I curled myself up into a ball and sat, grasping an old book; the only tangible proof that there was once a race of people who actually existed and were happy. They smiled and posed with people they knew, they might have even been friends. Friends. What a foreign concept. They cared enough to paint their faces during sporting events and buy dresses of silky smooth fabrics that sparkled like I remember the stars did to bathe themselves in during some kind of party, I've gathered that it's called "prom." I hated that like everything else in this horrible place, this yearbook was covered in ash. It was from the year 2010; more than one hundred years ago, yet the binding that held that book together was stronger than the thread that held the last bit of humanity together.
I learned everything I knew about people from that book, though it wasn't really applicable to the people you might come across today. I wondered what it was like to be a kid back then, to be able to drive away from the school parking lot in the new-to-you car your parents had just gotten you for your birthday with the windows down breathing in air that didn't make you cough and wheeze with every breath. I could feel those breaths from those girls with their hair blowing in the wind, and the breath from the boys who might have been driving a little too fast, but felt safe as long as the world was safe and they could still dream. I could almost feel the sun on my skin. Summer, I hear, is what they looked forward to the most.
"Sandy! Wake up!" I heard my brother bellowing from the other side of the barren building we were staying in. I didn't want to move. I felt cold water splash my face and was instantly revived.
"Why would you waste water like that?!" I said. I wasn't really angry that he wasted the water, it was more his methods of waking me up.
"Relax, it's not like you actually have to find it yourself. Listen, I think I may have found a really safe place for us to stay, it's supposed to have been an old compound or something, where they used to do all the brainwashing. Before all this it was a college. Imagine that Sis, we're going to college!" He tried to make everything sound better than it actually was, but I knew it was just another place to waste away until we turned into them.
