What Comes After

by King Empo

When an asteroid hits the moon, little did he know that his life would change as tidal waves ravage the coastline of his town and volcanic eruptions cloud the sky with endless darkness. No Fandom Knowledge Needed. A Life As We Knew It Fanfiction.

20. Chapter 20

September 6

I thought I got caught. Everyone sleeping together in the living is a nightmare beyond anything that I've ever imagined.

Even after I had managed to already pre-pack the cans (which I thought was the hardest part), I needed to sneak them out of the door and into the safe-spot, something that I could not do yesterday because Mom and Dad were milling around and gathering wood.

Luckily for me, only part of the door was visible from the living room, and I kept my bag low and close to me to avoid detection in case someone woke up. Unfortunately for me, the front door is so creaky, and when I opened the door, the creaks reverberated through the house. I managed to move the bag into position and put some dried up weeds over it before I heard someone say, "Neal?"

I nearly had a heart attack, and I managed to let out only a small sigh when I saw that it was Mira before for a second. I thought it was May since with the pulsing heartbeat filling my ears, they sounded the same. Even though she wouldn't dare expose me to Mom and Dad, having more people know my secret would make every week more and more risky.

"Yeah," I said. "Do you need anything?"

"Is this how you do it?" she asked. "Giving food to Charles."

I nodded. "It was the door, wasn't it? We definitely need to grease up the hinges."

"Maybe have Dad do it this afternoon?" Mira suggested. "Or maybe have it be a brother-sister thing, you know. And who knows? It might be useful in the future."

"I've got to talk with Charles this afternoon," I said. "To make sure that he's alright. After the earthquake, I don't know."

"He's going to be alright," she said, and I nodded even though the pessimism drowned my thoughts: Charles trapped under debris, Charles killed by food raiders, Charles dead of dehydration. I've got this bad habit of imagining the worst all the time even though I always tell everyone that everything is going to be alright.

"You remember the last time that we were out here?" she asked. "I was in a bad place, I guess, and you told me how everything's going to be alright."

"Yeah," I said. "You think he's going to be alright?"

"He is," Mira said with such firmness that I didn't know whether she actually believed me or whether she was just putting on this mask of strength to stop me from worrying. "And I know this because of the sun."

"The sun?" I said. "This better not be some lecture about the sun shining again."

She laughed a little. "It's not— Okay, maybe it's a little bit of that. I just feel hopeful now, and I can't really explain it. It's just that I never really expected to see a sunrise again and here it is in it's gold and amber glory. And with the letter delivering from all the way in LA, I just feel like our dream might come true."

"You're kinda scaring me," I said. "With all this optimism."

"Yeah. I think I might be going a little crazy," she said. "It's probably the sun."

"Nah," I said. "It's definitely the moon. You're probably not getting enough sleep because it's shining so bright."

"Maybe," she said with a smile that slowly faded away. "Tonight was the first night where I didn't dream about their deaths and wake up and fall back asleep to the same nightmare. I know Mom and Dad don't agree with me, but I feel a sense of purpose doing the night watch and helping people, and I'm going to work and win them over."

"Mom and Dad aren't going to change their minds," I replied before pausing and adding. "Why are you always trying to win them over? I mean you can just do it for you, you know."

"Before, it was more about their approval, but now, I just want them to understand. There's more to life than just looking out for ourselves," she said. "I wish I could give food to the hospital workers, but there's just not enough, so the best that I can do is at least try to protect everyone's families and homes."

"Then what did you dream about? If you didn't dream about, you know, death."

She shrugged. "Just normal life. I don't really know. I should keep a dream journal."

"Did you ever try journaling?"

"I did," she said. "But it feels better to talk about my actual feelings instead of writing them down. I just feel like it helps move me forwards."

"That's good," I said and nodded awkwardly. "I was wondering if I could have the notebook back. My journal is almost completely filled up."

"Yeah," she said. "I've got a couple of doodles in there, but I can erase them."

"No, it's fine," I said.

"No, I insist," she said. "They look awful."

"They're probably not bad," I said even though I knew they were going to be blobulous messes. "And plus, I want to see what my sister is drawing about. It's nothing r-rated right?"

"My intent wasn't anything inappropriate," she said before gazing into the distance and grimacing. "But I think certain shapes may be interpreted that way."

