jacob’s room to grab a change of clothes. I grabbed whatever was on the surface—light-washed flare jeans, light brown shirt, tan and brown quarter-zip—and went into my grandma’s bathroom instead. I hadn’t heard of where she was, but Jacob would have told me if she were dead. It probably slipped his mind, or he was waiting for the right time to tell me, maybe? No. He wouldn’t do that. I pushed the thought away and climbed into the shower.

  I put my hand on the handle but stared at it for a second. A true, running water shower? It sounded too good to be true. I slowly turned the handle and heard the water churning up the pipes. I turned it a little bit more before it started pouring out. I stepped out of the way, taken aback by the feeling. I had showers, but they weren’t much like the ones back a few years ago. I wearily stepped under it, the colder water sending chills up my spine. The water instantly ran brown, but it was satisfying to know it was taking that off of me. I fully stepped under it, and then it started to run hot. Heated water. I turned the handle down a bit and couldn’t help but release a sigh of relief. This was going to be great.

  I got out of the shower and stood there for a while, drying my hair with a towel. I kept scrunching it up to my head until it stopped dripping, leaving it a wavy mess. If my hair could look like that forever, I would leave it. Sadly, though, it was too heavy to hold the wave pattern. It would be nice for the hour it lasted, though. Once I changed, I met Breelyn in the hallway. We both felt like we were glistening. “A warm shower, dude, I think I just died and came back to life,” I knew exactly what she was talking about. I couldn’t relate more.

  “I think I boiled my skin off, but in a good way,” she nodded her head in agreement. Hunter was standing in the kitchen when we came walking out. He stared at us, confused.

  “You guys don’t have showers?” He twisted the bag closed that he was holding. I couldn’t tell what was inside it.

  “Something like that,” I opened the cabinet behind him and grabbed a cup. “I mean, we shower, don’t get me wrong, but a real shower with hot water? That beats a bucket any day,” I felt like my skin had gotten tighter. I scrubbed off all of the grime. It was like I was a new me now.

  “A bucket? How do you manage that?” He grabbed another solid color bag from the cabinet.

  “It’s what happens when running water is scarce. As we said, it’s the apocalypse down in Hartland. Don’t you guys have the news or something?” He suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Both of us stepped back. I caught the gasp in my throat. He looked up with his eyes and saw our alarm.

  “Where did you get that?” Breelyn stepped forward. I stared at his thumbs moving across the screen. “How did you get that?”

  “We have service here? And the Internet? What do you mean?” He turned the screen. My eyes seemed immediately drawn into it, but I had to look away. It had been so long since I looked at a screen. It felt like relapsing in some way. “It doesn’t go outside of East County, though. There’s no world news on here. The only things I can find are the Facebook posts of the locals and the school. See?” He showed us an image that the school posted. It was an advertisement for the football game tonight. I couldn’t believe it. I stepped back again. I didn’t want to see it, not now. I was suddenly glad that I didn’t have my phone. If I did, I'd be stuck looking back on pictures of my family. I’d be watching old videos of them, listening to their voices again. It has been too long. Breelyn ended up taking the phone from him and scrolling through Facebook. She swiped out and went to TikTok, too. It was crazy slow from the lack of updates, but it still worked. I went ahead and walked outside, following the voices of our group in the distance. It was mostly flat land out here with so many farmers' fields, but there were so many clusters of forest as well. Either way, voices carried through the air very easily.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I walked up to the group, crossing my arms around myself and stepping up beside Jacob. He was sitting on a log, catching his breath. A chainsaw was next to him. “You feel like cutting somethin’ down? It’s wearing me slick, dude,” I reached down and grabbed it.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” He looked at me like I was an alien. “Hey, it’s just my mom and me now. Who else is gonna cut and move the trees that fall in the middle of the road?”

  “Yeah, go for it, man,” He laughed. I laughed too. It was weird for him to see me with a chainsaw. He knew I could use guns, bows, even throw knives, but this? I always had him do the dirty work, but now times were changing. I walked up to one of the marked trees that was set to fall straight onto the already halfway-formed pile. Everyone stepped back, taking it as a chance to take a break from dragging limbs into the middle. I pulled it back, but it started on the second try, then I got to cutting. It wasn’t a thick tree; I made it most of the way through in a little over a minute. I stepped back as it began to fall smack dab onto the pile. It was perfect. I turned off the chainsaw and stepped back to admire my work. I would have to cut most of the trunk up, but we didn’t have to mess with the top at all. It was lined up with the rest of the limbs as if it knew it belonged on top of the pile. “Good job, man, you used a fuckin’ chainsaw,” He stood with his arms crossed next to me. “Give me that shit and get to dragging those limbs,” He half-stole the chainsaw from my hands and started it up as he walked towards the trunk.

  We all sat around the fire and stared into it. We had to sit about twenty feet away. The flame was so wide and tall that the heat could be felt probably from the front of the house. It would take a few hours to burn, but that was perfect timing. After this, we would all go to the football game. I could hear everyone talking to one another to get to know each other. It was warming to see everyone socialize like this. It felt like it was just a normal school night again. I missed it, but I didn’t think about it for too long. I wanted to avoid that sharp pain in my abdomen when I thought about nostalgia. After a couple of hours, the conversations got lighter. Some people went inside to grab some stuff. I wanted to stretch my legs too, so I got up and started walking towards the lake. Jacob got up and followed me. We didn't say a word until we were farther away from the fire. “I think there’s snow coming,” I crossed my arms to shield my body from the wind. It was even colder now that I had been sitting around the fire for so long.

