November 7

I've heard the worst day today, and it's just like the morning started terribly and everything began spiraling downwards afterwards, like the universe just served up every single insecurity that I've been afflicted with on a platter. It's at this moment that I realize that maybe being a member of a community is an actual fool's dream for me because I just can't handle society and social interaction and everything.

Because the Shepards apparently were early risers, Grandma woke me up relatively early in the morning, maybe around eight or so, to get ready to help them. I was tired and groggy, especially since it still felt like night. The sky was cloaked in an eerie blend of navy blue and dark turquoise as I passed through the gaps in between the rusting cars, parked horizontally around two or so feet from each other.

Even though I'm not an expert on cars, I noticed that much of the cars that were placed around us initially seemed to be a bit older-looking, and that the more recent cars that we've been placing around our block at a much slower pace seemed newer. So far we've got enough cars for around a quarter of the perimeter, and at the pace of around two cars a day being placed down, it'll probably take around two or three weeks for the car perimeter to be created.

I ended up meeting the Shepards at the northern part of the community, where they were expanding the car border. Mr. Shepard had a handgun holstered on his waist while Mrs. Shepard had a rifle slung around her shoulder, making me feel like the odd one out as the only gun-less individual around them.

Both of them waved at me, and I waved back at them. As I approached both of them, Mrs. Shepard asked, "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing alright," I said. "What about you?"

"Great," she replied with a inhale. "It's a lovely morning out there."

It really wasn't since every single morning has been enshrouded in this gloomy blue-gray, but I just chalked up her response as her attempts to remain positive. "Is anyone else coming or is it just going to be us three?"

"We were four yesterday, but Dean had to drop out," Mr. Shepard responded. "Still, I wouldn't sweat it since if we get lucky, three people will be more than enough to get a couple of cars moved. Anyways, we'd better get a move on since there's a chance that it might be a long day."

We began walking through the fog of ash as the sky began to lighten, the ominous blues fading into a more neutral gray. As I was trekking down the street, Mr. Shepard turned towards me and said, "Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for any pre-1990 models. You know what they look like?"

I shook my head. "No really, no. I don't really know too much about cars."

"You're not into cars?" he said. "When I was your age, that's all we talked about. Well, that and– Oh, nevermind. You kids these days are an interesting bunch."

I was pretty embarrassed, and I didn't say anything, just walking a bit slower so that I wouldn't have to engage in conversation about stuff like cars that I'm supposed to be into but actually have zero interest or knowledge in. It's clear that he wanted to say that I was weird instead of "interesting."

"Oh, don't mind my husband," Mrs. Shepard replied instead of me. "I'm sure with their smartphones and bluetooth and wifi, you kids have much better things to do than speed down roads in the middle of night. Anything you think looks old, just make sure to tell us."

But I was far too embarrassed to say anything because if I pointed out a car that wasn't manufactured before the 1990s, I'd get another one of those glances from Mr. Shepard that I'm all too familiar with. So I just remained silent as we walked down the neighborhood, searching for the perfect car.

After around thirty or so minutes of walking aimlessly, we ended up finding a pre-1990s car model, located coincidentally in one of the older parts of the neighborhood, where most of the residents had inherited their homes from a time when our city was a massive fruit orchard and the tech boom hadn't yet materialized. The homes also seemed to not have been updated to modern earthquake standards because most of them seemed badly damaged, the rooftops sagging and walls mired with cracks. I wonder if there were people living there when the earthquake happened and whether there were corpses buried under the rubble. Luckily, I'm the type of person who doesn't need to satisfy my curiosity.

The Shepards worked quickly to disable and seize control of the car. Mrs. Shepard used a bar to force the car lock open while Mr. Shepard quickly shut off the car alarm by severing its connection with the car battery. He then worked quickly to tear apart the area around the driver's seat, carefully sifting through the wires until he pulled out the correct ones.

In the meantime, Mrs. Shepard had placed a thin and flexible plastic tube through the hole that we fill the car gas from. I noticed her blow on it a couple of times before I noticed the gasoline flowing through it. She spit out the gasoline that had made it into her mouth and began filling up a plastic jug that she had brought until the gasoline stopped flowing from the tube. While they were working, I mostly just attempted to keep watch, except once when I looked back out of concern since it seemed a bit strange how swiftly they were able to dismantle the car. Mr. Shepard knew what I was thinking since he said, "I was a car mechanic."

I nodded awkwardly before turning away from them as they continued preparing the car to be driven back home. I had no idea whether I was supposed to help or guard the car or just do something useful instead of just awkwardly standing around, watching them dismantle the security system of the car.

Once Mr. Shepard successfully found the two wires, one being the battery wire and the other being the ignition wire, at least according to his mutterings, and got them connected, which caused the car to power on, the dashboard brightening up and the radio blasting a loud static sound. But I noticed that the engine hadn't begun purring, and I noticed him pull a third wire out, strip the top off with a tool that kinda looked like a plyer before bringing it together with the other two wires. There were some sparks, and the car began rumbling, sending echoes throughout the neighborhood, and after some strain, I noticed that he had gotten the steering wheel unstuck.

"You want to take a break from the pushing and get into the driver's seat to take this car for a spin," Mr. Shepard. "A kid your age ought to at least get one drive in before all the cars around here break down."

"I'm fine," I said, trying my best to move myself towards the back of the car. "No, thanks."

"There's no need to be scared," he said, somehow construing my attempts to flee the situation as fear of being caught. "We're not the police. It's alright if you don't have a license. You do know how to drive, right?"

