You're Not in This Alone

I waited patiently outside the door while Ebony talked to Sarah about her nightmares. I knew exactly what they were saying. I’d seen their conversation in my dreams. I’d also seen Lance, Miranda, Ethan, and Nadia sleeping peacefully. Either they would be alright, or they had just been too tired to have nightmares that night. Whatever the case, I was alright with Sarah sleeping in our room. Maybe she would keep Ebony and I in line.

When they emerged from the bedroom, Ebony didn’t say anything. She might’ve known I’d dreamed about it. I smiled reassuringly at Sarah. I didn’t want her to think I was upset with her for any reason. She smiled back.

We walked to the supply house. No one was there yet, so we made breakfast on our own. I decided we should use the food that would spoil soon, so I turned on the grill on the deck and placed pans on it. Ebony helped me make enough eggs, bacon, and sausage for four teenagers and three children that hadn’t eaten a real meal in days.

The smell must have woken them up, because by the time most of it was done cooking, the other four people in our small band of survivors had teleported to the supply house. We all ate as if we hadn’t eaten at all in days. It was great to have a real meal. I wondered how long we could make the meat and eggs last if we couldn’t refrigerate or freeze them. Even if we could get a refrigerator to work, all the meat would go bad eventually. What would we do for protein after that?

After taking a sip of her juice, Nadia asked me, “Didn’t you say you have dreams about the future?”

I nodded. “Well, I also dream about the past and present, but I guess the future is usually more interesting. Last night I dreamt that we would meet two more people today. I didn’t catch their names, but they have some interesting… abilities.” I thought of what I’d seen of them in my dreams. Interesting was an understatement.

“What abilities?” Lance pressed.

I grimaced, wondering if I should’ve just let them see for themselves, but I answered, “Well, it appeared to me that they, er, turn into animals. They’ll be showing up at around dinner… They’ll be flying in as a bat and an eagle. The eagle is the girl. They’re going to decide that they need to look at the situation and make sure it’s safe for them to reveal themselves to us, so don’t startle them by acting like you know they’re people when they perch on the house when we’re eating dinner outside. Just follow my lead. It’ll work out fine. My dreams always come true.”

“How old are they?” Ebony asked. I saw the hope in her eyes. She didn’t want them to be young. She didn’t want more responsibility.

Smiling at her, I replied, “They looked a little older than us, actually. The only thing is that they’re not very sociable people. I don’t know how much help they’ll be.”

She nodded, but I knew she was still relieved that they weren’t little children. I was, too.

“What are we supposed to do all day?” Nadia asked.

“We need to finish with the bodies,” Ebony answered grimly. “I’m sure the guys can find something useful to do while we do that.”

“Actually, I think Sarah should stay with us guys,” I suggested, giving Ebony a meaningful glance. Sarah didn’t need to be around the bodies if she didn’t have to be.

“Why?” Sarah exclaimed, looking both angry and hurt. She didn’t want us to baby her the way a normal girl her age would be babied. “I can handle staying with Ebony.”

I smiled at her, saying, “Sarah, I know you can. But if you stay with us, our two groups will have long distance communication. We can talk to them through Lance, and they can talk to us through you.”

“Oh,” she stated quietly, looking embarrassed at her outbreak.

Ebony patted her shoulder. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” She turned to speak to Nadia and Miranda. “Let’s get this over with.”

They nodded and stood up.

I stood up too, wrapping my arm around Ebony’s waist and pulling her into me before she knew what I was doing. I kissed her in front of all of them again. I really didn’t care what they thought of it. Ebony blushed in embarrassment, but she would’ve been upset if I hadn’t done it.

Ebony nodded to Nadia, who wrapped her fingers around Miranda’s wrist. They all disappeared, and air filled the space where Ebony had just been. I felt like part of myself had gone with them. Apparently Nadia only had to be touching a person she teleported in order to go with them. It wasn’t surprising. Nothing was surprising anymore.

