We Survivors [Published Version]

5: The Stars Were Aligned | Nadia

"Jake?" I asked. We'd left the city still early in the day and had traversed several miles already. We hadn't spoken much, both used to solitude and conserving our energy as the sun beat down on us through the trees.

"Yeah?" He hoisted his pack and stepped over a log.

"You know how songs get stuck in your head?"

He smiled crookedly, holding back a branch for me. "Hasn't happened in a while, what with all the singers being dead, but sure."

"Do you ever have that happen, but it's not a songit's a line from a movie or a book?"

Jake laughed. "What's stuck in your head right now?"

If it had been a year ago, and I'd been talking to someone who—well, who looked like Jake—I never would have admitted to thinking about poetry. But we were some of the last people on Earth, so he couldn't exactly judge me, right?

"It's from a poem. Robert Frost," I said. "My favorite."

He was following me along a deer path through the woods. We hoped it would be a shortcut to the highway where we'd meet the others. "What's the line?" he asked. "From the poem."

"The last stanza goes like this," I said, quickly running through the lines in my head. Then I recited,

"'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep.' He repeats the last line: 'And miles to go before I sleep'."

"That seems appropriate," Jake said. "These woods are 'lovely', and we have miles to go yet. Plus we promised Zara and Coby we'd meet them this afternoon."

"That's true," I admitted, glad he'd liked the poem, and deciding not to mention any of its darker interpretations.

More light came through the trees ahead as we neared the highway. "How far are we now?"

"Not far at all," a laughing female voice called out from a branch above us. We both spun around, and Jake reflexively drew his rifle to his shoulder.

A girl hopped down from the branch of a tree above us. She landed gracefully on her boots and stood before us with her hands up. "Whoa there, cowboy. Don't shoot! It's us." She smiled and stuck out her hand to Jake, unfazed by the rifle barrel eyeing her.

Jake reluctantly shook her hand. "Hey there, Sarah."

A broad-shouldered guy in Converse—Coby, I assumed—stepped out from behind a wide elm tree.

"No, not Sarah. Zara. Like a Russian czar with an 'Ahh'."

I smiled, and Jake asked, "Delusions of grandeur much?"

She laughed, the sound light and musical. "Now that everyone's gone, I can be czar of the world, Nadia can be queen, Coby can be emperor. Jake, do you want to be pharaoh or sultan?"

"I'll take supreme overlord, thanks." Jake said, his voice flat. He looked past them, as if trying to see whether they were alone.

"Hi Coby," I said, offering my hand. He shook it firmly. Freckles covered his nose and sharp jaw, and the faded red t-shirt he wore clashed with his short red hair.

I turned to shake Zara's hand, but she threw her arms around me instead. "I am so happy to meet you!"

"Um, you too." I patted her back awkwardly, unused to human contact.

She pulled away, and I got a better look at her. She had angular eyes, a small nose, and black curls. A few strands were dyed pink, contrasting with the bright blue jacket she wore over tight black jeans. Around her neck was a yin-yang pendant, and she sported deep red lipstick and perfect winged eyeliner.