We woke up that next morning to the sun shining in through the windows, the apartment chilled from turning the propane heater off overnight. I woke up snuggled into Oliver, his arms wrapped around me. He was till asleep, his eyes shut peacefully. Bear laid at the foot of the bed, head between his paws. If I hadn't known it was the end of the world, I would have thought it was a regular day.
    I slipped out of bed and padded into the living room. I ate a quick breakfast, brushed out my hair and rebraided it, then grabbed a bag and went to the next level of the apartment with Bear. I  began going door to door, not only checking cupboards for food, but bathroom cabinets for medication, finding anything that I could and throwing it in my bag. I didn't know what half the meds were for, but I knew you could never be too prepared.
   The air was chilly, and despite the fact that I was inside, a chill left goose bumps raised on my arms. I realized that everybody at the bunker could use new clothes, so as I went through the apartments, I also grabbed a few clothing items, something for every person. I generally grabbed anything that I thought could help us out at the bunker, from clothes to food to tools to blankets. Anything that could help us stay alive.
   I walked into one apartment where it was evident that children had lived in once upon a time. Toys remained scattered on the floor, both boy toys and girl toys. Bear went ahead and sniffed around the apartment as I walked to the toys, kneeling down. I picked up a toy car, flipping it around in one hand.
    I thought about a family, a brother and sister playing together happily. Their mother stood at the kitchen making dinner, and their father sat at the kitchen table reading the paper, home early from work. And then they'd hear the bombs, and the room would shake, and the mother and father would look at each other. Their TV would switch from their television show to a national warning about bombs dropping, and they would panic. They would drop everything. Each parent would grab a child and run to their cars, just like the rest of the population tried to. And they'd drive to the highways, which were too backed up with traffic to get through. Bombs would continue to drop around them, and the kids would cry and ask why the world was burning and their parents wouldn't be able to give them a good answer.
    I dropped the car my hand shaking. It clattered to the ground and I could feel the tears welled up in my eyes, my chest feeling too tight and the room feeling too small. I stood up and walked to the window, opened it, and stuck my face out. The frigid air was cold on my face, but its fresh taste allowed me to breathe again. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath, over and over again until the thoughts of the scared children and terrified parents escaped my mind.
    I walked back to the toys, and picked up some loose books laying around. Children's books, ones for little boys about trains and animals and cars and planes. I also looked at a stuffy laying on the floor, a toy kangaroo. I thought back to a happier day on the farm, when I was in 9th grade, and William was only 4. We were sat together on the couch, him fiddling with some toy army men and I on my laptop. I was working on an informative essay about Australia, and one slide was about its unique wildlife. I was looking up pictures of kangaroos to add when William looked over and pointed to one of the photos.
    "What's that?" He asked. I smiled at him.
    "A kangaroo," I answered. He asked what they were like, and I explained to him a bunch of facts about kangaroos. Ever since that day, for whatever reason, kangaroos had been his favorite animal.
    "Enid? Are you up here?" Oliver's voice snapped me out of my memory. I picked up the kangaroo and shoved it in my bag.
    "Last door on the right!" I called back. I stoop up and brushed myself off and walked to the cupboards, opening them up. I started checking cans for expiration dates as Oliver entered the room. I turned back to him and smiled. "Hey."
    "Hey. Checking out the last few rooms?" He asked, bending over to pet Bear who had trotted over to greet him. I nodded and continued rifling through the food. 
    "Yeah. I just want to make sure we bring back as much as we can," I answered, tossing a few cans into my bag. Those cans topped the bag off, and I was no longer able to fit anything else in it. I zippered it up and turned to him. "My bags are all filled though. We should start heading back home."
    He nodded and stood up. He looked at me and I looked at him, and I remembered the night before when I crawled into his arms without thinking about it. It wasn't like it was the first time he and I had ever slept in a bed together, but it was the first time he had ever held me as I went to sleep. It was nice. It was comforting. His arms felt like home. 
    We went back to our apartment, gathered all of our things, and put all of our winter gear on. We looked at each other with one final nod and left the apartment building.
    The air was like liquid nitrogen, automatically freezing my face as we walked through the door. Snow fell in heavy flakes from the sky, but it was a different snow. It wasn't black, wasn't grey. It was white. Bright, crystal white. I looked at Oliver and laughed. I held out an outstretched hand, a delicate little snowflake landing on my glove. I laughed, a smile stretching out on my face. Pure white. Clean snow.
    I looked at Oliver and laughed, snowflakes covered his hair in white dust that quickly melted away. He smiled at me and looked up, watching the white ice crystals trickle down from the clouds. The world was quiet, the world was peaceful, and the snow was white. It was a small victory, but I took it. 
   Although the white snow meant the clouds were clear of the ash, which meant any rainfall would be clean and we could start to gather fresh water, we knew snow meant bad roads and we knew we had to move out. We moved quickly through the city, our footsteps being quickly covered by the heavy snow. We moved from our brisk walk to a jog, and then to a sprint as we realized that the roads would get worse and if they got worse it would be too hard to get home.
    I wondered what Robert and Natalie were thinking, if the kids were worried, if mom even noticed. I was suddenly filled with such a blood boiling anger, a burning hatred towards my mother and her grief. I didn't understand her pain. I didn't understand how she could just shut down and abandon us, her kids, because she was too wrapped up in her own pain to consider the fact that her children were hurting. She was let without a husband and we were left without a father. She had survived without him before, we never had.