"Mom and Dad are going to freak when they see whatever you drew."

"Good thing Mom and Dad aren't you," she said and stood up. "Next time, you know you can ask me for help."

I nodded as she entered the house, but I lingered out there longer. The sky was crimson red with the dawn sunlight and cloudless. I didn't know if that was a good or a bad omen, and I double checked the bag before going back inside a couple minutes later.

There was this slow bustle at home throughout the morning. Mom transferred the peas to the soil while Dad cleaned up the ash produced by the fire and scooped it into the bag. He was about to dump the ash into the garden when I told him that the ash could be used as fertilizer for the plants and that we could make soap out of it in the future.

"I think we've got enough soap to last a lifetime," Dad said.

"That's what we said about a lot of things," I replied.

"Okay," Dad said. "But you better not be hoarding this ash for no good reason, like all your fourth grade papers that you've never touched since we've packed them up in the boxes."

I ignored him and went back to doing an inventory on the canned food. May and I created a spreadsheet on graph paper and tallied up all the canned food we had. Mom wanted us to use a pen because she can't see pencil well (even though she's got reading glasses), but I managed to convince her that we don't want to make a permanent mistake with a pen and that we'll write super dark.

I underwrote as many values as I could, saying that we had 31 cans of sardines instead of 34 or saying that we've got 54 cans of brussel sprouts when we've got 64. May didn't notice for a while until she started glancing at my numbers weirdly.

She pointed at my spreadsheet. "That's supposed to be 37, not 32, and that's supposed to be 57, not 47. Are you, like, high or something? You definitely stink."

"Maybe you should speak louder," I said.

"Maybe you should hear better," she retorted back, but I got the message, so for the rest of them, I didn't risk changing the numbers. I think I scored around sixty or so cans reserved for Charles out of the thousand or so cans that we have, about six weeks worth of them, from this piecemeal number manipulation. As for what comes after six weeks, I'll figure it out then.

Afternoon was spent doing laundry and dishes, and I scurried around the living room, laying towels underneath the line holding the wet laundry and drying dishes as the smell of detergent wafted throughout the room, tinged with a bit of a smoky smell. May wanted to open the windows, but Mom said no, and then they began bickering, and the clattering of dishes intensified.

A knock on the door saved me from being caught up in their storm, and I quickly grabbed a mask, told Mom that it was Charles, and opened the door to sit with him outside. He looked fine, though I noticed that there was a bandaid on his face and he seemed to be rubbing at his bruised knuckles.

"Are you alright?" I asked. "After the earthquake."

"Let's just say that I'm doing better than some of the houses on your street," he said with a playful grimace. "We should hold a vigil for them."

"I'm serious," I said and pointed to his cheek. "What with the bandaid on your face?"

"It's nothing," he said. "I just accidentally slipped on some broken glass and scratched my face. Honestly, I'm actually surprised our old house survived this, though our chandelier did fall down."

"That's good," I said, awkwardly nodding. "Sorry about the can situation. I couldn't get as much out because of the whole food situation and my parents—"

"It's fine," he said. "We're fine. And anyways, I'm not here to accept a billion apologies. I'm here to make dreams come true."

Charles seemed to be filled with energy and seemed even better than last week. I don't know what's up with this transformation, but for a while, he seems almost better. I know that I told Mira that Charles was doing terrible and all, but now he's not. Maybe it's some higher power or something, but a part of me doesn't want to question this, even though I just instinctively know that something was off and has been off for quite some time.

"Even last week's dream."

"That's different," he said. "That's for the adult future."

"So in two years," I said. "Or, like, a year and a half for me."

"Shh," he said. "Even though everyone says that we're adults at eighteen, we're probably going to be the same as now. I'm talking about real adulthood, like when we're married and have got real jobs and stuff."

"Whatever," I replied. "What about being a pokemon trainer?"

"Now I'm being serious," he said with a light laugh and I smiled, even though he wouldn't be able to see if from behind his mask.

"I guess I want to write something," I said.

"Write," he exclaimed.

"Yes. Write."

"That's something that the old Neal would say," he said. "The new Neal would want to achieve something bolder rather than dwelling on these boring options."

"I'll write an exciting story," I said.

"Doesn't change the fact that you'll be cramped at home," he replied. "You should be out in the world doing stuff."

