After

Eight months after the FAYZ had started. Eight months and everyone had changed so much they could never go back to their old lives. Eight months of loneliness, pain, starvation and hatred.

Another day in Perdido Beach.

But was it the FAYZ anymore?

Brianna POV

"Breeze. Go." It didn't matter who had said it. This was something she was going to do anyway.

Was this the end? What they'd been dreaming about happening forever? The FAYZ walls were definitely gone. But then why did it feel so…

Sam POV

Scary. The dawning realisation he would have to…

Caine POV

Run. His life was over. After what he'd done, could he ever…

Astrid POV

Cope. She had lost so much, she needed to…

Quinn POV

Think. Had he done what he should have? Of course, the answer was…

Albert POV

No. Not after setting up a life for himself. But that was just…

Orc POV

Selfish. How could his first thought have been about beer after the life-saving news. But then, he was a…

Edilio POV

Monster. He'd tried to do all he could, but even that hadn't been enough. He had killed kids. How could he have been so…

Lana POV

Unfeeling. Almost numb. This nightmare was over, but her head was far from…

Taylor POV

Natural. Of course it was over. She was even starting to forget how bad it had really been. Had she really…

Jack POV

Fought? He should have been strong. Strong Jack. Weak Jack. Computer Jack. What had he become? A…

Dekka POV

Freak. She always had been, but she was going to come out of this…

Howard POV

Changed. They all were. Not the same kids who were sitting in class when everyone disappeared. So how could they let themselves be happy now?

Sam POV

It was a sunny morning. Strange he noticed. The thing that was more noticeable was the silence. There were different types of silence. Awkward. Ominous. Peaceful. And this was something else again. It was sort of different for everyone. There was such a split in the room, happy and sad people but mostly everyone just with conflicting emotions. Torn somewhere between relief and guilt. He was leaning more towards the second one. Of course, once they told the general population of Perdido beach there would be no such range in feelings. Some might not be ecstatic. Diana. Zil. Hunter. But mostly what did they have to worry about? And they had the same reasons to be happy as the people in this room were also thinking about, in varying degrees of excitedness. They could be kids again. Not have the responsibilities of life and death any more, hug their moms, eat, get out of the living nightmare. Do homework, go to school, get questions answered. But could any of them really be kids again? The few that could would be the lucky ones. He hoped maybe Quinn would be one of the lucky ones. But it was impossible.

"Sam." Edilio was saying. "…check it out?"

"Oh, yeah, sure…" He nodded. "Should I go?" Unsure now, that he was the right one to go to the wall. The one to let everyone in, with their questions and hopes and regrets. Regrets for dead kids… he could have saved…

"Sam. That's what we've been saying. For the past two minutes!" Astrid said, exasperated. She seemed suddenly much more like herself. But she wasn't. There was something in her eyes, contradicting her normal words… but it wasn't the time to go reading too much into everything. He had to take charge… for hopefully the last time.

"Okay. Edilio drive me to where your soldiers found adults. Astrid, council people, talk to the town and get them organised. Maybe everyone into the town hall? Brianna and Taylor both on communication. I need to double check this isn't some crazy Gaiaphage trick and, if it isn't, talk to the adults. They aren't ready to see this yet…"

Caine POV

The strangest thing, was that his first thought wasn't about himself at all. It wasn't that he thought he was selfish exactly but he knew how egoistic he was. It was all Diana ever talked about. But strangely enough, his first thought wasn't some heroic selfless thing about her either. He didn't kid himself he was like that. And it wasn't about Sam, or Drake, or Edilio, or Orc. It was about Chunk, Paint, Tyrell... Or in general, kids he had killed. It was some weird compassion thing which wasn't totally new but still wasn't really him. Everyone was going to have a hard time coping.

And him… he had turned into one of those crazy killers you see on TV. He wasn't going to slot back neatly into the world. What would they do to him? Sent him to jail? Put him in therapy? Back in the world, with their rules, he had murdered… how many was it? Oh god, he had lost count of how many people he had killed. And they wouldn't understand how it had been in the FAYZ. How you had to kill or be killed. Even Sam, the guy everyone thought of as a hero would be locked up somewhere according to their laws. And they definitely wouldn't understand how Caine's mind worked. The controlling thing was just a part of him. Part of his character. And it had got out of hand in somewhere like the FAYZ. Out of hand… an understatement.

He was vaguely aware of people moving around him, getting up to sort the town out. Should he just run? Like the criminal he was. Now would be a good time, or at least as good a time as any. He barely had anyone left here. The Sorens- a nice, refined family who had dropped Caine off at Coates at the first sign of trouble- weren't going to want him back after this. Diana was better off without him. It would hurt to leave her, but they were never even really a couple. He could do it. There wasn't anyone else… except Sam… but the Temples had made it clear from the start they had never wanted him. Of course, Sam hadn't known… but he quickly pushed that thought to the back of his mind. So logically he should go.

