Survive

December 17th, 2032

12 months after the train crash

Flinching against the bitterly cold wind; I held baby Edgar tightly to my chest, protecting his small body and delicate skin from exposure. We were trudging our way over an abandoned freeway, broken cars and frozen trucks littered the icy asphalt. The metal rusted and slowly crumbling away, leaving their skeletons behind like a snowy open grave. The last city we had encountered wasn't as large or as rough as this one. A big, rusted sign hanging over the freeway read, "Willkommen in Berlin." We had traveled from Russia to Germany on foot for about two months. Curtis and I decided that our direction was going to be southwest, then when we hit Spain we would go as far as south goes. Hopefully a patch of land would be thawed out enough to be habitable. A pilgrimage is what this was. But, instead of looking for the Divine or the spiritual, we're looking for a chance. A chance of creating a life in this Godforsaken wasteland.

"Let's rest there for the night, we can pick back up in the morning!" Curtis called loudly over the howling wind. He was pointing a gloved finger at a small cluster of buildings on the edge of where the freeway ended. I simply nodded, afraid that the cold air would freeze my lungs, and continued to walk next to him. The rope knotted around my waist dug in painfully, but I pushed away the discomfort. The rope was the only way we could stay together in these kinds of blizzards. As we made our way to the end of the asphalt, a gap separated the exit ramp from the freeway. Broken off by time and the elements. The gap was fairly small, but snow can be deceitful.

Taking a few steps back, Curtis got a running start and jumped across the broken gap. I let out a sigh of relief when he made it safely to the other side. Yona and Timmy jumped across safely as well, holding each other hands as they landed on the other side. Realizing it was my turn, I breathed in the cold air deeply and held Edgar closer under my heavy coat. Running the short distance from the edge of the gap, I reluctantly forced my eyes to stay open as I jumped and landed on the very edge of the other side. Curtis quickly grabbed the sleeves of my coat and pulled me closer to him and away from the dangerous drop. "Everyone ok?" he asked, looking over each of us.

"Yeah," I said, my voice shaking along with my entire body. "It's getting dark, we should keep moving." I nodded to the dull orange glow hiding behind the darkening grey sky. Picking up the pace, we reached the end of the exit ramp and cautiously approached the cluster of buildings, making sure that there were no hostile animals around. Only one of the buildings didn't look like the roof was caving in, the smallest one in the group. As we reached the smallest building; Curtis wiped away the snow that was covering the door, revealing a flaking gold plaque with "Alida's Backerei" etched into the frosted metal.

Curtis wrenched the frozen door open and we all scrambled inside, away from the blistering cold wind. Thankfully none of the windows in the building were broken; but the snow did cover every inch of them, making the inside almost pitch black. The wind slammed the door shut behind us, causing me to jump a bit in surprise. Curtis dropped our heavy bag of supplies onto the floor and pushed the hood of his coat back and pulled down the thick black scarf covering his face. While he knelt down to search the bag, I unzipped my coat half-way and carefully lifted Edgar out of the pouch strapped to my chest.

"Yona." I called her over and handed Edgar to her so I could go look around the shop. In the kitchen area there were four big ovens lining the walls and racks of frozen bread and pastries. The entire place seemed untouched, preserved.

"Here," Curtis said from behind me, I turned around to see him holding out one of the few matchbooks we had. "Find anything that can be burned and start fires in the ovens." Taking the matches, I gave a small nod and we went to opposite ends of the room to look for supplies. A separate room sat in the back, it looked like it used to be an office of some sort. I found a stack of what looked to be old recipe books and other stacks of papers and took them back over to the ovens. I ripped up the books and papers and made piles in each oven, hoping that it would be enough to warm the place up a bit. With shaking fingers, I took a match and struck it against the rough side of the matchbook. The bright orange glow illuminated the dark room and warmed the cold tips of my fingers. I quickly lit each stack of kindling with the match, barely getting all the fires lit, before the flame burned away the last bit of the match stick and lightly scorched my fingers. Rubbing my palms together, I held them up against one of the fires and sighed as the heat chased away the cold numbness in my hands.