"Well, I've got a couple things standing in my way." I turned around and pointed behind me. "Chiefly being my parents. Maybe I can go to your house. They might be more okay with that."

There was an awkward pause. "I don't know," he said. "My house is going to be even more boring than yours. Anyways, since you're so insistent about doing your book thing, what are you going to write about?"

That was deflection, and for a second, I wanted to push him. But I didn't because that would be too awkward and because it's not like he was sick or dying like the last time that I confronted him when there was something seriously wrong. So I continued with his deflection, "I don't know. Isn't that what you're here for?"

He leaned in. "You should write about how swords are better than axes."

"Axes will always be better than swords," I said. "And anyways, I'm not writing about that. I want to write a story story."

"Fine," he said and began listing a bunch of random topics: cowboys and western shootouts, fantasy anime worlds (though he mentioned that they cannot have harems, and until that point, I had no idea that that was a thing), some sort of space sci-fi drama that he immediately retracted because it'd be a ton of work, and a superhero-Pokemon crossover story.

As seen by the relatively short list that I have compiled, we were not that productive during our brainstorming session. And with the mid-fifty degree weather in the afternoon and the bright sun, it almost felt like summer, and we spent most of the time just talking about whatever and casually shooting down each others' ideas and doing normal things.

After about an hour, Charles stood up. "I better see your rough draft next week."

I shook my head with a small smile. "You're not my teacher. If anything, I should be your teacher, being three months older than you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, impersonating a teacher and deepening his voice as he walked down the porch steps. "I was born in 1963. Kids these days, not respecting authority."

"Goodbye," I said.

"I bid you farewell," he replied. "May we meet again down the road."

Before he left, I noticed that his new boots from last week had glass shards embedded in its soles, just like I had noticed a while back. I thought I had been hallucinating the glittering on his shoes, but I guess not. Or maybe I was hallucinating last time. Still, it's weird how much glass there was on his boots, and even though it could've been from the glass shattering because of the earthquake, I don't know.

I'm definitely overthinking it. It was probably from the earthquake, and I was just making it up because I was sunlight deprived last time. That's the only answer that makes sense. And I need to stop being so suspicious.

September 7

Thank goodness our house didn't burn down. And thank goodness for that annoying fire alarm.

Apparently, during the middle of the night, someone must've accidentally kicked a towel or some fabric into the smoldering embers, and it must've caught on fire, which then caught a part of the greenbox on fire, which must've triggered the fire alarm because we all scrambled awake and Dad grabbed the fire extinguisher and began spraying all around the fire until there wasn't much light.

The damage wasn't as bad as it could've been. Part of the plastic tarp draped over it unfortunately caught on fire, and the air smelled acrid, so Mom opened the windows, and Mira cut off the burnt plastic bits while May and I pushed the beds back. Dad scooped the ash into the bucket before looking back into the chimney, brushing his fingers on the sides before coughing at the rising soot.

Dad talked with Mom and turned to the rest of us and said, "We'll be doing fire-monitoring now. I'll be doing the two am to five am shift. Your mom will be doing the eleven pm to two am shift, and your grandparents will take the five am to eight am shift. Mira, May, Neal, you three will be responsible for the rest of the day. Split it up however you would like, but someone always needs to be watching the fire."

"I claim the afternoon," May said. "Two to seven."

"I'll be doing the morning one," Mira said. "Eight to two in the afternoon."

"I guess I'm doing the evening one," I said.

"We've got to make sure something like this never happens again," Dad said. "And I realized that we need to clean up the chimney today so that no accidents like this or worse happen again, so just for today, everyone can go back to their old rooms."

So that's what we did. After something as, I guess, stressful or exciting as the fire, the rest of the day felt fairly normal. Since none of the beds had any mattresses on them, we mostly sat on the ground. May was just staring at the walls and bouncing a rubber ball on it while Mira and I played a boring game of cards. When I went out to get a glass of water, I heard Mom and Dad arguing a bit.

"Wear the mask," Mom said with one of those fancy filter masks on her fingers.

"I'll be fine with this one," Dad said and pointed to the normal surgical masks that we wore. "We need to save that one for when we have to go outside for a long time, like if we were trying to leave."