But… he was staying. He couldn't run forever, and he wasn't the kind of person to run from things anyway.

Sam POV

Wow. There were so many of them. Adults… this was for real. A whole bunch of them. Not the kids that had died like the Gaiaphage had tried to tell them but the adults. All of them. Old. Not kids. The gaggle at the front were the parents and people involved… was his mom there? He tried to tell himself he didn't care… And there was also a group of "important" people; cops, the mayor, therapists, doctors and a whole load of others. And a huge crowd. The ex residents of Perdido beach, and more. Lots more. Too many. He cleared his throat.

"Um, people?"

A few people looked up. "He's here! Guys, look!" There was a huge rush and craning of necks to see him. A giant babble broke out, a louder noise than the few hundred kids he had been used to. It was deafening.

"He's here!"

"They're out!"

"Is this him?"

"It's him, Sam Temple!" Great. They all knew him too. He wondered if the bowl thing about the adults all being able to look in was true. That would just be…

"The three kids who came, they said something about needing to get Sam so I guess they made it." No. They didn't know anything. So they wouldn't expect anything. There was a rustle in the crowd. They were waiting for him to say something. He stepped forward.

This was it.

"Hi, I'm Sam. I've been sort of… in charge in the town.

But I guess you knew that.

What you don't know, is what it's like in the town. You've just been expecting to get your kids back and things will be better. For some of you that will be true. But others won't be so lucky.

You see, when you all disappeared there was no one at first to keep things together. No one to take charge. We were all just kids. And no one to keep the peace. No cops. And fights were worse, much worse because the bullies were taking control and no one was around to stop them. And normal kids were slowly getting out of control. There were no rules, no restrictions, no one to tell them what to do. But when things went wrong it wasn't a game any more. The apartment building caught fire with a girl inside. There was no fire brigade any more. We were the fire brigade."

Edilio had come up behind him.

"Sam took charge. He got people to get hoses and went into the burning building to try rescue her. It didn't… work, but people started to look to him. For help. But he had to look for someone's brother and left for a while. And the bullies took over."

"Right. And that's another horrible, horrible thing. Cars being driven by adult who disappeared crashed. If there was a kid in the back they would have probably died. Babies with no siblings sometimes weren't found until it was too late. Stoves were left on, guns left unattended in houses. Drugs, alcohol, left. There was no one running the daycare until Mary took over. No one running anywhere. It wasn't just no authoritive figures or parents. And that was bad enough on its own anyway.

And some kids were… changed. You might not believe me at first, but the wall in the first place is a bit unbelievable. So I'll show you." This was it. Where the world found out what he could do. He took a breath and lifted his hands in the air and shot out a beam of light. It was hard to read the crowd, but they mainly looked stunned. And believed him.

"There are different types of power, and degrees of it. In bars. One, two, three, four. One girl has the power to measure other peoples power. Most people don't have it, but lots do and some examples are Brianna with amazing speed, faster than a speeding bullet, Dekka with stopping gravity in a certain area, me with lasers coming out my hands and Caine with telekinesis. And that's what happened soon after the "big poof". Caine and the rest of the Coates kids came down to Perdido beach and took over. At first they were welcomed. People wanted people in charge. But soon after we- our group from the beginning, me, Astrid and Edilio- realised they were… well, bad. Caine's right hand man Drake was just twisted. He was appointed in charge of discipline, enforcing the new rules which basically gave them power to do anything. And no one was so keen on them anymore, but they were in charge. They let a bully kill a girl and didn't do anything about it." Edilio spoke again.

"And they felt threatened by Sam. They knew about the powers and the girl who read them- Diana- had told Caine he was the highest bars she had read. Four. No one else had as many, until they found Sam. Four bars. So they attacked him and locked him up, keeping Astrid as a hostage so he would do what they said. But Astrid's brother, Little Pete had a lot of power, maybe five or seven bars, but had no control over them. He teleported himself and Astrid away. Caine found out and sent Drake after them with a machine gun with orders to kill them both. Sam got away with the help of Quinn so him, Quinn and me went after Astrid. We found her and got away after a few fights. So we were on the run, but things were getting worse in Perdido beach where they needed Sam to take over from Caine."

"After we found Lana, a girl who could heal and were surrounded by a pack of mutated coyotes (strange things happened to the animals too like rattlesnakes with wings and man eating zekes) I got control of my powers and decided I had to head back to Perdido beach to sort things out. But on the way we got caught by Drake and taken to Coates where they were keeping all the kids with powers not on their side, tied up, concreated and starving. We got away and brought the kids back to town and gave them food. Caine wasn't there, he was doing something in Coates, but he would be back so we all prepared ourselves for a war- not fight, war, against them. Perdido beach against Coates, mostly. It was basically a massive battle. I don't really want to go into the details. Machine guns, powers, coyotes. Kids. All kids. And me against Caine.