  “I think so. Are you guys going to get out of here before then, or are you staying?” I shrugged.

  “I haven’t thought that far yet. We could stay, but we don’t know how long we’re gonna be stuck here. If we go, then there’s a chance I'll never get through that wall again. I don’t think I could live with that, either. You’re the first family I've been able to pin down and find. If you guys are taken from me too, I don’t know how long it’ll take me to recover this time, if I even do,” He released a sigh. “Where’s Grandma anyway? She hasn’t been home all day?”

  “She’s with memaw and Pawpaw. They’re still alive, but they’re sick. They don’t remember her, or me. I don’t think they have very long.” I knew my great-grandparents had to be entering their hundreds by now. They were the oldest living in this town years ago, and still, they were breaking that record. Newspaper articles used to be written about their great love story that has lasted almost a century.

  “What kind of sickness?” I felt a ping in my chest. “Like, end of the world sick?”

  “No, nothing like that,” I sighed with relief. I had seen firsthand what those illnesses do to people. I couldn’t imagine my great-grandparents getting taken out by that. “Pawpaw has had liver problems for a while. He’s going into liver failure. And memaw, she’s not eating anymore. I think they’ll both go out at the same time,” I nodded. They had been together for eighty years, if not more. I didn’t know how they were still alive, especially during all of this. It was impressive, and I wished I knew them better than I did. I barely spoke to them, and they didn’t know who I was when I visited them a few Christmases ago. There was no way I could go in the past and change it, but I was alright with that. It’d be okay. If they went out naturally, that would be God’s will. He would never separate them, and they’ve had every experience they could. It was the only physical form of pure life. They represented the life cycle better than anything I had ever seen.

  “I would go see them but… I don’t know. They don't know who I am. There’s no point.”

  “Yeah. They remember your dad, though. He’s going to be okay. He was up here a few weeks ago to see them. He said his goodbyes, if that makes you feel any better.” I shrugged again. I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse. My heart ached for my dad. He had lived his whole life with them. I couldn’t imagine the loss he was going to feel, but then again, they had been living on so much borrowed time. He had plenty of time to prepare, and he was a very reasonable man. It would be okay. “So, Colton?” He said his name as if it were a question.

  “What about it?” I released a stifled laugh.

  “I mean, the world is ending out there. You all could move down here where it’s safe. There’s no reason you couldn’t just stay here, and then Colt could finally have a chance,” I shook my head and laughed. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. The thought of being down here, but not the thought of being with Colton. It was like a picture-perfect, normal person's dream. Move to a smaller town, live on a farm, raise a family. That was normal for people, and it was an even bigger American dream during these times. I could never, though. I couldn’t leave my home behind, and all of my friends? Even if it somehow got them and their families down here, there are so many more people I couldn’t let go of. All of the teenagers I grew up with? I couldn’t leave a town like that. I knew all of them, even though I didn’t see them anymore. I couldn’t leave. I had almost considered it back then, but the same problems kept holding me back.

  “Y’know, that was the problem back then. Colt lived too far, and we had too many responsibilities back home. Yeah, things are different now, but I can't leave my family behind. I’m sure Mom and Dad would come up here if I told them how it was here, but I have too many people back home. I can’t throw everything away for the American dream, or a boy I have no interest in, may I add,” Jacob clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

  “Couldn’t say I didn’t try. It’s the normal way of living. Kids graduate high school, they move away, and they start a life. You’re allowed to have happiness, too, y'know. You can have a happy ending.” I stopped walking. Nobody had said that to me before. He turned around and stopped a few feet away. He could see the distress in my eyes. I looked back and forth, trying to piece some words together that would make sense. I didn’t know what to say.

  “I have a duty, Jacob. I- It’s not what- I don’t know. I can’t leave everyone out there to die. I can help them, I can save them.”

  “You're not God? You can't save everyone. Without you, someone else will fall into that role of saving the ones you think you can. It doesn’t have to be you. You deserve a life outside of trying to keep everyone else together. You did this when we were kids, too. You sacrificed your happiness and time for everyone. Why do you have to do it now when there's nothing left to fight for?”

  “I do it so nobody else has to. It’s my duty. It’s quite literally my job. I’m supposed to save people. I made an oath.” We kept our tones calm. This would easily be a yelling match between me and anyone else, but with Jacob? Everything was calm, and everything was reasonable.

  “If you told them all that you were leaving, they would gladly let you go. They want to see the next generation flourish, especially you. What’s the harm in that?”

  “I need you to see what Hartland and the rest of the world are like. If everyone pitched in, it would change a whole lot sooner. If everyone were like me, then we would get this fixed. But there’s only one me, and not very many people working to change the world. It starts somewhere, though, and a little self-sacrifice is the first step to saving us all.”

  “Just you can fix some of the problems, but what about the other problems? If everyone became farmers and everyone raised a family, then humanity would stay intact. Who knows what everyone's going to turn into?”

  “It’s just something we have to call by ear. You’re really trying to be a good wingman, aren’t you?” He started laughing. I laughed too, my nerves going away. My dad had been the biggest male influence on Jacob's life, and it really sowed. He was very reasonable with his words and never criticized you if you were making a wrong decision. He was someone I could always go to, and it had been way too long since I had last seen him. Too long.