I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow I was able to survive long enough to make my way through the city, pick up a belonging from everyone’s now empty apartments, avoid all the scattered corpses, recognizing a few more of them than I cared to, and finally making it to the abandoned gymnasium at the school we all attended back when everything was good and nothing was on fire except for our hearts.

After building the biggest fire I possibly could in the middle of the gym, I let the flames grow high, licking, and hissing at the beams of the ceiling. I stood back and admired how one person could make a fire that big. I suppose all the lighter fluid I found in the basement helped. I put my backpack on the scuffed linoleum floor and unzipped it. From inside, I pulled out f...

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