"I practiced a couple of times with my parents," I said because it would've been way more embarrassing to lie and say that I had no clue how to drive. "But it was a long time back–"

But Mr. Shepard wasn't listening and cut me off, "Come on in. We're taking it slow, so we're not going to be speeding down the road. It's just for the feel."

I was peer pressured into the driver's seat, and it had been so long since I'd last driven that I had forgotten which pedal was the brake and which was the gas. I ended up figuring it out after a minute or so, but I could just feel Mr. Shepard's gaze boring into me, the red flush of my cheeks probably even more visible given how dull and gray our surroundings were. I ended up pressing the gas pedal too hard, and the car jolted forwards before I abruptly slammed the brakes. At that moment, I just wanted to disintegrate on the spot, as if I were made out of ash.

Despite being so embarrassed by my poor driving skills, I managed to slowly inch the car forwards and down the street to our community, a normally five minute drive extended to way over ten minutes. I knew that Mr. Shepard was getting antsy and impatient because I could just tell that he wanted to take control of the steering wheel, but I couldn't force myself to press the gas pedal harder out of fear of causing the car to jolt like that.

When I wheeled up the car to the neighborhood, my hands clutching the steering wheel with a sweaty iron grip, there were people who applauded, and I even saw Caspian and Mira wave to me because driving a car is supposed to be fun and cool. But all I could feel was dread because there's just something about driving that I've always never liked. It's why I've always avoided it whenever Mom forced me to practice.

Thankfully, because we had functionally run out of cars that could be car-jacked, there was no more driving for me after we had settled the car into its place on the wall. Instead, what happened was that Mr. Shepard slid underneath one of the more modern cars after Mrs. Shepard found some stone bricks to prevent the car wheels from moving. After some fiddling around, he was able to disengage the brakes and force the car into neutral, and it's good that Mrs. Shepard put those bricks into place because I could see that the car was beginning to slide.

We ended up having to push the car to our community, which was an exhausting process that strained my already sore arms. I mean, couldn't Mom have assigned me to push cars not right after I had gathered water? Or maybe, just not forced me to deal with cars at all?

"You hungry?" Mrs. Shepard said, as we all sat on the curb, taking a break from having to push the car without the assistance of the engine. "We've got some food, and it's going to be a long walk back."

"I guess a bit," I replied, and she pulled a container out from her backpack.

"It's canned bell pepper," she said. "But I added a bit of spice to it to make it more interesting. It can be so tiring to eat the same exact bland food every day."

If she had pulled out any other food, I may have attempted to try it, but there's just something about the taste of bell pepper that I just can't stand. And I definitely can't do spicy food, especially without gallons of water. Even the thought of bell pepper makes me want to throw up, and the only thing worse than declining food would be wasting it.

"I'm actually not that hungry," I replied.

"Oh," she said, probably offended on the inside. "Well, you can pick up some of the acorn flatbread bread from our house once we finish getting the car finished. Don't tell anyone, but I packed some extra pine nuts for your family for your help."

"Oh, uh, thanks," I responded.

But this conversation rang in my mind as I pushed the car because I realized that I was a complete idiot for refusing the bell pepper. I basically just told the Shepards that our family isn't starving enough to eat anything, which means that we've got excess food. Refusing food in times like this is a massive red flag to anyone.

I was so overwhelmed by the fact that I might have messed everything up for my family that the rest of the car pushing went by in a blur, and all I remember is getting the car into place and receiving the acorn flat-bread with pine nuts from Mrs. Shepard and attempting to rush home as fast as possible.

I never usually let this happen, but it's just that I was so angry at myself for being so embarrassing that I just lashed out at everyone as I was walking back because I couldn't beat myself up anymore. When Caspian waved at me while I was walking back, even though I spotted it, I just ignored him, and when Mom and Dad and everyone was invited me to play a board game, I just said no and walked past them and into my room just to get a little peace from all these people everywhere I looked.

I could hear through the door that May was saying that I was throwing a "temper-tantrum" for no reason, and given that Mom and Dad didn't even defend me, I knew that they would never understand. I mean, today seems so happy on the surface that it's useless to even tell them what I'm feeling because I know, at best, they'd say: "Just talk more" or "Don't listen to what others say" and at worst, which is probably what's going to happen, they'd just go with what May is thinking, that I'm making a big deal of nothing and that I should just man up and get over it. It's like this is something so foreign to them that just understanding this would probably take so many mental contortions that they'd get an aneurysm.

And it's not like I'd want to burden them with more "me" problems anyways since they've already got so many more important things to deal with. I just realized that I'm literally the only person in my family that actually has no function. Mira is part of the night watch, and she's the big negotiator of everything while May is going out and scavenging from other people's homes, and then there's me: the person who hangs out and gardens and is so easily replaceable because Grandma and Grandpa are the actual experts. It's like I'm a burden on everyone, and that maybe they'll do better if I just wasn't here. I mean a couple of weeks of extra food is a big deal. Today's one of those days where I wish I could just dive into the deep blues of the ocean and just disappear.

I just feel so worthless, and I'm sure Mira would say something like "You've helped Charles," but it's like, I'm wondering if I just kept giving him food because then I'd at least not be worthless, that I'm such a selfish person that I kept him here until the situation got really bad all because I wanted to feel special and needed. Maybe if I wasn't around, his family would've been forced to move to the South earlier and had a better chance when the weather was warmer and there was less ash. Maybe it's all my fault that they'd never make it to the South and that they'd died along the way. I guess I just realized that I had killed the only person that even saw a glimmer of worth in me.

