Sometimes they wondered if this was all there had ever been.

They had been young when it all started, so young, that sometimes it felt like civilisation and their memories of Atlanta had been a distant dream.

Had it been nothing but a blanket comfort they made to reassure themselves at night?

What things had they done before they started remembering?

And then they told themselves it had been real, it could be real again, their extended family and little community was proof of that. They had had parents once, even if they couldn't remember their faces. They had had grandparents, an uncle, friends.

"What did they look like?" he asked as they lay under the stars.

She had been older, and sometimes he hated her for that.

She had had two extra years.

"Like us, I think."

And that was the best she could do, because it had been too long ago.

They told themselves their children would never have to go through this.