When the World Ends

Gray Eyes

She easily got sick. It worried me greatly. I was convinced, the first few weeks that we'd been together, that she'd die rather quickly and I'd end up all alone.

But months passed, and she still stood strong. She'd catch colds easily, but recover just as quickly as they came. It amazed me.

One day, she was recovering from a cold, and we were scrounging around the ruins of a CVS building in a small Texas town for some cough syrup. Then, there was the snap of wood under someone's foot.

I whirl around, and before me stands a boy. Blue-gray eyes are the first thing I see before he swings his fist at my face. It connects, and I cry out in surprise as I stumble backwards and fall to the ground.

Ah, shit. What the hell?

Keane? You okay?

I'm attempting to stop the blood that's pouring out of my nose when she suddenly exclaims, Ah! I know you!

   What?

I know him, Keane!

I look over at the boy, rubbing my head with my left hand and pinching my nose shut with my right.

Then why the hell did he hit me?

She turns to look at the boy and asks him the same question. I notice the boy has black roots that have nearly grown out, his hair having hints of the previously dyed color of bright, cherry red. A dangerously bright color, that bright of red, in this gray world.

   The boy states that he mistook me as a threat. After all, there's no way she'd be with me, right? She hated me.

   Not anymore, she tells the boy. Keane's my friend now. We get along.

   The boy raises his eyebrows. Get along? She wouldn't even talk to me at school--she wouldn't even want to be in the same room as me, if she could help it.

   It's okay, she tells the boy. Keane is keeping me stay safe now. We're a team.

   A team? he laughs. I can't believe it! I never thought you'd be friends with him even if you two were the last--

   He stops. Now, those sayings only bring hurt. The last two people on Earth? We might have been. But we weren't.

   It's alright, she says. Words don't matter anymore.

   Really? Words are all we have left.

   He says that with a sad expression on his face, and she goes quiet. She knows he's not wrong. And I can see the permanent hurt in her eyes deepen.

   I walk over and grab her arm, pulling her towards me. I look over at the boy with an annoyed expression, but he only sighs and holds out his hand.

   I'm Jacob.

That means nothing to me.

   How about this, then? I'm Robin's best friend.

You mean, you were her best friend.

   I still am.

You really think so?

   Yes.

We must have been looking as if we were about to fight, because she pulls me away from the boy and tells us to stop and help her look for anything scavengable. We oblige.

   I find some crackers and expired Advil, while the boy finds a six-pack of soda, with one can completely crushed. She finds the most, with three boxes of cereal, two Gatorade sports bottles, and some cough syrup.

   Ah, and a rubber duck, which she seems exceedingly happy about.

   It's so cute, Keane! I think I'll give it to Manuel, when I find him!

   She's smiling for the first time in awhile, so I decide not to burst her bubble.

   He collects ducks, right? So I'm sure he'll love it.

   She nods happily, and I notice Jacob frowning at me for giving her false hope. Mannie could be dead right now, like so many others, his gaze tells me. I glare at him and shake my head, letting him know to just leave it be.

   She's so rarely this happy. It makes me smile.

-------------------------------------------------------

Jacob has a tent.

   A bright, orange tent.

   The tent is covered in dirt and leaves and sticks, to make it less noticeably orange. But it is still, very noticeably, construction-cone orange.

I decide that this boy must have a taste for dangerous colors, and a death wish with it.

   But a tent is a tent, and so we all help set it up between two trees in what used to be a forest.  We choose a cluster of trees that still stand tall despite the effect of the 'quakes, with bushes surrounding the area.

   After setting it up, we all squeeze into the tent, with Robin between the two of us.

   We fall asleep feeling relatively safe for the first time in a long while.