Because, ultimately, I don't see what others see in me. I mean, here I am, literally drowning this journal with half-baked rants so soaked in self-pity that people would probably be celebrating my disappearance because at least, they'd have a bit of burden released from their shoulders. At least, they wouldn't have to deal with the awkward weirdo who's got a hero complex and pretends not to be insecure and is just too socially anxious to ever find love. Today's the closest I've ever gotten to crying in a long time, and it's not like these tears welling in my eyes are even justified, just unchecked self-pity that most people would be able to hold in.

I'm just going to stop here, just try to get some rest, and hope that things don't take a darker path that I had thought I had left behind for good.

November 8

I suppose I'd like to start with an apology for yesterday's entry. Reading over it right now with my mind in a better place, I guess I just realize how unhinged I sound. It's not the first time that this has happened, this loop of catastrophizing, but I guess it's been the first time in a long while, maybe my worst one ever since the Mooncrash. I'm doing better now, but I'm worried that with more people, my anxiety, the one that had faded when everyone disappeared, will come roaring back. But I guess that's the price I have to pay for community.

Today was better, I guess, in the sense that I wasn't just tossed into a high stress situation alone because Caspian was free to help out today with the Xiaos. Because of their baby, they've fallen behind on unpacking and gathering spare supplies, so Mom wanted us to deliver wood and help out with whatever they needed in their house since it'll look good.

"Are you doing alright?" Caspian asked as we met up sometime around noon at my house.

I think I must've been looking down, probably from the last vestiges of yesterday's messiness, so I quickly shook it off and plastered a somewhat happy expression on my face. "Yeah, I'm doing fine."

"Oh, okay," he said. "I heard that you were driving a car yesterday. That must've been so cool. I mean, when are we ever going to drive a car ever again."

"I guess it was alright," I replied, and, in retrospect, I'm cringing at my response because I could see Caspian's smile underneath his mask evaporate since I'm being so negative while he's actually having a great day. I think it made the earlier part of my day much more awkward than it should've been, and I guess it was my fault that I killed the mood by being a bit too truthful and dour.

Because of this lingering awkwardness, we only made small talk as we piled wood logs from my house into the wagon. I guess I was so distracted by my minor screw up in the prior conversation that I had forgotten to put my thick gardening gloves back on after taking a small break, and the expected happened. When I grabbed a wood log, I felt a sharp pain on my hand, and when I squinted at my finger, I noticed a thin (but fairly painful) splinter lodged deep into my index finger.

Caspian noticed it too. "Don't touch it. Let me run to my house and grab some medical supplies to pull it out."

"It's not a big deal," I replied. "I can just pull it out with my hands. When I was younger, I did that all the time–"

"Trust me, it's cleaner and better my way," he replied before he began jogging down the street before he turned back to me and shouted. "Plus, don't you want to see my medical skills?"

"Sure, why not?" I said, much to softly for him to hear as I watched him dash into his house before basically flying out a couple of minutes later with a backpack that bounced as he jogged towards me at such a speed that it seemed like I was having a heart attack or a stroke instead of a measly splinter. When he returned, he was panting hard, and I thought that he was the one that was going to have a heart attack.

"Do you want to take a breather before pulling out the splinter?" I offered. "There's not really much of a rush."

"No," he gasped out between breaths as he dropped his backpack and began rummaging through it. "I'm just a bit out of shape, that's all."

He grabbed a plastic water bottle with holes poked into the cap along with a bit of hand soap out of his backpack. "We're going to have to wash your hand first before we perform the splinter removal operation. This might hurt a bit because of the splinter, but, hey, it's better than getting a nasty infection."

"That wasn't particularly assuring," I said as he squeezed the water bottle, sprinkling the water onto my hand before lathering soap onto my finger, careful to avoid coming in contact with the splinter. It was certainly a touching gesture. Ha, ha, get it. "Touching" gesture. I wish I had come up with that terrible pun earlier.

Then, after he washed off the soap from my hand, he pulled out a magnifying glass and cleaned a set of tweezers with hand sanitizer before holding my finger gently with his hands as he figured out how to best approach the splinter with his tweezers. Even though it seems pretty medical, I don't know why my breath was getting caught in my chest and my face was flushed with heat and redness. It all felt so intimate (I could literally feel the hints of the warmth of his breath), even though I knew that he couldn't have been feeling the same way, given that he was so focused on eliminating the tweezer.

"This all feels like a bit too much," I said, as he stared at my finger. "You don't need to spend all this time and these resources."

He shushed me. "It's better than getting an infection, and then we'd have to spend valuable antibiotics."

"Okay," I said, a bit surprised at the seriousness of his tone that felt different from his usual casualness. But then I remembered how serious he was about being a doctor sometime in the future, and I put all the pieces together. I guess he's serious about never wanting to lose another person, even if the risk is only a tiny, little splinter.

After a couple of minutes, he had identified the direction of the splinter and pulled it out smoothly. It felt all stress-free, unlike most of the times when I pulled out my own splinters, which were long and stressful sessions where I clawed at the tiny splinter on my finger until my nails were able to grab it. He then applied a bit of petroleum jelly and covered my finger with a bandaid and said, "All done."

"Wow," I said, raising my eyebrows. "That was certainly a first class service."

"Only for you," he said, and my heart rate shot up before he added lightly, "And all over my other patients. As a doctor-in-training, I don't think it's ethical to play favorites, as tempting as it is."

I was so distracted, not from my negative thoughts but from this fluttering feeling, that I nearly grabbed the wood with my bare hands again. Caspian had to remind me to put my gloves on, which caused me to blush as he laughed a bit before saying, "Damn. You seem to be excited to get splinters today. I guess you really did mean first class service."