Another thing. On the first day, everyone over fourteen disappeared. So what happens when you turn fifteen? You disappear. It had already happened to people. And we both couldn't afford to disappear and leave everyone to die. It was our birthday. We're kind of long lost brothers, so. We both had some serious wounds and it was the time we were born. A tempter appeared to make us disappear but we both resisted it and stayed in the FAYZ. Oh, that's what we call it. Fallout Alley Youth Zone. And… I won the fight. So I didn't kill him, but I made him leave.

It was all okay for a bit. But then we had new problems. Starvation. The food supply ran out and kids were down to eating bugs. It's only a bit better now. Fights inside the town. Basically a terrorist gang going round doing seriously bad stuff- the Human Crew. They tried to hang someone. And the Coates people were back, attacking the power plant, killing two kids and shutting all electricity off. No water, no light. More massive battles. And I couldn't cope with it all the time, everyone's problems. Things slip through. I wasn't ready for the attack on the power plant when I should have been. I should have…"

"He did great. But there was so much, so many problems. Next there were all the problems with setting down rules. Kids wouldn't work, wouldn't always listen to the council at first. The council couldn't decide on laws. And one day, the Human crew set the town on fire. It was horrible. No water to put it out, no way of rescuing kids trapped in their houses. We worked through the whole night stopping it spreading. And listened to the screams of the trapped kids. We couldn't help them. Lots of people died, lots were injured. Everyone was affected. "

"And, maybe the biggest worry, the thing we think was the cause of it all. The Gaiaphage. I can't describe it, but it's some… thing, it was at the bottom of the mineshaft, controlling kid's minds and planning something big and bad. We thought we killed it, but it was still there, worming its way into people's heads. And… it told everyone that dying was the way out of this. To kill themselves to escape. And people were so desperate they believed it. All the prees were nearly pulled of a cliff. Because everything was just so bad.

So what I'm trying to say, really, is don't expect things to be great. Some places and houses are in ruins. Most kids are alive, but a lot aren't. And the ones who are won't be ready to talk about things. They've all seen bad stuff. And… I'm sorry for not doing enough to keep them all alive."

"Sam. You did all you could. He was the one in the middle of every fight, sorting out everything. Hardly sleeping. Woken up every night. He nearly died so many times. Saving everyone. He's a real hero."

"I'm not. But we need to head back to the town. Are you coming?"

A small man Sam recognised as the mayor stepped forward. "Sam, we are all enormously grateful to you, Edilio, Astrid and everyone else running the town. Are you happy with us taking over again? We'll still need you, but can we do things together?" This was weird. He guessed they did still need them. Kids were used to listening to him and might not follow the old rules easily.

"Of course."

"That's great." He gave a strange smile. "Let's go."

Caine POV

Sam and the adults had apparently got back. He hadn't seen them, but the kids were all being kept in the town hall foyer so they could read out their names or something so the parents could claim their children and they could work out who was dead. Cheerful. He could just make out Sam inside and a bunch of… adults? It had been a long time since he'd seen one. They looked… less old. Less confident. Less superior. But it wasn't them who had changed. It was him.

Sam POV

He held the water list out. Not as many names as there had seemed before. So many crossed off. He didn't want the job of breaking the news to the parents whose kids were buried in the plaza. Who would have to watch as other parents went off happy and were left waiting… waiting… until he had finished calling out names. But as usual, he was stuck doing the things no one else wanted to do.

"John Terrafino, Quinn Gaither, Charles Merriman."

"Albert Hillsborough, Lana Lazar…" They were all coming forward, their parents finding them, sometimes running, Quinn looked so happy, John brought in the prees, a lot of people were crying, everyone hugging. He read out more names, and more, and more.

"Zil Sperry, Pete Ellison, Astrid Ellison…"

"Edilio Escobar…"

He got to the last two names. Recently added.

"Diana Ladris, Caine Soren. I'm sorry. That's it." He hated that he couldn't read out more names. And already people were drifting off, needing somewhere private to cry and try to come to terms with what had happened to their kids.

No one left in the foyer. Except Caine, standing awkwardly.

"Caine Soren?" Caine came through into the hall.

"It's okay Sam," he said. "Don't bother. No one's going to come. I guess they've given up on me. I mean, wouldn't you?" Would he? No, not really. Caine wasn't as bad as he thought he was. Sometimes not bad at all. And Sam kind of liked him, not liked as in friends because that was something they really weren't, but something deeper.

Brothers.

Caine POV

"Where are you going then?" Sam was concerned. Concerned. Well, he was the only one who was. No one else was coming, and he really had no idea where he was going. What he would do.

Until Connie Temple came forward.