"We're not leaving," Mom said. "Like you said when Leon left, it's too dangerous, too risky. We've got shelter, heat, and food here."

"I know what I said before," Dad said. "It's just... I didn't expect the water and natural gas and food to go out so fast at the same time, and with the weather being nice, maybe we could make it far—"

"We don't know what the road conditions are like," Mom replied. "We don't have gasoline—"

"We should've done the rockfall netting," Dad said, cutting her off. "It'd be so nice to have a backup plan."

"We don't. So you need to stop with this," Mom said. "Now just take the mask, and let's worry about the now because the future can wait for later."

Dad reluctantly put on the mask, and Mom made sure to see that it was tightened before putting on her own fancy filtered mask, and they went to work scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, Dad with one of the toilet brushes and Mom with a damp sponge catch the soot flying dislodged by the brush. It wasn't until the afternoon that I remembered the information giveaway that the city council was handing out today.

"Mom," I said as I stood outside, watching them clean up the roof chip away at the ash caked on the shingles.

"Stay away," she said and I stepped back as a blob of ash slid off the shingles and landed in front of me with a puff of dust, quickly blown away by the gusts of wind. She climbed down the ladder "What do you need?"

"Can I go with Mira to city hall?" I asked. "There's the water purification and heating flyer giveaway, and we might find something useful."

"That's good," Mom said. "Smart. But remember if you see any danger—"

"Run away," I said, following Mom's new mantra. "And don't look back."

"Even if someone's hurt," she said. "The hospital is still working, so we can let the proper people take care of this situation."

But the hospital wasn't working completely, and the emergency services didn't come in time to help that couple. I closed my eyes because I could still see the blood running down the sidewalk, and at that moment, for some reason, I wondered if there was still a bloodstain marking the spot where they passed or if they got a bit of dignity and someone had washed it away. "You remember the couple that, you know..."

"Yeah," Mom said. "I hope that they are alright. They should be fine—"

I cut Mom off. "They died. When Mira and I went to the hospital, we saw a whole vigil there with lots of people."

I don't know why I lied about the vigil. I guess part of it was to cover up the fact that we told Mom that we went to the hospital to check for dental availability, not checking to see if they were alright, and I guess another part of it was to drum up sympathy to see if Mom even cares because she's been acting so cold and so me focused that I wondered if she even cared about others.

Mom didn't say much before she took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you had to see that, and it's terrible that they passed away, but we made the right choice, and I don't know what I would do if one of you guys were in the hospital or on a vigil. We had to make a tough choice, you understand that?"

I turned away from Mom. "I'll go get Mira."

Did we make the right choice? Like Mom, I keep telling myself that we did the right thing, and even though it's wrong, I can't help feeling about what we did and what I did was wrong. At the moment, it seemed right, but now, it just seems wrong. I'm trying to forget them and leave them behind, but it's so hard to do something as simple as that.

Just as Mira and I were about to leave, Mom stopped us. "No gun."

I looked down and saw Mira's gun holstered to her hip. Mira replied, "It'll be safer—"

"It won't," Mom said. "You barely know how to use it, and I don't want it to accidentally go off and hurt Neal."

"The safety's on. It can't do any damage," Mira replied. "And it'll keep us safe from any people who'll—"

"And you'll be prepared to shoot them?" Mom asked before emphasizing. "Kill them?"

There was a pause of silence as Mira grasped for a response, but none came out, so Mom continued, "Because that's what guns are for in the end. For killing. And if you get attacked by someone and they get the gun, they may not have the same resistance to killing as you. There's so much death in the world right now. Why add more? Put the gun away and stay close to each other and away from other groups of people, and you'll be safe."

Mira untensed, and it didn't seem like she wanted a fight. "Fine."

"Good," Mom said, almost smugly. "Make sure to check the billboard to see if there's any news."

And then after Mira put the gun away (Mom checked to make sure), we set off to city hall. May didn't come because she couldn't stand to be around Mira, and because she had her fire watching duties, so we walked alone together down the rows of deserted neighborhoods to the information session, taking the long-way around, rather than our normal shorter path, just to make sure our our comings and goings were not so predictable.