I rolled my eyes and blushed harder, but that embarrassment was only momentary and subsided once we began wheeling all the supplies down the street to the Xiaos' home. We were greeted with Mrs. Xiao, who seemed a bit disheveled and exhausted, her hair pinned up messily with a claw clip. I'd imagine that caring for a baby, even with the help of her grandparents and her husband, must be exhausting, given the fact that the entire world has collapsed.

"Thank you so much for bringing the firewood," she said. "I know you all worked hard for it, and I promise–"

"It's no worry, Mrs. Xiao," Caspian said, though he definitely bungled the pronunciation of her last name. "Of course we're willing to contribute and help."

She smiled with gratitude. "Could you boys begin carrying the firewood to the garage? Just leave it in the corner closest to the door or whatever's most convenient for you."

"Of course," Caspian said with a smile as I just nodded along, grabbing a piece of firewood and hauling it down to the garage.

Peeking inside their home, I noticed that they were definitely pretty behind in unpacking all of their belongings, a collection of suitcases and cardboard boxes that laid in the corner of the living room. On the walls, there were still picture frames hanging, some of them empty and some of them containing smiling family photos from the people that had previously lived there. I guess, when they were leaving, they must've grabbed the most important photos and these remnants were just the leftovers. But even within these leftovers, there were sparks of life.

There were the usual self-portraits and school photos, the kinds that were at the end of the yearbook, but as I walked down the winding hallway to the garage, I saw other photos. There was a lush and sun-dappled photo of the family in a fruit orchard, the dad holding a basket of apricots, the mom in a straw hat, and their kids, probably in elementary school, giving a bashful smile to the camera. There was another photo, taken on a pier somewhere warm, where everyone looks a little older but no less happy, with the wind blowing their hair all over their faces as the sky was turning lavender and coralline.

And there was so many other photos: a picture of one of the kids, now in high school, hurling a football high in the sky and another photo of everyone, the parents' hair now graying, standing next to their other kid, who was dressed in the graduation gown, in front of a giant bell tower on a college campus. I wonder where they had gone. Hopefully to the South or some other better place, where they'd at least have a chance, even if it's absolutely miniscule, to experience a semi-normal future.

I think that Caspian noticed that I was staring at the photos because he was giving me a weird look, so I pried my gaze from the picture frames on the wall and focused on transporting the wood to the garage. After around half an hour or so, we finished emptying out the wagon filled with firewood. Caspian offered to get another batch of firewood, except from his home, but Mrs. Xiao told him that we had already brought enough. So instead, we began helping her unpack while she walked around the house, rocking and shushing the baby to quiet it down.

We began opening cardboard boxes and plastic tubs, pulling out a collection of mostly mundane items. There were ceramic dishes, metal pots, and colorful plastic cups in one box. Another one was filled with books that ranged from cooking recipes to business strategy (though I'm unsure why we'd need this given what's happening) to fictional stories and picture books for toddlers. A third box had some quilts and a 49ers blanket, which was to be expected given where we live.

There was another box that I thought was just part of the usual bunch, especially since it was just filled with shoes. But buried underneath the sneakers and wedges was a shoebox, and when I opened it up, I noticed a collection of personal trinkets. In one corner, there was a set of expensive looking jewelry and in another one, there was a dolphin snowglobe and a glass figurine, but in the center, there was a thick photo book. When I flipped open the pages, I saw photos of her and her husband, all captioned with cursive letters.

I decided to close the photo book and place the lid back on the shoebox. It felt like an invasion of privacy, and I guess, in this world that we live in, where even the most basic commodities, like food and warmth, are quickly vanishing, I could let them have a little bit of their life to themselves.

It's at that moment that Mrs. Xiao burst into the living room before placing her baby in the crib. "Can you two watch Adrian for a couple of minutes? I just need to quickly warm some formula in the kitchen."

"Totally," Caspian said and he went over to the crib. Because I had nothing much else to do, I went up to the crib with him, and we both looked at Adrian, whose eyes were wide with curiosity.

"This might be depressing," Caspian said. "But I feel bad for Adrian. He's so unlucky to be born right now when there's not much of a future for him. You understand me?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I guess conditions could get better in the future, but, I mean, it's still going to be millions of years until the Moon finally drifts back into its proper position."

"I mean, we're the lucky ones you know," he said. "Adrian, he'll never experience summer camps or elementary school or even just running across a field and doing whatever the hell you'd want."

"Or building sandcastles on the beaches," I replied. "Or heading out to the tidepools with his parents to look at the sea anemones and mussels, and, you know, feeling the sea spray and all the things you do by the ocean."

"Or swinging from monkey bars and being pushed from slides by other people," he responded. "He'll probably never be around more than a couple of people his age and never be able to make the thousands of friendships people make when they're young."

"Or going fruit picking in the middle of summer," I said, thinking of the family photo in the orchard. "Or even just eating fresh nectarines and peaches and apricots. I mean, he'll not even have the opportunity to just feel the warmth of sunlight and see the bright greens of the leaves of trees."

"Or breathing in fresh air or going on a walk in the woods or the yearly monarch migration," he replied, though there was an extra note of sadness for the last item he listed. "It's crazy to think that everything we took for granted, all of the little stuff that we noticed, is gone for the next thousand generations."

"I guess I just realized that he'll never even be able to see blue skies, and that he'll wonder why all the skies in the childrens' books are blue instead of gray. It's like blue skies will be just a myth," I said. "I guess we really are the lucky ones."

