Eliot Strange and the Prince of the Resistance

1) History Lesson Part One: About Prince Torin

My prince, Prince Torin Henry James Albert of Wales, was visiting the United States of America on the day the world ended. It was the same day an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)was aimed at my country. The EMP was so strong that it shut down almost everything in the United States and stranded the prince on our shores.

Prince Torin was on his "Goodwill Tour of America" when he was separated from his entourage of bodyguards who he thought, rightfully so, were mostly wiped out in the attack that separated them.

The prince found himself all alone for the next hundred days or so. Though he was a former officer in the Royal Navy, and was not without survival or self-defense skills, he had never been completely on his own, never completely responsible for himself.

He found he could do it, and he liked it. This was the adventure he had always craved, except for the one thing. Torin was lonesome. He was used to being surrounded by people - most of them doing his bidding, or at least admiring him and reminding him constantly of his perfection.

I am not saying anything about Torin that he would not agree with. He told me just yesterday, "I was quite spoiled before, when I was a Prince in England."

I said, "You're still a prince, Torin. You're just not in England."

"So, you are saying I'm still spoiled, my lady?"

That is Torin. He enjoys what he calls "a parry" and round here (round here being the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains) what we call "picking". He rarely calls me by my name, Eliot. He calls me "my lady" to tease me. He knows - I both like it and hate it.

When Prince Torin was separated from his entourage and found himself all alone, he wandered with little purpose other than survival - finding something to eat and shelter for the night while avoiding all the gun-toting southerners protecting what was theirs. Then, he remembered the girl. He was supposed to find the girl if there was danger. At first, this plan seemed ridiculous and not like a plan at all, but nothing was normal anymore, and he needed a purpose. 

After misadventures he didn't want to discuss later, he found the girl in my hometown of Mount Airy, NC. He found the girl, and I know this because the girl was me.

Sounds romantic. Like a modern day fairy tale - a lost prince searches for his true love after the world ends, and all seems lost. Only, that's not what happened at all. Prince Torin was looking for me, or sort of looking for me in a kind of indirect way. Looking for me, not because of love, but because of safety. My mother, who by all the evidence is probably the enemy now, warned him of pending danger (which means she may not have always been evil?). She told him to find the girl if something went wrong, and he did. It took Torin weeks and weeks and miles and miles and a lot of luck, but he found me.

Before me there had been many girls for the prince, many women. As soon as he captured one with his charm, his wandering eye was on to the next. He was, after all, "The Playboy Prince", dubbed this accurately by the press who constantly followed his exploits. Some things the tabloids printed were not true, but most were. The prince was quite the ladies' man and somewhat proud of it. He had followers all over the world who watched his every romantic escapade.

Before the world stopped reporting on his every move, I wasn't one to follow social media, so I was not a Prince Torin fan. My best friend, Steven Lindquist, was the Prince Torin follower and head of his fan club when we were younger.

Prince Torin was not my type at all, if I even had a type, before the world came to a screeching stop. 

But for now, I think I am in love.

Now that we are living in the apocalypse, Prince Torin will have to do better than his past reputation as an easygoing, ladies man. Now, people depend on him.

There was a battle yesterday and his new friends, a group of fighters who call themselves - The Resistance - and others have fought for him and with him. Many have died to save Prince Torin. 

To save the prince is to save what is left of our country. 

He is our hope, maybe our only hope.