The end of the world comes in a fire, a destructive, all-consuming blaze that plays no favorites. The Purge sweeps across the planet in a flash that seemingly no one was prepared for, leaving in its wake a bleak, charred version of what life used to be.

Very little is left standing. A mere few are left alive.

She is one of them.


They call themselves The Chosen, unite together as a group bonded by survival. They are the new order, the ones hand selected by some higher power to replenish the earth and start anew.

They should be so lucky. How quickly they forget that only weeks ago, they were absolutely nobody.

She leaves, knows it is better to be alone than in a group. She packs food, a gun, and ammunition, and then heads for the woods. She does not want to be there when they all fall off of their high horses, when they open their eyes and realize that they are the only things left and everything is gone. The world is gray and dead, is no one's new kingdom or Eden. It is lifeless, void, wasted.

There is nothing to restore.


Surely enough, The Chosen realize this.

Gangs form, leaders are picked. Loyalties are made, divisions set deep. Riots run rampant, people are slaughtered in droves. Only the strongest, only the most unfeeling, survive.

How quickly they forget their civility.


The woods become a part of her. She learns its language, its veins, its heart. She discovers how to make a tree spew forth a stream of fresh water, how to make a meal out of weeds and roots. She can now kill scarce small game with her bare hands, blend into trunks or bushes in broad daylight to hide from predators. She finds places to sleep that will give her adequate warmth for the cold nights. She makes a bow and arrows using a knife and thick branches she finds on the ground, discovers its silent launch to be more desirable with the lacking wildlife than the loud bang of a gun. She adapts, changes, grows like the plants surrounding her.

She makes a life here, is quick to make sure that it goes undisturbed, that no one upsets its delicate balance. She does not hesitate to shoot a bullet or arrow through the head of anyone she views as a threat to the fragile ecosystem she's created.

Life in the woods is lonely. But more importantly, she makes it safe.

Sometimes survival keeps no company at all.


She marks days down with a simple tally, a line carved with her knife on a piece of tree bark carried around in the pack slung across her body. She doesn't know why. Here in the woods, time is lost, infinite. Mornings blend into nights. Days blend into weeks. And time, a counting of the days, means nothing.

All it tells her is that last week, on a day nearing her thirty-third birthday, she sent an arrow sailing through the head of a young man with black hair and hazel eyes. She did not know his name or his purpose. Just that she had to survive. All it takes is one person to rat her out to the gangs. Then everything would be over.

She has to survive.

(Sometimes she wonders deep into the night, around the biggest campfire she will allow herself to make, if she is one of the monsters.)


On day three hundred fourteen, she falls.

Not of her own volition or accident, of course. She is so sure of the woods now, traversing the uneven surface of roots and rocks is as simple as walking across a quiet, pure green meadow, if they only existed anymore.

Rather, she is pushed. To the ground, forcefully.

She does not have time to draw her bow and arrow, or even her gun, before someone is sitting on top of her, a hand pressed over her mouth.

She stares up into pale blue eyes. A face coated with a thin layer of dirt, a head covered with brown hair. A man, strong and fit.

And, oh God, this is the end of everything.

"Listen," he whispers to her powerfully. "I know that every fiber of your being is itching to kill me, but I want you to know that no more than thirty yards from us is a pack of about six men whose main objective is to murder you. About a half-mile from here is a cave that they don't know about. I've been watching them. And I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I think if we move quickly and quietly, we can get there and hide out until they leave."

He sits up, begins to release his grasp on her. Her hand jerks automatically to her gun at her hip. His eyes do not miss the movement.

He, of all things, smirks.

"Look, the choice is yours. You can follow me, or you can run. But I truly think your best chance at living is coming with me. And I would really appreciate it if you didn't kill me."

His eyes, suddenly, grow deadly serious.

"And I want you to know if I let your mouth go and you scream, we are both absolutely, positively dead."

He releases her slowly, still crouching. She backs up at once, and sits up against the moist trunk of an oak.

"So," he begins, his tone still hushed. "What do you say?" He asks too casually, like an old friend requesting lunch or a neighbor asking her to let his dog out while he's gone for the day.

Every part of her screams no, that a cave is a dead end. They'll be sitting ducks. That company is the enemy, that friends, in these times, will only – quite literally – stab you in the back. That she doesn't know this man from Adam.

She follows him.