"No, you guys aren't," Mrs. Xiao said, and we turned back to see her leaning against the doorway, towel in her hand and her arms crossed. Caspian and I both looked at each other, embarrassed that she had heard our extremely dreary predictions for her son's future. "I'm the lucky one."

She continued, "You kids should be in high school, and, in a couple of years, college. You guys should be just having fun being young and barely an adult, being able to fu– mess up, I mean, without having to worry about whether someone will die if you make the wrong choice. And worse of all, there's a chance you both will never find love when it seemed like a clear possibility a few months ago. In this world we live in, someone you could've fallen in love with in a different universe might never cross paths with you or worse, become your enemy."

Caspian and I both looked at each other because it's true that if our family had rejected his family's help, they may have found a different community to build the greenhouse in. Maybe we'd be fighting each other instead of sitting here and talking about the future, building a relationship that'll hopefully endure past winter.

She sighed. "I've at least gotten the chance to live and experience a bit of adulthood, and it breaks my heart that you'll never experience the life that's been promised to you for your entire life."

"I mean, I'd say that out of everyone you're the unluckiest one–" Caspian said but was cut off.

"I think that's enough for today. The negativity probably isn't good for Adrian," Mrs. Xiao said and lifted the now crying baby into her arms before nudging a bottle of formula into his mouth, which quieted him down a bit, as an awkward silence spread throughout the room until the only sounds were the crackling of the fireplace.

She looked up, holding the baby tenderly close to her chest. "I know that some people think that it's a bit cruel to bring a kid to this world we live in. But he gives me hope that we'll be able to build something more, not just devolve into conflict and war that all those cheap disaster-flicks insist will happen, so that Adrian will have a chance to, at least, experience a fraction of what I've gotten. It's why I'm fighting for this to work, whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes," Caspian said, raising up a funny little mug that had "I heart NYC" on it.

"Whatever it takes," I said a bit more softly, holding up a bland monochrome coffee mug.

She chuckled a bit and raised the bottle of formula. "Whatever it takes."

I guess this moment made me want to apologize even more after yesterday's breakdown because it was incredibly selfish of me to be freaking out over the most minor things. I mean, Mrs. Xiao is literally raising a kid at the end of the world, knowing that he'll never live the life that she had envisioned for him. That takes commitment and grit, and if she's got it, then I've at least got to try to embrace her "whatever it takes" attitude.

Because I don't want our home to end up like the house that the Xiaos are living in, scattered with small relics of that family's time on the Earth and waiting for the next group of people to discover. I don't want to be a disintegrating skeleton slumped against the wall, dead from starvation and hypothermia, holding this diary in my hand because we hadn't tried whatever it takes to survive. I want to live long enough so that I'll be able to have the opportunity to experience everything that my mind tells me that I'm not deserving of, even if I'll probably sabotage myself.

Even though I don't think I'm ever going to fully fit in, I've got to do whatever it takes to make our community work, if not for myself, then at least for others.

November 9

Another day, another person that I have to mingle with, but to be honest, I think I enjoyed today's compulsory meet up the best because I really didn't need to talk that much with the new people. It's because today, once I had completed my gardening duties, moving new pots of water into the greenhouse and watering and checking up on all the seedlings, I was going to make snares with Dean and the gun guy along with Caspian.

Well, not quite. I thought that we were going to meet in the woods because that's where snares are supposed to be set, though admittedly, I haven't seen a single squirrel or rabbit in forever. Instead, we met in the Johnson's home while they were foraging for acorns in the forested areas further away from the neighborhood, probably approaching the reservoir area.

On the dining table, there was a large pile of dried grasses in a basket, only slightly moistened, and a couple of sticks, and I saw the gun guy, who had a large box cutter knife in his hand with his face covered, this time, with a baseball cap, sunglasses, and bandana mask, and Dean sitting close to each other while Caspian was opposite of them. If I didn't know these people, I'd have felt like I had walked into some ritual woodland sacrifice cult, especially if I had seen them making creepy straw dolls out of the sticks and straw. Thankfully, my imagination isn't reality, and when I sat next to Caspian, the lesson began.

"We're going to be making rope," Dean said, holding up the plant fibers. "Even if you have never made it, the process should be very easy, elementary even."

Caspian and I looked at each other because I knew that Caspian would probably fail given that he failed with the pine nuts, which just required us to remove the skin off of the nut. Making rope is a much more complicated process.

"What you do is you take a small bundle of the grass," he said before grabbing a sizable handful of the grass, though the gun guy took about half the grass from the bundle and put it back on the table. "Not too much obviously. We're making rope for a snare for small game, not for other people, though we might if we have to defend ourselves against strangers. And you want to twist it between your fingers until the rope begins to bend in half."

The plant fibers began coiling tighter before eventually bending in half, and Dean looked up. "Now you just want to just braid the two strands together by twisting it into a helix, over and over again, until you run out of plant fibers for the rope, and then, it's a simple process to just add more plant fiber. Just get a similarly sized bundle, and add it close to the bottom, making sure that there is decent overlap with the previous rope."

"You got it?" he said. "It might seem complicated, but it really is no trouble at all. Any questions?"

Caspian and I both shook our heads, but just as we were about to start, the gun guy said, "To end the rope, just do a simple knot."

"Yes, that," Dean said. "Thanks for reminding me."

"It's what I'm here for," the gun guy said, his voice muffled by his mask as Dean gave him a small smile, one that quickly vanished as he began badgering us about how our bundles were too big or too small. While we were doing that, the gun guy began carving notches into the sticks.