The last two times I went out, I was so focused on the food drive and the hospital that I only paid attention to everything around me glancingly, but now, the whole situation of the earthquake really dug in. Semi-collapsed houses speckled the streets, and in some, especially in the older and more dilapidated parts of the neighborhood near the mid-center of the city, there were just rows of collapsed buildings. Concrete and painted wooden beams laid on ash-caked lawns and downed electric poles that we walked in wide circles around, making sure to stay away from the exposed wiring even if there wasn't any electricity. Adobe shingles dotted the ground and strong gusts in the air made the building around us dangerously creak, so we walked quickly to avoid the possible collapse.

When we reached the booth where they were handing out the information, I saw that there were tons of people sitting around there with signs like "Please. I have three kids" and "I just need one can." begging everyone who went up to grab the information for just a little bit of food. Some of them looked gaunt and hopeless while others just looked plain angry, glaring at us and city hall and holding up begging signs with pigs drawn on it.

Ever since I was young, Mom and Dad taught me and Mira and May to look down and not make eye contact with homeless people and people begging for food. They said that they wouldn't bother us and that we should just keep moving on. But I couldn't help looking around at people's thin faces and heads bandaged from the earthquake injuries. Some of them probably didn't have any homes.

I could see that Mira felt the same way, but she held me close as we walked up to the desk, and the volunteer sitting there, as tired as the rest of the people in the crowd, handed us handwritten instructions about water boiling and chimney and fireplace cleaning manuals. I took a little glance into the giant donation can. There was nothing there, not even a can of disgusting tuna or aggressively bland sugarless cereal.

"You want to make a donation?" the lady asked me, and I jumped, startled.

I didn't know what to say, so I stuck with something Mom and Dad would say. "No."

The lady sighed, and we left. I wanted to look back, but I felt like if I met their eyes, I'd feel guilty. I know that I wrote that I wished that Mira wouldn't give them food, but I think I'd take that back. But I can't because of Charles and his family, and I hate how survival is such a zero-sum game.

We didn't walk much on the way back, Mira glancing around and watching for any possible threats while I read the flyer. It wasn't very useful beyond one little tid-bit about how to use bleach to sterilize water. The way back was still bad, half-burnt houses and charred remains of trees decorating the gray landscape, but it felt less so, like I was getting used to it.

The rest of the day was spent pretty silently at home. When we got back home, Mom and Dad were on top of the roof, taping together old bamboo sticks from martial arts lessons from elementary school to extend the brush down to scrub every last bit of the chimney. By the time that they had finished, it was time for Mira to leave for the Shepards' meeting location to meet her partner for her evening night watch shift.

We all ate dinner in silence, following Mom and Dad's food planning guide. The first time that nothing I'll eat is going to be available is in a month, and I'm not excited, at all. I just realized that today was our thankfulness day, but I guess once a habit is broken, it's almost impossible to regain it ever again.

I wonder if this is going to be us if things return back to normal, where the cycle of normalcy that defined our lives before won't be normal anymore and the apocalypse will be our normal for a long time. But more importantly, I wonder how far we're going to fall from everything we consider normal, not just phones and the internet but values and morals. I wonder if I'll look at myself in two years and be disgusted at who I turn out to be.

After I left them behind, I think old me would be disappointed in me right now.

September 8

"No."

That's what I said when I saw May grabbing a hammer from the toy box. She turned back to me. "Like you said yesterday, there are tons of people starving, so we need to take what's ours before other people go for them."

"Going into abandoned houses, that's safe," I said, completely regretting telling May the truth about what had happened yesterday. "But literally breaking into the houses. What if someone's living there?"

"Again, eyes," she said pointing to her eyes.

"But what if they're in hiding, like waiting to ambush you?"

"That's not going to happen," she said. "And plus, I can just pretend that I'm a confused middle-schooler."

"You're literally going to turn fifteen in two weeks. There's no way you can pull off the confused tween look," I replied. "Just go to the Hunters' house. We left a ton of stuff behind in the basement."

She ignored the second half of what I said. "Exactly. Just think of this as an early birthday present. At least I'm not asking for a Ferrari or something. And plus, you don't even need to deal with Mom and Dad since they're probably going to be gone all day woodcutting. All you need to deal with is Mira and her annoying preachy attitude."

"She just wants to help."

"Well she should be helping us more," May said. "While she's going out there doing whatever, I'm here doing the work for us."

