((The story is gonna be in first person!))

So much changed in the past six years, it's difficult to decide how to start... but to put it simply, I am not the same person I used to be.
I'm not the ignorant teenager that left that mountain.
I'm not the uneducated, irresponsible, rebellious child that watched his people die before his very eyes.

I accepted. I adapted. I changed. And personally...I think it was for the best.

When I was 18 years old I met the love of my life. Though, if you told me that at the time I may have laughed in your face, it's true.

She was the only thing I cared for in this world, all that I needed. But, not even two months into our new life, hidden below ground in that dull, melancholy bunker, my life changed forever.

I was told the news that set my future in stone, decided my path for me.

I was going to be a father.

I was elated, scared, but overall... happy. To know that there was something in this world that could keep me and Maya together was enough to convince me I could be a new person.

Then, a few months went by in a blink of an eye, and there was new life in the world, and that life was partly mine.

And I never would expect to see Maya's eyes, on a life so innocent it had no idea what it had just been brought into.

I almost felt bad. Guilty. Responsible that this was my fault. Just another life that would be stained with blood one way or another, I won't lie and tell you I wasn't having second thoughts because I was.

But those dark brown eyes burned straight through my soul, the way they had so many times before and how they would for many years to come.

To this very day, when Teddy turned six years old and I can't help but remember the promise I made.

Running into battle was no longer what I classed as bravery. Risking my life did not seem valiant, or impressive, or wise. That was the last thing I wanted to do.

Now, my goal was to survive. Not for myself, but for my family. The joy of my life...something that I could never have foreseen and yet here we are.

Living is so much harder, when you know you could die any day, but in doing so, you risk the life of the ones you love and that's so much scarier then death. So much worse.

As I watch them together, a matching set of eyes on the two things I care most about on this burnt, unforgiving Earth. I can't help but think.

We're not surviving anymore. We're living. And not for ourselves... for each other.