I was a bit surprised by Dean's quick smile because that was the first time that Dean was not being either sour and condescending, like this presentation, or just flat out angry and annoyed, like he always is when he's partnered with Mira. I guess it's interesting to see this side of him.

Once I had figured out how big an appropriately sized bundle was in Dean's opinion, I began twisting the clump of the dried grass into a taut and straight line before it bent in half. Continuing my twisting, I managed to get a bit of a loose double helix shape before I needed to add more grass. Next to me, Caspian was pretty clearly struggling with not only forming the twisting double helix but also just getting the fibers clump wound tight enough.

I decided to help him before Dean could jump in and probably make things worse by insisting that the whole process is easy. "You need help?"

"How have you been able to figure this out?" he said.

"I feel like it's kinda like braiding hair, which is something you would definitely know if you had sisters. Trust me," I replied, thinking that I was being a bit clever or funny because I realized how incredibly terrible my response was since Caspian had actually lost someone close to him to death, maybe not a sister but I'm sure that a boyfriend is about as close as family.

I had thought about apologizing, but I quickly stopped myself because it would probably just make it more painful for him, so I quickly brushed past my mistake and began actually helping him. "Basically, instead of bending the rope, you'd actually want to let it bend itself when you keep twisting, so like just continue twisting the grass as hard as you can."

He nodded and began coiling the grass fibers together, and after some time, the classic bend was formed, and then I said, "After this point, just like, continue twisting the rope, and it will sort-of begin to form the helix shape that we're looking for."

And exactly what I had predicted happened, and Caspian, once he had actually figured it out, was doing better than me. His helix was tighter, and he was noticeably faster than me, probably because he's got fairly calloused hands that can handle the scraping of the grass and slight rope burn, unlike mine.

"I feel like you're doing way better than me," I said. "You're actually good at this."

"Naw," he replied. "As much as I want to brag, and maybe if you keep praising me, I might let it all get into my head, you somehow managed to figure this out right away and actually go out of your way to teach me how to do it."

"It's really not a big deal," I replied. "I guess, it's just something I've always done in my life, helping people. I feel like it's the oldest sibling that is always assigned to tutoring duties, but because Mira's a lot older than both of us, I've just always had to teach May stuff."

To my surprise, he said, "Yeah, I get it, though, I was a shoddy tutor. I have no idea why my parents didn't fire me from that job."

As we got more familiar with the process, braiding the rope became easier and easier, the grass fibers weaving themselves into tight loops and knots. We had to test every piece of rope that we made, making sure that it was able to stand a decent amount of force without disintegrating or snapping.

Although we didn't talk much while twisting together the grass stalks, each of us caught up in the process, I just felt like he was a bit less tense after our talks, though it could also be the work that was relaxing him. Either way, after a slow start, we ended up tearing through Dean's large pile of grass in a couple of hours.

"Alright, thanks for your help," Dean said, though he was pretty disinterested in his gratitude, and stood up.

"You want to come set up the snares?" Caspian asked me.

"Sure, why not?" I replied, but Dean cut into our conversation.

"Actually, James and I will be taking this the rest of the way," he said. "It's a bunch of work for you guys and we're the only two who know how to set the snares up."

"It'll be good for us to learn survival skills," Caspian replied. "So far, the only survival knowledge I've got is from TV, and we all know how fake it can be."

"We've got guns," James, who was the last new name that I had gotten (though the Johnsons are still a bit suspicious), added more gruffly. "It'll be safer if the both of us go only."

"Yeah, that too," Dean said pretty disinterestedly, as he shifted his gaze to James, who gave a quick glimpse up to Dean. "Well, we're going to go now."

And surprisingly, Caspian was fairly conciliatory about them setting up the snares without us, despite the fact that he was so insistent that we come only a couple of moments before. I'm almost certain that he wasn't dissuaded by our lack of gun knowledge, especially since we usually walk to the creek without much gun support, and that there must've been something that he had noticed that I hadn't.

We helped Dean and James gather up the supplies before stepping out of the house and heading opposite directions after a quick and terse goodbye. When I turned back to look at Dean, I saw that he had lifted the hat from James' head with James trying to grab it.

Maybe I'm misconstruing the situation since I was pretty far, but this read less as malicious and more as just having fun by annoying the other person. Even though Dean can be insufferable at times with his arrogance, I'm at least glad that he's finding the joy in the littlest of things. Dean eventually did return the hat to James, and they walked down the street to the woods shoulder-to-shoulder, disappearing into the distance.

"Let them have their fun," Caspian said, and I turned back to face him. "You heading back home?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I've got to check up on the plants."

"Oh, how are they doing?" he asked. "It's been a while since I've seen them."

"You can come over if you want to check them out," I replied. "I mean, there isn't a ton of growth, but, like–"

"I'm in," Caspian said.

While we were walking home, we passed Mira, who was patrolling with May by her side for some reason, and she waved to the both of us as we passed by them. I wanted to ask May what she was doing patrolling with Mira since I know that she definitely doesn't like walking around aimlessly for hours, but from the glare that she shot me to encourage me to stay away, I felt like it had something to do with her plans with the Shepards.

When I came home, I was immediately ambushed by Mom, which was surprising because I had thought that she was outside along with wherever Dad was. "Neal, you're back so quickly?"

"Yeah. Where's Dad?" I asked.

"Oh, he's foraging with the Johnsons and Weavers. We've got to keep track of everyone here," Mom replied. "I'm just taking a break from the net and socialization. Your grandparents are at the Xiaos now. It's good for them to meet other people their age. I've just been taking care of the greenhouse."

