Love Revived

After

A scream erupts from Leo's lips as Bie chases him down the hall. Eight years have passed, and we are happy and secure in our colony somewhere in Canada. We have lived here now for three straight years, and it feels good to settle down. To finally stay in one place. I smile at the two of them playing. We are just about to head out to go for a walk. Everyone pitched in and made the walkways and streets filled with string lights, and I can't wait to see them again.

Bie picks up Leo and walks over to me, kissing me on my lips. "No," Leo says ever so firmly. He hates it when we kiss. Bie, in return, kisses me again. "No, no, no. Stop it, Daddy." I laugh as Bie sets Bie down.

"Go get your shoes on." He says, and Leo takes off to the mud room to put on his shoes. I look at Bie's milky white eyes and sigh. "What's wrong?" He asks.

"Nothing, I just can't figure out how you see; after all these years, I still think that you were made from magic."

Bie's arm comes around my waist, "well, if I was made for magic, then it's your magic that keeps me going. And your amazing pus–"

"Okay, okay. I get it", I laugh. Leo runs back in with his shoes on. He has the same white hair as Bie, but his eyes take after me. They are not clouded and white. We walk out the door, not bothering to lock it. We never do. No one does here, everything is safe, and we are safe. In fact, it has been months, maybe even a year, since I have even heard of a zombie being seen. The sun has set, and we stand out on the street, waiting for the lights to come on. Everyone else is in the street with us, and we chat until the sky lights up with hundreds of twinkly little lights.

"Whoa," Leo says, his eyes lighting up just as bright as the twinkle lights above our heads. "This is what stars look like up close?" He asks. Bie picks him up so that he can get a better look.

"Well, kinda," I say, thinking of science class and the pictures of the suns. He reaches out to touch them but can't reach them.

Bie pulls him to his hip, "we don't want to pull down the lights now. We just put them up." Leo nods, and I can't help but look around and see all the smiling faces that we have grown to know. Magie was right all those years ago. This was not a colony; this is a family. And I have my family and my faith in love revived.