She grabbed a backpack and put a flashlight, lamp, hammer, and mallet in there while slipping a pocket knife into her knife. She noticed me staring at the pocketknife. "Don't worry. I'm not going to stab anyone."

I stood by the doorway. "You're leaving now?"

"Yeah," she said. "Before my stupid fire watch shift starts. I'll come in from the backdoor, so just make sure you keep Mira in the living room. That shouldn't be too hard, definitely easier than last time."

I didn't know why I kept getting roped into all of May's plans, and as she exited the hallway, I said, "Don't do anything stupid because of boredom."

"I'm not doing this because I'm bored," she said, and I couldn't tell if that was the truth of a lie because the most stupid things I've seen people in apocalypse movies do are when they're bored, like go out and punch zombies or race down streets in expensive cars only to crash and die.

I kept a watch out for Mira as May snuck out of the backdoor. After that, I went to the living room to spy on Mira for May, and even though I didn't want to, I'd feel guilty about it, so I sat down on my mattress, gazing at the cracking fire.

"Where's May?" she asked.

I'd already made up an excuse for that (one of my better ones I'd say). "In her room. I guess she wants some privacy—"

"She's still mad at me, isn't she?"

I thought she was going to say that. "Yeah. She is."

"I think I should go to her," Mira said and stood up, and I scrambled up to stop her as she continued, "I've been dancing around this issue a lot, and I think it's time to talk it out and just figure it out once and for all. Should I tell her about the woman that died? I know that I lied to her, but maybe my gut is right and telling the truth will help her understand and—"

"Slow down," I said, though I wished I could command my heart to do that. "I think what May needs is just some time."

Mira didn't say anything before sitting down and adding, "You're right. I'm acting like Mom and Dad now, aren't I? Being a little too pushy and too impatient."

"Nah," I said. "Mom and Dad would've barged into that room a long time ago. Patience is definitely not a virtue for them."

"How will I know when it's the right time?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. It might be something you just know, like love or something."

Mira suddenly started laughing. "You've probably read too many books."

"What does that have to do with anything I just said?"

"You know, love isn't just something you know," she said. "Well, not all of it. A small part of it is like that little spark, but most of love is about communication and listening and understanding. I guess the best analogy is that it's like a heart. That spark of possibility is the heart itself, but you've got to work the heart and beat it to make it work."

"So, you're saying that love is a bloody organ," I said, and she chuckled. "That was either the best or the worst analogy that I've ever heard in my life."

"It took me a while to figure that one out," she said and stood up, and for a second, I thought that she was going to go get May and that my whole plan failed. "I'll go get some firewood. It seems to be running low."

"I'll go get the cards," I said. "What do you want to play? Egyptian War or Slap Jack?"

"The first one," she said. "My hand hurts from yesterday's game."

"Totally," I said, with a hint of sarcasm. "You can just say that you don't want a rematch."

So then we ended up playing a bunch of games of Slap Jack before switching to Egyptian War after we got bored. I beat her up badly in Slap Jack, but got beaten up even worse in Egyptian War, and sometime while we were playing these games May came home, and Mira noticed her standing next to us. "You want to play?"

May shook her head. "What's for lunch?"

"I'll go check Mom and Dad's food list," she said, standing up and checking the phone's laying on top of the greenbox, pouring bright white light onto the sprouting plants. "Oh. It's way past noon already. I'll go make something."

May nodded and headed back to our room, and I followed her. Once we closed the door, she burst into a smile and opened up the toy box. "Look what I found."

There was certainly a much larger haul compared to last time. Maybe around two dozen cans, ranging from brussel sprouts to chocolate pudding. There was also a half-full flour package, a small package of kidney beans, and an even smaller package of dried boba. I also noticed that there were some new miscellaneous things, like a plastic bag of batteries or towels or new pants.

"And you got that all from a house?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Did anyone see you?"

"No," she said. "And stop panicking and just appreciate what we have. I'll probably go out and try for another house next week."

"She's going to get suspicious, you know?" I said. "I can't just keep saying that you're in your room because you're mad at her, and at some point, she's going to talk to you."

"Well, what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Well we'll figure things out later," she said and left the room, and I followed behind.