"Well, I'm taking Caspian to check out the greenhouse," I said, and Caspian popped out from behind a wall and waved at Mom.

Mom gave a tighter and more tired wave back. "Neal, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"What?" I said with a bit of annoyance. I've always hated these one-on-one conversations with Mom and Dad because I know that I'm going to get scolded or interrogated about something for almost no reason at all.

"You and Caspian are becoming good friends, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess."

"Well, that's good. It's good that you're finding new friends," she said. "But you need to remember our divisions. Our family does food and–"

"I know, geez," I replied. "I'm not gardening in front of him. I just want to show him how things are going with the garden, okay? It's good for everyone, hope and everything"

"I'm not saying that you're doing that," Mom said with a sigh. "I just need to make sure that there isn't going to be another situation, you know. I'm just don't want you to get too attached and get hurt if things go bad–"

"If you're talking about Charles and me giving his family so they'd not die, then just say it," I said. "And whatever. It's been longer than a minute."

I could tell that Mom was preparing to give me one of those "Don't give me that attitude" speeches, so I left the room quickly before the lecture began. I gave myself a couple of seconds to cool down since it's embarrassing that Caspian probably heard me snapping at Mom, and I was almost too embarrassed to face him. Luckily, I didn't spot him right outside of the room and caught a glimpse of him standing in the greenhouse.

His sweater and heavy jacket were messily placed on an empty table near the entrance, and he was looking around in a circle at the tiny sproutlings, now a bit less tiny from when we last visited, that have burst from the soil. The air that was normally room temperature felt warmer than usual, but maybe that was just me staring at Caspian as his t-shirt clung onto him in the semi-humid air. I felt a bit embarrassed that I had to clear my throat to break his trance in order to squeeze past him to check on the water pots to see if they were still hot.

"I can help with these," Caspian offered as I grabbed a pot filled with warm water, careful not to spill anything.

"Uh," I said, thinking about what Mom said about labor division. Even though I got mad at her for suggesting that I was mixing niches, which will cause Caspian's family to turn on us, I guess some part of myself would feel guilty if her pessimistic prediction came true. But moving water pots isn't really related to gardening at all, so I said, "Sure. I don't have oven mitts, but you can use the hand towels to hold them, though they shouldn't be that hot."

"Great," he said as he grabbed a water pot and followed me as we walked to the living room and placed the two lukewarm pots in front of the fireplace before exchanging them with pots filled with bubbling hot water.

I saw that he tried grabbing the side handles of the pots with his hand towels, but it must've been too hot because he recoiled back, so I gave him my oven mitts. He looked up at me and said, "Let me take both of these for you. You've already done so much for the greenhouse."

"Thanks," I said and stood up as he grabbed a boiling pot. "But honestly, it's mostly my grandparents that are doing this. I mostly just watch over the plants, and they do most of the gardening stuff."

"That's still a ton," he said. "You don't always have to discount yourself."

I know that he was just trying to be polite by saying that, so I just gave an awkward nod, and as he placed the boiling pots of water onto the ceramic plates that I had placed onto the shelves to ensure that the heat didn't begin melting the plastic, I guess I just took a little bit of time to just appreciate the progress that we've made with the greenhouse, even if we were a long way from creating a sustainable food source.

The air had this earthy tinge to it, probably from the compost bin, filled with dead leaves and seaweed and wood chunks, sitting in the corner, though the scent of ammonia still lingers. Although the lightbulb in the center of the greenhouse remained unlit, someday in the future, probably around a week or so, when the sproutlings begin their growth spurt, we'll begin drawing power from the batteries so that the bulb could run at night. In the meantime, the trays of mustards and peas and lettuce and all of the other seeds that Mira had scavenged from the beginning are absorbing the faint light from the sky as they begin unfurling more leaves. Someday, the greenhouse will be blanketed with the verdant colors of life.

"This place, it reminds me of a botanical garden that I went to with Gabe," Caspian said, turning to me. "You know Reflections Garden?"

"Maybe. I know that I went to one when I was younger, but I don't really remember if it was this one," I replied.

"If we go out on another scavenging mission and pass nearby, I'll show you," he said. "Actually, I take that back. I don't want you to see it all broken down and dead because you wouldn't understand. All you'd see is some branches and glass buildings half-buried under ash."

"So what was it like?"

"It felt like a second home," Caspian replied, his voice a bit dreamy. "Going here was Gabe's idea. He went to every botanical garden in the area to find the perfect one, so we'd have the perfect date. Reflections wasn't the biggest one in the area or the most popular, but surrounded by orchids and a whole bunch of flowers that I couldn't name if my life depended on it, I just knew that the place and moment was magical."

Even though it wasn't the most vivid description, I could imagine what Caspian had captured in his picture of that moment in his mind. The soft tangerines and golden hues of dusk would be filtering through the glass ceiling, illuminating the both of them as they gazed at each other. Bright pink orchids would be drooping over him from hanging baskets and it'd be like they'd been caught in a wildfire of blossoms, surrounded by the brightest reds and yellows. From his voice, I could tell that this place was a haven just for the both of them, cut off from the rest of the world for at least a brief moment.

"I probably am not putting this into the best words, and I wish I could tell you more about the flowers, but at the time, I wasn't paying close attention as he read every description and listed every species," Caspian said a bit softer. "He wanted to become a botanist when he grew up, and I wish I cared more about flowers back then. Maybe I'd be able to honor his memory better right now."