"Sam." I turned away from the ovens to see Yona and Timmy. "He's crying again." Yona said, holding Edgar out to me. I took him and held him in my arms, but he still continued to wail. Sighing, I went over to the other side of the kitchen and found Curtis digging through some cabinets.

"Hey," I said, bouncing Edgar gently to try and calm him down. Curtis stood up and looked over at us, his face full of concern. "Trade?" I gave a small smile and passed Edgar over to Curtis. "He doesn't seem to like me very much today."

"He's just cold, we've been walking all day." Curtis replied, shifting the baby over to his left arm and cupping my chin with his free hand. "You ok?" he asked, the concern still on his face.

"Yeah, just...tired." I breathed, feeling the exhaustion finally seep into my bones. Both physically and mentally.

"We'll get there soon enough. All we have to do is keep moving forward." Curtis said.

"Moving forward..." I mumbled, a tired laugh escaping my lips. "Even after the train we're still moving forward."

"There's two ways to go, forwards or backwards. And we already know what's behind us." he said, I couldn't help but let out a small chuckle.

"Always the philosopher." I smiled. He just shook his head in amusement and pressed his cold lips to my forehead.

"I'm gonna go take him over by the fires." he said, shifting Edgar to his other arm and cradling him inside his coat. As he went back to the ovens, I stayed by the cabinets and crouched down to look through them. I found a can of apple pie filling in the very back of one of the cabinets, I tried to remember the last time I'd even seen an apple pie. I was very young, maybe six or seven. And it was Thanksgiving, no, Christmas? I could barely remember.

I set the can aside and opened the other cabinet door, but there was nothing inside. I almost stood up to go look in a different spot, but something inside the cabinet caught my eye. Upon further inspection, I saw that there were once cans in there. However, they were gone and the rings left on the frosted wood were pretty recent. Maybe Curtis already looked through it?

I took the single can of food back over to where Curtis stood by one of the fires, Edgar finally had stopped crying and was snuggled inside Curtis' coat.

"Look what I found." I said and held the can closer to the light of the fire so he could see what it was.

"No way." he smiled and took the can in his free hand to inspect it. "What do you want to do with it?" he asked. I was going say the we should eat it, but then I caught sight of Timmy and Yona standing over by one of the other fires.

"We should give it to the kids, they probably don't even know what apple pie is. They should at least try it." I said and got my knife out of my belt and took the can back, cutting open the top. "Timmy, Yona." I called to them and they both shuffled over to us. "Here, share it."

"What is it?" Yona asked, gingerly taking the can from me.

"Apple pie...well, the insides anyway." I smiled as Timmy sniffed at it, then carefully tipped the can back and ate some of the filling. Yona did the same and the looks on their faces were priceless.

"It's good!" Timmy exclaimed and reached out for the can again, greedily taking another gulp.

"It probably tastes better when it's not twenty years old, and when it's actually in a pie." Curtis laughed, but the kids weren't listening, they were too busy fighting over the rest of the can. Times like these were hard to come by. The world now was so cold and harsh, it was difficult trying to keep a smile on your face. Hopefully, when we finally make it south, it will become easier to smile again.

A/N: *Hides behind bush* Ok, so I didn't give up on this story. *ducks away from flying tomatoes* Hey! It's not my fault! Ok...it is my fault. I'm a terrible person. I haven't updated this story for months and I feel like a giant ass. But, I was having the biggest case of writer's block and I was focusing more on other stories. However, I'm back in the game and writing my ass off for this story. So, *fingers crossed* hopefully you guys can forgive me for being a terrible person. By the way, I was thinking of maybe starting up a Game of Thrones or an Avengers fanfic. I'm not so sure about the GoT fanfic, cause I know it's such a beloved book/television series (which I am crazy about) and I feel like I don't really have the talent or the guts to dip into writing for that fandom yet. But, Avengers I'm all about. I'm a huge Marvel fan so I might start writing one for that. Anywho! Thanks for reading! (so sorry about taking so long to update again) Xoxo!