Mom and Dad came back really late, like a bit after the sun had set when the sky was a deep navy and the stars were just barely visible. I'm surprised that they even found their way back without any flashlights, though I suppose that I have the moon to credit for making nighttime much brighter. They didn't eat dinner and just went straight to bed, plopping down on their mattress in the living room and falling asleep. May brought a blanket for them, and when Mira came back home late at night, she asked, "Did Mom and Dad eat?"

"No," I said.

"We've got to make sure that they do," Mira said. "I'll try convincing them, but Mom and Dad are still mad—"

"I'll do it," May said, cutting into the conversation and both of us looked at her weirdly. "What? You know I've got ears, right? And plus, Mom and Dad aren't mad at me right now, so they might listen to me better, and let's be honest, Neal, there's a reason why you were the worst debater on your team."

I ignored May, and Mira said, "Thank you."

"I'm doing it for us," May said before yawning. "I'm going to sleep now."

And when she left to brush, Mira turned towards me. "I made progress, right?"

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "I don't know. I can barely tell what she's thinking sometimes."

And soon after that Mira went to sleep, and then when everyone was snoring, and I got bored just staring at the crackling fire, so I went and got that book and resumed where I had left off, right before they were going to kiss. There was a bit of a delay, and I skimmed over the unrealistically witty dialogue and the faux-nervousness of these confident characters to get to what I was looking for.

When they kissed, they said that it was like fireworks and joy and everything good. Even though I knew that it was a fantasy and that it'd more likely be awkward and messy and weird, I let myself take in the fantasy and thought really hard about kissing the guy in the magazine with his perfect face and everything, and just for a second, I think I liked the idea. I think I liked thinking of his soft palms brushing away my hair, his scruff just grazing on my cheek, his warm breath on me.

And I guess if everything goes back to normal, I wonder if I'll be confident enough to say that I do like the idea. I wish I could say that, but I just can't, and maybe that's what the apocalypse is for, so that the new me will be better than the old me.

September 9

For the food situation, we ended up going for the more sneaky route. Last time we had force fed Mom and Dad, the situation was different because while we didn't have any sunlight, at least we had a stable but diminishing food source, but now, they'd probably be less receptive to us breaking their food rationing list.

"That seems like a lot of string beans," Mom said.

"Maybe that can had extra ones," May said with a shrug. "But who cares? When good things come, don't question them."

Mom was right though. We had given her one and a half cans of string beans, splitting that extra can we planned to give her across brunch and dinner. Mira wanted to give them three meals, but May thought that that was too suspicious and didn't work well with their food apportionment, so we ended up going with her plan.

"And you guys are following our food list?" Mom asked. "And portioning everything correctly?"

"Yes. Now eat and stop being weird."

"I'm being careful," she said and looked at both May and I. "You guys want some?"

"Worry about us later," I said, and then, Mom started eating her food. Then, we woke Dad up and made him eat food, and he asked the same questions as Mom, and we told him the same reassurances, mixing lies and truth together.

And soon, they began looking a lot better, and Mom began moving around the house, organizing the pantry, counting the amount of firewood, before pulling out an old workplace calendar, x-ing out the dates up till today. She then took out expo markers and began assigning tasks for every day, and May said to me, "Maybe, it might have been better to not give them food."

"Mom is probably going to forget about whatever she's making," I said. "Considering how she completely forgot about the textbooks that we got. Have you even touched the textbooks?"

May shook her head. "I tried reading the book that you got, Gatsby or something, but it was so boring. I don't even know why the librarian person recommended it."

"Yeah," I said. "Classics are super overrated anyways."

"But I think this time Mom will remember," she said. "It's like last time she was just trying to, you know, make everything normal normal even though it isn't, but now, she's just trying to make things normal."

"So deep," I said. "I have no clue what you just said."

"Whatever," she said and walked away to a corner of the room before plopping onto the couch and staring at the ceiling. For all our worries about the world ending and people starving and dying, sometimes, the apocalypse can feel so boring, almost. We're washing dishes and watering our tiny sproutlings and playing card games as the world crumbles around us.

When it was the evening, I stared at the sky, watching the colors swirl around, the oranges and lavenders and ruby reds, and it made sense why it was called magic hour. Because when the sky comes alive like that, it's almost as if anything is possible because the world is glowing and breathing life and saying that everything's going to be alright for the night as the pinks fade to deep purples and then indigos.