I guess I had no idea how to respond to his question. It's not because I didn't understand what he was saying, but just the opposite, that it felt too familiar because I remembered that letter that Charles had left behind that I haven't opened and how I wasn't honoring his final wishes. But I, at least, was able to figure out a solution.

"I've got a book. It's a gardening book, so, like, it'll have to stay at our house, but it's got a massive glossary with tons of pictures with flowers, so maybe you'll be able to find what you're looking for," I suggested. "And pretty soon, maybe two months or so, the greenhouse will begin flowering, and maybe it'll be like the botanical garden, at least just a little bit."

"I was thinking about where we'd put the memorial," he said. "I was originally thinking about the river, but everything outside is dead. This is the only place that's warm and filled with the life that used to be everywhere. But obviously, if it's alright with your parents."

I didn't really answer because I knew that Mom and Dad wouldn't approve. Putting a memorial in the middle of our house would mean that there'd be lots of people visiting, putting our food supply in jeopardy in case people would want to steal. Plus, there'd just be a lot of unwanted snooping that would be impossible to stop. But I had the vaguest of ideas of how to make this work, and I guess I was still a bit mad at Mom's conversation with me, and I didn't want to disappoint Caspian, so I went against my initial instincts.

"Yeah," I replied. "I'm pretty sure that it'd be fine."

"Awesome," he said and went on marveling at just the flickers of life that are present, green blips in the grand scheme of things. "It's like this place has been the closest that I could get to him."

"I get it," I said. "Sometimes, the greenhouse, it makes me think of Charles."

But, unlike Caspian, it hurts to think about the greenhouse, especially when I'm thinking of Charles. It represents just everything that we should've done, so that he wouldn't have to leave because there'd at least be a chance that his family would make it here. But I can't dwell on that, not when I'm making so much progress.

"What else did you two do in the garden?" I asked, changing topics. "I imagine if your boyfriend loved plants so much, you guys must've visited in spring, when everything was in bloom."

"Yeah, in May," he said a bit wistfully. "Unfortunately, there was no cherry blossom tree. That's the one thing that Gabe wished he could change. But the pathways connecting the little greenhouses were crowded with flowers that were all kinds of colors and the brightest ones too. There were hummingbirds everywhere and these yellow colored butterflies that have a bird-sounding name–"

"Swallowtails?"

"Yes, those," he said with a rueful chuckle. "Gabe had to remind me over and over again about what they were because I kept thinking that they were called Robinwings. I should've gotten a better way to remember them over 'vaguely bird-sounding name.'"

"You don't really need to beat yourself about forgetting," I replied. "I do that a bunch about things that I did with Charles, and it definitely doesn't help at all, even if it feels right, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it," he said. "It's just that I'm not as grounded as you are. It's like I'm floating in the sky, and you've actually got your stuff together. I've not told this to my parents because I know that it'd make them mad, but have you just had days where everything feels pointless, like it's hard to imagine a future without the people you've lost?"

"I mean, yeah," I replied.

"How do you deal with it?"

"I don't really know," I said. "I guess I've never really had that very strongly because I guess I've always just lived each day one at a time and never really thought super hard about the future, especially in times like now."

"That's what Gabe was like too," Caspian replied, looking at me directly. "I've always been rushing towards the future, dreaming about heading to the same college, while he's always been the one that's down to earth. And I mean, like, really down to earth. He'd go off and lift up a struggling bee with his finger or make me hold a flower so that a butterfly would land on me."

"I used to be like that, but when I was a lot younger," I said. "I used to grab crayfish from the rivers and fish out earthworms from my grandparents' compost bin and make apricot juice for ants and stuff like that."

"Damn, you were a wild child," Caspian said. "Now you have to tell me more because I had no idea that you're this adventurous."

"Maybe it's a story for another time."

"Don't be embarrassed," he said. "Now, I definitely have to know."

"Then it's definitely for another time," I said with a bit of a smile, and I ended up getting pestered for half an hour by Caspian. I didn't give in, and eventually gave up with an over exaggerated sigh and vow that he'll get me to tell him something sometime in the future.

I guess things aren't as bad as I thought they were, not like the thoughts invading my mind from a couple of days back. If Caspian is asking about me, then he must think that there's at least something interesting about me or, at the very least, think spending time with me is more worth-it than sitting around and being bored.

But thinking about it now, I don't even know why it's so instinctual for me to care so much about what others think of me. I mean, it sounds so ridiculous on paper, but this idea is so ingrained in me that I don't know how it's so easy for other people to just move through their lives, unencumbered by the anxiety of messing up or worrying that people only tolerate you. I guess it takes a kind of self-confidence that I don't really have but am always searching for.

Because I can already feel some of the thoughts creeping into my mind that are telling me that I'm only hanging around Caspian because I want to be a hero and cure him of his grief, and that I'm being selfish and should pull away to make room for someone that could actually help Caspian. And maybe a part of me does really believe all those things, no matter how untrue they are, but I've just got to try to find something inside me that is telling me the opposite.

Some days, especially in these dire times, I wish that I could just receive a letter from my future self, maybe twenty or so years in the future when all the things I'm worried about will be solved, telling me that things will be alright. He'd tell me that the world would return back to normal, but that I'd be able to figure out what I love to do and head to a good college and find a job that I'd love to do. He'd tell me that I'd eventually find someone that loves me for who I am in all my weird hobbies and mannerisms, and would understand that opening up is hard for me and help guide me to a better place. He'd tell me that I'd learn how to find something of value with myself, something that other people might not like, and that I'd have the confidence to grab the reins of my life and make that journey for myself.

Of course, most of that won't happen, certainly not the college part, but I suppose I'm taking the first step by believing.