When I woke up the day after our marvelous feast, my first thought was: I have an idea. And it was a good one. I decided that I had to tell Lukas, so I raced to his cot, and started shaking him. I was trying to wake him up, but it turns out he's a deep sleeper, and I practically had to create and earthquake before he finally turned over, and mumbled sleepily. "Whyzza wakin' me up?" I laughed at his sleep-talk, and then said, "I have an idea, a good idea. An idea than can change everything or keep it exactly the same."

I guess that was mysterious enough for him because he got out of bed a little quicker and more awake than he had been before. He still took a short while longer to become fully awake, of course, but once he was awake, I could see that there was nothing that would put him to sleep again anytime soon.

I took him out a bit from the campsite, just so no one heard my idea and spread it before I could. Besides, Lukas would have to agree if anyone was going to... And I'm remembering not to tell yet. I turned around to look at Lukas and started out with my thoughts.

"Lukas. This hare was the second hare I have ever eaten in my life. That's fourteen years. Don't you think that maybe there's a reason why it's here?" If he didn't, I sure did. "There must be a place nearby, a place where animals and plants are actually surviving the harsh climate and maybe even just barely thriving. I mean, I don't know any science, but there must be some kind of place that can stand the earth's drastic changes."

At first, Lukas looked at me funny, as if my logic had made no sense to him. But I waited for a few seconds, and that unsure look soon turned into a look that told me he was considering the possibilities. Alright, he had accepted my idea as much as I needed him to. Now for my plan.

"We need to find this place. Think of the advantages of us living there," I urged. "We would be safe from hostile clans, we could have food like your delicious hare every month, maybe even every week. If we found this place, our life could be so improved from the dangerous day-by-day survival game it is now."

I hoped he understood what I was trying to get at. If he got confused, this would get a little longer than I had wanted. But I didn't think he would. It was pretty straightforward, and when it wasn't, he was still a pretty smart guy.

"This 'place' might not even exist," Lukas reminded me. Hm. He was unconvinced. "It might never have existed in this crazy world of disruption and destruction. You think we should leave our campsite to search for a place that is 'just might be' real? No way. That's not something I'm letting my life depend upon."

Hey, look at that! He, um, understands. Kind of... sort of... not at all in the way I had hoped he would. It was time to try a little harder, give him some more reasons.

"Remember when we lost Nika in battle?" I said more hesitantly. "Without other clans nearby attacking us every day, we wouldn't lose people so quickly anymore. And remember after the battle? When I said, you know, some stuff about life being... hard. Well, in a few years, no one's going to be alive if our daily life continues like this. Finding a place is the only thing that could stop the downfall of the human race."

Lukas obviously still thought it was a crazy idea, but all of a sudden he was ready to try anything. I guess I had changed his mind with one of those soft speeches.

"You know what?" Lukas said, giving up. "Sure. Why not? After going through other crazy plans and ideas, I found that yours is still the most likely. So I'm ready to try anything to fix this broken world."

I silently and motionlessly congratulated myself. I had won him over.

"Alright then. Pack your bags, because we're traveling to a fresh start!" I announced. "Also, tell the others about our plan." We were ready to hunt for a new place where we could live healthier, and eat better food. To search for a life that was stronger because it was further away from the warring clans. The next morning, we gathered our belongings and our entire clan. And so it was with full stomachs, thanks to Lukas's hare, that we began our trek in search of a better world.

We traveled for weeks, but nothing was different, we found nothing that promised a better land. It was all flat, and it was all dead. We continued to lose hope to the point where we would accept almost anything as a good sign, except even that didn't change anything. We traveled on, hoping we would find something before our legs gave out beneath us. After three weeks of backpacking, and tripping over cracks in the parched ground, I started to get a feeling that we were actually getting somewhere.

"We're almost there," I reassured Lukas. Three hours ago, I had decided to take a 'change in scenery' by scaling a mountain. Really, I had just taken a random turn and started up the side. "I can feel it!" I wasn't sure whether I could actually feel that there was a good place nearby, or whether it was just the heatstroke finally getting to me, but I knew there had to be a place in this world that we could live in....

He sighed. "Eva. I'm sorry to finally bring this up, but... did you ever stop to think that maybe there is no place on earth that is still alive?"

"Wait, Lukas, be quiet..." I trailed off in concentration.

"No," he persisted. "I have kept it to myself this entire time because I didn't want to ruin your little field trip, but I can't let it be ignored any longer."

"Really, be quiet, I'm trying to listen..." I said carefully, straining my ears for a sound I had heard.

"No, you need to hear this!" Lukas insisted. "I think that you—"

I cut him off in the middle of his sentence, saying, "Come look at... this!"

He opened his mouth to say something back, but he soon closed it and walked over to where I was. I was crouching next to an almost dead tree with my head in a bush. A bush that looked suspiciously like it was more alive than withered and shriveled like the ones we had seen in the previous length of our journey. Lukas took my shoulders and pulled me out of the bush. Then he crouched down and reached between the leaves, spreading his hands apart, and making a kind of frame around the scene below us.

I could immediately tell that we had reached the top of the mountain. We both gasped loudly. The view was breathtaking, but most importantly, it was alive. There was a valley below us, and it was full of trees and grass and animals. Other living creatures had found their way into this wonderland of life, and now it was our turn.

What would we call our new home? Lukas was standing straight up, his mouth hanging open in awe. He said nothing for a while, then seemed to remember how to use his tongue.

"H-Hrana!" Lukas cried happily.

From knowing Lukas for at least one month, I had noticed that when Lukas got emotional he speaks in Croatian (it was very likely that he was from Croatia in his past life, so I had asked no questions). 'Hrana' is the Croatian word for food, and I could tell that was exactly what this lush, green valley of life was to us.

I laughed, calling out, "Hrana, it is!"