You're Not in This Alone

“Hello,” the oldest boy with the blonde hair and blue eyes said cautiously. “I’m Lance, and this is my girlfriend Miranda.” We knew he meant the blonde girl that was holding his hand with moss-green eyes.

I glanced at Gerard, and he nodded. These were the people he had seen in his dream. “We got your message, Lance,” I explained vaguely, not commenting on the unnatural way the message had come to us.

The younger Asian girl piped up, “I’m Nadia. This is my friend Ethan.” She nodded towards the boy next to her with red hair. “We got the same message and arrived here this morning.”

Gerard nodded. As I looked around, I saw that we were split into three small groups. Each group had its spokesperson, its leader. I opened my mouth to introduce our group of three, but Gerard spoke first. “I’m Gerard. This is my girlfriend Ebony, and this is our friend Sarah, who we found in New York a few days ago.” I guess Gerard and I shared responsibility as the leader.

It was Lance’s turn to nod after that, and a heavy silence followed. No one knew what to say; no one knew where to start.

“Look,” I started, shattering the silence. “Let’s just be blunt about this. We’re all different from all the people that died. Not only that, but we survived somehow. We don’t know how. All we know is that we are special.” I turned to Lance. “You can talk to people in their heads.”

He avoided my gaze, mumbling, “I can.”

“Well, there’s no need to think that’s too weird, because Gerard has dreams about the past, present, and future. I have a tendency to know things that other people don’t, like when something bad is going to happen or how long it would take us to get from New York City to Catskill, or how to get here. Sarah has supersonic hearing.”

The four new children looked at us blankly for a minute, soaking it all in. At last, Miranda spoke up, saying, “I… I have telekinesis.”

I felt like someone had poured icy water on my head. That sounded like a powerful thing to have.

Nadia spoke next. “This is going to sound so stupid and crazy,” she said sheepishly, “but Ethan can teleport himself and other people touching him. I can teleport other things and people. That’s how we got here so fast.”

We all looked at each other tensely, afraid someone wouldn’t believe someone else. But everyone believed. They just didn’t know what to say.

“Okay,” Gerard offered. “Now that that’s over with and out in the open, why don’t we tell our ages and what has happened to us since everyone else died.”

Nadia started. “When everyone died, I didn’t know what to do. But within seconds, Ethan teleported to my house. He wanted to see if I was dead. I wasn’t. We lived in my house in California for the next few days until we heard Lance in our heads. We went to the library, found out where Catskill was, and then came here this morning. We’re twelve.”

“The night before the sun set and everyone died, I dreamed it would happen,” Gerard told them. “Ebony had a feeling we should go to the city. We did, and the day after they died, we found Sarah all alone. We’ve been living in hotels since then, until we got Lance’s message. Ebony and I are seventeen, and Sarah is ten.”

“Miranda and I are fifteen. We’ve just been living here since everyone died,” Lance said.

Then they all looked at Gerard and I. “What are we supposed to do?” Ethan asked timidly. It was the first time he had spoken.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Why are you looking at us?”

“You’re the oldest,” Miranda replied simply.

“And the smartest,” Sarah added.

Gerard and I exchanged a worried glance. We weren’t only in charge of Sarah now. All five of them were looking to us for direction. It wasn’t exactly what we’d wanted, but it was what we’d gotten.

Gerard took a deep breath and turned to our audience. “Alright. If you’re all going to look at us for advise, you need to trust us and listen to us. Can you do that?” All five of them nodded.

“All our lives we’ve been spoiled,” I said, taking over for Gerard. “We haven’t had to worry about our basic needs. Food, water and shelter. Not only that, but health, clothes, social relationships, education… these are all things a human needs to survive and be healthy mentally and physically. This may shock you: we are not human. I don’t know what we are, but we need all those things that humans need. We should start with the basics and go from there.” I paused and waited for Gerard to continue.

“First of all, we need to pick a general area to stay. This town seems perfect to me. Next we need to make it a sanitary place to live. Which means – no matter how grotesque it sounds – we need to do something with the bodies,” he stated grimly.

“I think we should find a place to bury them,” I put in. “I don’t know exactly how all your abilities work, but I’m sure with powers like telekinesis and teleportation we can get the job done pretty quickly. Maybe even by tonight. Once we have that out of the way, we should figure out where we’re going to live.”

“Basically, we can pick any house around here. We should also worry about food, water, and how to keep ourselves clean,” Gerard added. We were finally finished, and they all stared back at us silently.

Surprisingly, Miranda was the one to speak up. “I can be in charge of digging the hole to put the bodies in. It should really only take me a few minutes to move the dirt. It won’t be hard,” she said.

“I can teleport the bodies into the hole she digs,” Nadia offered. “It might take me a while to get around town, though. I’ll need help finding the bodies. That might be a problem. What if we miss some?”

“I can help you with that,” I said. “It won’t be difficult for me to find them.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sarah said. “I can’t really help with anything else.”

Gerard nodded. “Alright, then. Girls are in charge of bodies, it looks like.” He didn’t look pleased about this. Neither was I. “I guess us guys will work on food, water, and shelter.”

“I can teleport one or two people at a time,” Ethan said softly. “We can move much faster that way.”

“I can help get in touch with the girls if we need to,” Lance said.

“Let’s get started then,” I suggested. “Maybe we can finish by tonight.”

Every one agreed and stood up. I looked at Gerard. He was looking right back at me, his eyes full of a deep sadness. I knew where it was coming from. We hadn’t been out of earshot since the night before the world as we knew it had ended. It had been almost four days since then. Now we would be parting.

Despite the young kids and the slightly older teens right in front of us, he took my chin in his hand and gave me one of his meaningful kissed. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I’ll miss you,” I countered.

He nodded, pecked me on the lips one more time, and turned to Ethan and Lance. Sarah was giggling, and Ethan and Nadia made disgusted faced, but Lance and Miranda gazed into each other’s eyes, saying their own goodbye. It had only been two years since I had been their age. I’d been just as in love with Gerard then as I was now. Maybe they were just like us.