If We Survive

Chapter 6

I try to hold on to my dream for as long as possible after I wake up, savoring every moment. If Dee is still alive then, he'd be up here, too, since he was with the slow group. I belonged with him, in the slow group, but I had wanted to impress the other kids. We could be navagating the rockey mountians together, or maybe even here, if I hadn't been so damn prideful about the whole ordeal. 

Or I could be dead. 

"You really shouldn't be so pessimisstic on your birthday," I mumble. Streching out my sore limbs.

"What?" Says Zack from the sofa across from me. The sides of my mouth twitch. 

"Nothing, I'm just talking to myself like an old loony."

"Who ya calling old loony?" Shouts Greg from the breakfast table. Today will be a good day, I tell myself. It's already shaping up to be one. I giggle. Like actally giggle, which is something I don't honestly think I've ever done. 

I sit at the table, enjoying my meager bowl of cearel. Techicly, I'm allergic to milk- I can have cheese and that sort of thing, but just not steright-up milk, so I get to eat my corn flakes plain. Not that I'm complaning. 

"Where's Achilles?" I ask, brushing the bottom of the bowl for crumbs. 

"He and your friend went out early. I'm about to head out now, too." Grey says, packing up his Mossberg. "And make sure that the kid's wound stays uninfected, you got me?" 

"Yeah," I reply, pushing back from the table. I wash out my bowl in the sink, making sure that there's not a bit of residue left. I used to hate washing dishes, but now it's just normal. If we all do our share, we all have to do less. In theroy. 

Zack's leg remians perfectly fine, which is pretty lucky- I mean, we're out in the middle of the wilderness, and the chances of a wound not getting infected are like zero. 

For once, I get to help around the house, which is no easy task. Shelly must have superpowers to get it all done, or something. I've never been educated in this sort of thing- two older brothers and I was always out playing baseball or football with them, and when my mother did try and teach me, I completely forgot. 

It's not like that even matters anymore, anyway, since we have to do everything manually. I pretend that I'm like one of the people on Little House on the Prarie, which isn't too far from the truth. 

I was alittle obssessed with the past, before this whole thing. It's wasn't like I was born in the wrong centure; quite on the contrary, I used to like technology a bit too much. But I always craved the glory for times gone past, to see the things that other people wrote about once. Sometimes reading just isn't enough.

For some people. 

I am quick enough to learn how to do my household chores. I am to take inventory of the pantry, and  I get to choose my birthday diner. I feel slightly spolied in this way, but it's easy not to mind. I've choosen for us spagetti and canned meat sauce, my favorite meal. We used to have it all the time on my birthday. 

I need to yank my head out of the past. My past. 

Because that world is gone now, forever, and the last thing for us left to do is rebuild it. It'll be thousand of yars, though, before we get back to the way we where- and what do you know, this might happen again. If there's one thing I've learned from ten years of history classes, it's that history goes in a circle. Everything repeats itself, until the very end of time. Or maybe I am at the end of time, and the disease hasn't set it yet. 

You really shouldn't be so pessimistic on your birthday.

But there is a pattern, isn't there? The twin survived, meaning that it must have to do with genes. It could be a non-domonant gene that only shows up if there isn't another one to cover it, like blood types. I could only shopw up in rare cases, and when they did, one or more of he parents would also have to survive. But how would that be cureable? It didn't seem like something that you could just down some cough syrup and it would be all better. And if I could, by some miricle of science, find a cure, how could I disribute it? I don't even know how much of he world is affected by this. 

Maybe it isn't tha bad. Maybe i's jus Colorado, or just Rockey Mountian National Park... But wouldn't the Army come in and take ou he things? Or did they qurintine us, and we're just trapped in here? No, that wouldn't make since- they wouldn't leave the survivors in this hell. 

Shelly is happy for my help, and she claims that we got more work done today than she ever has, which I'm sure is quite the overstatement, but I don't complain. 

By dinner, I can actually smell the cake cooking, and honestly it would be enough just to smell it. Gregory, Stephen, and Achilles come back around four, with a fairly good haul. Stephen and Achilles are shaping up to be pretty good friends, which doesn't suprise me, considering all they have in common. 

Killing innocent animals for sport. 

It's not really sport, now is it? It's to survive. My mom always told me it was wrong to kill animals just for sport, although back then I didn't under stand their other uses. Like surviving, for example. 

I think I overuse the word "Surviving" a bit. But that's wht we're doing isn't it? We're staying alive however we know how. That's the thing abot surviving, I think; it changes from person to person, because of background or personality. SOme people thing surviving is putting food on the table, and others thing it's being able to live without fear. In some eyes, I think we're thriving. We have cake, at least. 

Dinner is the best food that I think I ever tasted; of milkshakes and Burger King, candy and expensive food, that stuff is the best I've tasted. 

And the cake, oh the cake. In the world before, I took for granted that sort of thing, but not now. It's like... I don't know how to explain it. 

Today, I think is the best day of my new life. 

I decide to call it that, all the things that happen to me after the disaster will not be campared to things before. Today is the nineteenth day of the second month of the first year, ABZ for "After Big Zap". Really, there is no use thinking on the time before, because that's not ever coming back. That's still hard for me to grasp, dispite all this time. 

After dinner, everone goes streight up to bed- I'm so full that the drowsiness sets in almost immidetly. 

But I remember something. I have to check Zack's wound, in case something went wrong. How could something go wrong? I don't know, but it would be wrong not to check. I light one of the candles that we're only supposed to use in emerginces, even though we've been eating dinner in the near dark for the past week, since the days are getting shorter. 

The wavering flame lights a way across the clutter living room floor (mostly my stuff, may I add. Even at the end of the world I'm a cluttered person.)

"Are you still awake?" I ask quietly. 

"Yeah." He replies alertly. I remember he never slep back before we got split up. 

"I'm just going to re-wrap your leg. Can you hold this?" I hand him the candle, moving his hand appropriately so that I can see. 

It's healing well- I can see some of the pinkish scar tissue, and it appears to almost be scarring up. It's nearly unnatural how fast it got better. 

I wrap it back up, lifting my chin slightly. I can see Zack's liquid blue eyes reflected off of the candle, looking back into mine. And for some reason, I don't look away. He sits up slightly, and he's only an inch away, a centimeter...

What are you doing? 

You've nver kissed anybody, you idiot. You've never been on a date.

And it's also the end of the world, Cassy. There isn't time for roman-

We kiss. I hardly even know this guy, and here we are...

For just one minute, I can forget about the troubles, and enjoy something that I thought I left far behind in the old world. 

You know something funny? As soon as things start to go right, they take a major nose dive. 

That's just the sort of shit that goes down at the end of the world.