“We’ve got to start living normally again,” Lance said, breaking the sorrowful silence. “We need to find ways to do normal, everyday things.”

“I don’t even know what day it is,” Ethan spoke quietly.

I though hard and counted the days since I had had that foreboding dream. “It happened on the twenty-first. It’s been four days, so it’s the twenty-fifth of June.”

“We should put calendars in every house,” Sarah suggested.

“We should,” I agreed. “Just because the world’s practically ended doesn’t mean we can stop knowing what day it is.”

That was the first thing we did. We got calendars from Walmart and hung them up in our two houses and the supply house.

Next I said, “Alright, now, you guys aren’t going to like this, but work does need to be done around here, and we need to stay clean and sanitary. So we should draw up a chore chart of some sort and give everyone some responsibility.” Now I knew what Ebony meant about feeling like a parent. If someone had asked me a week before what I would do if I had the whole world to myself, Ebony, and a few other kids, I would not have even considered chores. Now it seemed important.

This took a little longer than the calendars. In the end we decided that we would each be responsible for keeping our rooms and our houses clean. Ebony, Miranda, and I would do most of the cooking, and everyone else had chores around the supply house including dishes, dusting, and other various chores.

Just as we were finishing up, Sarah cocked her head to the side and appeared to be listening. After a few seconds, she declared out loud, “Ebony says they’re finishing with the bodies. They’ve filled in the dirt, and they’ve even built a monument for all four thousand, two hundred people buried. They want us to go to the meadow when we can.”

“I’ll tell them we’re coming,” Lance offered freely.

It only really took Lance, Sarah, and I a few seconds to touch Ethan’s arms or shoulders and be teleported to the clearing that had been a nightmarish sight the day before. It now looked as if it had only been covered by a layer of dirt. It was impossible to tell how many bodies rested beneath that thin layer.

In the center a tall cross made of silver metal twisted around itself jutted out of the ground. It must’ve been forty feet tall. I guessed it was the “monument” they had made. I assumed Miranda had made it. She was the only one I could think of that was physically powerful enough to create such a massive tribute. At the foot of the cross stood a rock with words carved into it neatly. It said: Only 4000 among billions. I knew Ebony had come up with that phrase.

Ebony, Miranda, and Nadia sat in the dirt around the cross. Nadia looked up at the morphed metal in silent awe, while Miranda and Ebony hung their heads and thought about what they were on top of. None of them acknowledged our presence.

Ethan walked towards Nadia. Plopping down beside her, he put his hand on hers in a friendly gesture. He mirrored her grim expression and let his gaze follow hers to the giant memorial.

Lance ambled up to Miranda and took a seat at her side, he put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his chest, something I had done to Ebony many times when she was feeling down. Miranda continued to look at her hand, and he wordlessly told her he loved her by kissing her forehead.

Sarah and I sat on either side of Ebony. Her eyes were closed and her mournful face looked almost peaceful except for the glistening tears on her cheeks. I had seen this in my dreams. The heartache it had caused me then was only a faded echo of what it caused me when I saw it with my own open eyes.

I ran my fingers from her wrist to the tips of her fingers. Just as our fingers were about to part slowly, she snatched her hand away and pulled me closer to her for comfort. She reached out her free hand to Sarah’s hand, somehow knowing where she was and that she didn’t want to be left out.

The seven of us sat in sorrowful silence, mourning what we had lost. We mourned for the people we’d never really been connected to but had left behind all the same: our parents, our families, our peers.

Sarah mourned her troubled, broken childhood. Ebony mourned for the carefree bliss her life had been days ago when all she had to worry about was school, what her next strange feeling or notion would be, and when she would see me next. I mourned for Ebony’s happiness, which had seemed to die with everyone else and had been replaced by a pained sadness that spread like a disease that I could not stop. I was sure the other four had something they privately mourned for, and I would learn these things in time.

But most of all we mourned together for the mostly happy, light, easy lives that we had been forced to leave behind and for the youth that had been stolen away from us and could never be returned. At heart, we were no longer children.