Volume 4 – Chapter 11: The Survivors

Date: September 17

Last 14 Days. 

They had not expected more than one person to discover.

But six. Two adults, four kids. Thin, sunburnt, quiet-the kind of quiet that comes from holding your breath for too many months.

They lived in the lower level of the collapsed observatory where old solar panels could still pluck light if properly angled. One rain collector. A barely hanging-on vegetable garden. And an old rifle leaned against the doorway like it had stories of its own.

Renji, as he was called-was a man in his fifties. "I didn't think there 'd be more of us left," he said, sitting near a rusted metal table, both hands resting on a battered notebook.

Kaito, Rika, and Kanna listened to him speak, reliving memories of the initial panic, the riots, and he and his sister gathering all their belongings and fleeing. He would describe how they found that awesome place with a view of the stars and decided it was far enough.

"We heard broadcasts from the capital for a while. Then nothing."

"You don't know what happened to the cities?" Kaito queried.

"Don't need to," Renji replied, "the silence tells enough."

The children stared at Rika and Kanna like they were ghosts.

And Kanna, surprisingly, knelt down and offered them what was left of her biscuits.

"You're not alone anymore," she said.

Rika leaned against Kaito's side, whispering, "Do you think... we should take them back?"

"To where?" he asked. "The shelters aren't finished. We don't even know if they're safe."

"Still..." She looked at the children again. "They deserve to know."

That night, they would gather 'round the fire outside for the first time in ages. Old stories were retrieved: not of the world before, but the world now. The most minuscule ones, like the much cleaner taste of rain after September or how stars seemed to shine brighter when someone was beside you.

At one point, Kanna pulled Rika aside.

"I'm sorry," she said, "for what I said earlier. About your marriage."

Rika smiled, voice soft but steady. "You weren't wrong to question it."

"No, but I was wrong to judge it."

Silence hung for a while, the two watching Kaito talk with one of the boys while showing him how to hold a compass. "I think I understand now," Kanna said. "Even if it all ends... love is still worth choosing."