The world is ending. Again.
This time I'm in a mall with about 20 other people. There is literally no warning. One minute I'm looking for a nice pair of boots, then next there's strange creatures crawling around and attacking people, and a bunch of earthquakes happen at once, knocking down towers and basically dropping us in the middle of a post apocalyptic world inhabited by more aliens than humans.
As usual, I'm compeletely protective over literally everyone, and start barking out orders to people about getting the proper clothing for everyone, packing things up, and organizing different jobs for each person.
Apparently these people can appreciate my mother hen tendencies because they go along with minimal grumbling. Different people go find different things that we need, and we use the various bags in the shop to distribute them to each person. I personally go hunting for some of the more essential items, socks, underwear, bras, pads and tampons, and it's actually quite sad the tiny amount of other people that have come looking for those things. People obviously don't have a very good idea of priority items.
In the meantime, those that aren't scavaging, are on patrol with some of the frankly beautiful knives we'd found in one of the shops. Maybe I was a bit selfish, but I'd grabbed three for myself. Openings from other worlds had popped up all over the place, and the animals that came through were like nothing we'd seen before. We had almost no idea which ones were viscious and which were gentle. So we make our home base in the middle of what looks like a Rue 21 store, because near the ceiling is an opening that leads out onto the roof.
The earthquakes had trapped the mall in a valley, and us in the mall, so this would be our only way out. But we had to make sure we had everything that could possibly be useful. It was a lot for just 20 of us to carry, but I was positive we'd need it all, and had every bag assigned to a person. I go around our little group and make sure everyone is dressed and carrying practical items. A few times I have to find someone different clothes because they took the apocalypse as a chance to dress up in all the fanciest clothes they could find. Mini skirts and 6 inch heels aren't exactly good for traveling.
Finally we're all ready, and we make our way up the wall, climbing from one shelf to the other and handing bags and children up as we go to make sure none are left behind. One of the stronger men shoves the hatch open and we leave the mall. Outside, it's like nuclear warhead went off, every single building around us has been grounded, car alarms are going off all over the city, and there are a few straggling people wandernig the streets.
As we walk, our large group catches the attention of these stragglers. Some of them join us, worldlessly entering the crowd and relieving someone of an extra bag, and throwing it over their shoulder. Our number nearly doubles as we go through the city, and thankfully we are able to find a few buildings that still have usething things in them, like canned foods and more clothing, rope and more weapons. The aliens are out here too, and we manage to kill the few that attack us, but there are so many of us, most of them leave us alone.
The newcomers are a little rowdy at first, shouting at people and trying to boss them around, but it seems I've earned some kind of respect, because no one listens to them, and instead sends them to talk to me and introduce themselves. I do my best to assign everyone jobs, and to make sure that everyone is being taken care of, but I can only do so much, so I enlist one of the other women, who's a little older than me, and very intelligent. I put her in charge of rations, protection, and clothing. I'm in charge of listening to ideas and opinions, and weeding out the helpful ones, and ensuring that everyone is healthy.
Things in our group get easier after that, but in this new world, it's still very difficult to keep going. We don't quite know where to go, and decide to just keep going until we find somewhere that looks good enough for us to stay. We pass farms and smaller towns, and come across a couple smaller groups. They seem apprehensive when we come toward them, but once we show them that we aren't going to take their supplies, they relax. Some of them join with us, and whoever was leading them, joins my little council. We divvy up all the supplies and try to even things out so everyone has the same.
Other's go their own way, promising not to attack us, and even telling us which direction they're headed, so that we might meet up with them to talk another time.
Without any proper vehicles, and only our own strength to carry our stuff, traveling was slow. But it gave us the chance to all get to know each other, and soon everyone in the team was identified by their own names, or whatever name they'd decided to take up in this new life, instead of just "Hey you"'s.
We got bigger and bigger, and it became harder and harder to make sure each person's voice was heard. One night my council got everyone together, and we put people on different lists, according to their abilities. Nurses, Doctors, Bakers, Chefs, Farmers, Psychologists, Librarians, Walmart Employees, Construction Workers, Carpenters, we even had a couple Scientists and Dentists. Then there were all the hobbyists, the seamstresses and plant enthusiests, the bookworms who were so desperate to keep some of their books that they carried suitcases full along with their madatory supply bags. We asked them all if anyone knew somewhere that would be good for us to stay, to settle down and protect ourselves. Somewhere with good land and nearby water.
In the end we found the place on accident. We were walking through a field and stumbled onto a large concrete foundation that not only had walls a full story high, but had an entire basement that was practically untouched. It looked like an abandoned farmhouse, the kind that held families the size of small countries on holidays. Whatever barn had been there was rubble now, and the animals had either died, or wandered off.
We'd planned to use the place as just a stopping point for the night, but several people came to the council and commented on what a good place it would be to stay. We agreed to camp there for a while, and give it a trial run, but most people took it as a yes for this being our new home.
They organized themselves into groups and went digging through the ruins of the barn and house to gather tools, others went on quick trips through nearby fields, and on chance found a couple dairy cows grazing. They led the animals back to the farm and patched up the barbed wire fence that had been kicked down. There was no working plumbing, but enough of us bookworms had read medieval and before books to know how to dig a latrine.
It was all very low tech, but we worked things out, and soon the place was up and running. There were daily chores, and each person had to do their work to recieve meals. We set up patrols in a 100 yard perimeter and the garden lovers salvaged a plot of land that had obviously been used before, planting whatever seeds they found in the abandoned basement, and barn. Children were on salvage duty, or were taken into an empty area and read to, practicing their letters and simple math.
Once we'd fixed a tarp to the top of the walls as a ceiling it seemed pretty obvious that this was a good place to stay. There was even a stream nearby that had clean water.
A few days later a large band of people were seen by one of the patrols, and a few of the council went out to meet them. They'd been traveling for a while, and just like us, were looking for somewhere to settle down and get things organized. We offered to let them join us, and they accepted. By now we were about a hundred people, and would quickly run out of room if we didn't get to work building more quarters.
But we were still here, and we would make it. Maybe it wasn't the end of the world after all.
Seriously though, this is the second night in a row damnit.