I thought about Leon's wish about hot-air balloons in the sky and the dusk blossoms around them, and I thought about me with some guy that actually cares about me being there. The awkward chemistry, the warm breaths, the stargazing and constellations speckled above us. Maybe it could be real because it's magic hour and anything's possible.

But then again, magic hour isn't really magic, and the colors are just light bouncing weirdly off of air and dust and clouds, and I'm worried that everything won't turn out the way that I want it to. I feel like I'm taking a step forward and a step back everytime I write about this. I know the way forward, and I know it's right, but it's like I don't know why I can't take it and just say it.

That's exactly when Dad interrupted me. "What are you thinking of? You've got that look, like you're staring in the distance."

I snapped out of my stare. "Nothing. I'm going to eat dinner now."

"Sit down," Dad said gently. "I know I've been busy lately, but I feel like we have really had a lot of father-son time."

"There's nothing really much to talk about?"

"Anything interesting in the book you're reading?" he asked, and I shrugged before he added, "Then, tell me about your last book. Anything exciting happen?"

I couldn't tell Dad what I was reading about, but I, for some odd reason, was feeling extra bold in that moment, so I said, "Well there's, I guess, some romance—"

"Romance," Dad said. "I didn't know you were into that since it's so..."

But I got the memo of what Dad was saying, so I quickly backtracked. "It's only a small part of the story. Most of it is in a fantasy world, with dragons and knights and people fighting to save a kingdom."

"Sounds awesome," Dad said, and I cringed inside as a moment of silence stretched along. Then he pointed to his lip. "You really need to shave—"

"Goodbye," I said and left the room. Dealing with my emotions was more than enough change for today and tomorrow until forever.

Dinner was relatively standard. Everyone was a bit more upbeat today, though Mom and Mira, when she came back at around eight or nine, didn't talk much, except for when Dad warned us about tomorrow. "We've got to be careful tomorrow," Dad said. "We got lucky last time with the mayoral meeting, but that was when there was still food and security. May, you're staying at home with your grandparents. It's too dangerous and you're not old enough."

Normally she'd have a snarky retort, but she just sighed without resistance. "Fine."

Dad turned to Mira. "Mira, I want you to bring your handgun."

"What?" Mom said. "We never discussed this."

"This isn't up for discussion," Dad said. "It's dangerous out there. Last time, weapons were kept outside, but this time, guns are going to be flowing all across the room, so we need to keep ourselves safe. Otherwise, we might just end up like the couple last week."

"We can take knives or lighters," Mom said.

"Knives are more dangerous than guns," Dad said. "They can slip and we can cut ourselves badly. Guns are safe. There are safeties and other measures to prevent them from hurting someone accidentally."

"We agreed that we weren't having guns in our house and around our kids."

"We agreed to not bring guns into the house," Dad said. "But we never said that we couldn't take them out for self-defense."

"Are you prepared—"

"Yes. I'm prepared to shoot the gun to kill," Dad replied, deadly serious. "I don't like it, and it goes against all my religious principles, but there's nothing that'll stop me from defending my children, nothing. Mira already taught me the basics, and I'm ready"

"Let's have a vote—"

"Just trust me," Dad said. "I've made mistakes, but I know this is the right thing to do. And you owe me for the rockfall situation."

Mom gave Mira a glare before looking back at Dad. There was an awkward silence here, May and I scraping our spoons on the bottom of the bowl, attempting to get the last of the cool coup. Mom then sighed. "I'm trusting you on this. You both. If anything bad happens—"

"Nothing will."

"This is a bad idea," Mom muttered and put her bowl in the sink.

"It won't be," Dad said. "Just trust me."

It's going to be bad, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want this argument to continue. But it's going to be scary having a gun around us, and I know that I'm supposed to feel comfortable around guns because it's the apocalypse, but I don't because having the power to kill so easily, right in your hands, it's terrifying. I remember that time when that gang of armed men showed up before disappearing into the blizzard of ash, and I remember just waiting for the bullets to start raining all over me.

But I don't want to ruin things with Mira, and I think I have to force myself to get used to it because this is the new normal after all. I've just got to try not to think this way because at some point, I won't be able to.

But still, I can only hope that this normal doesn't end with me lying on the street, bullet hole in my gut as I finally see what comes after life.