    I had been doing a decent job taking care of the kids but I knew I wouldn't be able to forever. They would be growing up and I would try my best, but I wouldn't be able to do it forever. I was too young to be a mother to two children. I needed her. I needed a mother to look after me and care for me sometimes. But all she could do was lay in bed and cry and  make people worry about her. It was selfish.
    I cleared the thoughts from my head as we approached the outer city. The snow was falling faster and heavier by the second. I fished the keys out of my jacket pocket and unlocked the car. We threw our bags in the back seat and Oliver put Bear in the trunk before climbing into the passenger seat. I climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine.
    I pulled out onto the road and cursed as the wheels swerved. The roads underneath the snow were pure ice. Oliver put his hand on my leg and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
    "Just drive slow, it'll be fine," He said, his voice calm and collected. I nodded and pressed the gas again, and off we went.

    It took us double the amount of time to get back to home as it did to drive to the city. The roads were slick and hard to drive on, but we finally made it back tom the farm. By the time we had, almost a foot of snow had landed on the ground coating everything in the heavy white powder.
    We pulled into the driveway and I laid on the horn. I pulled the car into park and took a deep sigh of relied, closing my eyes. We had made it home. I felt Oliver's hand on mine, and when I opened my eyes to look at him, he was smiling.
    "We did it, we made it home with stuff for the family," He said. I nodded and smiled back at him.
     We hopped out of the car and opened the back doors. My head turned as I heard my name called out in the distance.
    "Enid!" I heard a young, frantic voice call. My head turned and I looked, my sister barrelling out of the barn towards us. I smiled and laughed a happy laugh and ran towards her. We slammed into each other, wrapping each other in hugs. I pressed my lips to her head and closed my eyes. "I didn't think you were come back," She said, her voice muffled into my jacket.
    "I told you I'd make it back Bee," I replied, using her nickname. We broke apart and my smile grew. "I have a surprise for you."
    She gave me a confused look as I walked to the trunk. I opened it up and stepped backwards, and Bear jumped out.
    "A dog!" She exclaimed, running forward. She dropped to her knees in front of him, scruffing up his neck fur. The dog licked her face but pulled away, trotting back towards me. I leaned over and scratched his neck. "What's his name?"
    "Bear," I answered, patting the dog twice on the side.
    "No," A voice said sternly.
    We looked up, and there stood Robert with his arms crossed. Natalie stood behind him, her head lowered, arms crossed. In only one day of us being gone, she looked smaller and weaker. My hatred began to grow from not just my mother, but to Robert, too. He had a gift for breaking people.
    I stepped forward and put my sister behind me. Oliver revealed himself from behind the SUV, but he stood behind me with Bailey and the dog. I looked at Robert and held my chin up, feeling my blood begin to warm.
    "I found the dog while finding resources for my bunker. My father let you come here because he was a kind man. I am not going to let you be in charge for a matter of months and turn everybody into depressed, soulless zombies," I growled. He raised his chin up at me, looking down at me with a look of disapproval.
    "You would be dead without me," He snarled back. I stepped closer to him. I heard Bear's footsteps and the deep growl from his chest. I looked down and found the dog standing beside me, teeth bared and hair standing on the back of his neck. I looked back at Robert, who looked like an angry mutt with his bear and shaggy hair and dirty face.
    "And I just proved that I can survive without you. So you can leave at any time," I fired back. 
    He stood back and continued to look at me. He knew he needed me. He knew he needed the bunker and all of our supplies. He knew his family was too close to mine for him to leave. He had no where to go, no place to run. The bunker was the safest place for him and he knew it.
    He shook his head and walked away. We were keeping the dog.

    We unloaded the supplies into the barn, and unpacked it all into the shelves. We folded the clothes and put them underneath the storage drawers underneath the bunk bed. As I got to the bottom of the bag, I discovered William's kangaroo. I took it in my hand and smiled. The fur of the stuffy was soft, the toy seemingly new. I looked at it one last time and stood up, holding it behind my back.
    "Hey William," I said, a playful smile on my face. He was sitting in bed with mom, brushing out her blonde hair. She sat there mindlessly staring at the wall. He looked at me and smiled.
    "Yeah big sis?" He responded, turning back  to mom, brushing out her hair little by little. A pang hit my heart. He was so innocent, he didn't understand that his mother didn't care about him anymore. I shook the thought from my head.
    "I found something for you while I was in the city," I said in a taunting voice. He gasped and jumped out of the bunk, throwing the brush back in the bed. Mom turned and swung her legs off the side of the bed, and sat there staring at the floor.
    "What is it? What is it? What is it!" He asked excitedly. I laugh and crouched down so I was on his level. I raised an eyebrow at him.
    "What do you think it is?" I questioned. He thought about it for a second but ultimately gave up an, "I don't know."
    I hauled the stuffy out from my back and showed it to him. His eyes lit up for the first time in a long time and his mouth formed an "O" shape, which slowly formed to a smile. He took it from my hands and squeezed it tight, holding it tight to his chest.
    "I love it!" He exclaimed. I smiled at him, his happiness radiating from his warm smile and cheery soul. 
    "I'm glad," I replied, ruffling his hair. He wrapped his arms around me in a hug, and I wrapped mine around him. My baby brother. There was almost 10 years between us, but I cared about him like my own kid.
    When I was younger, I took care of William. From the time he was born, I always busied myself with caring for him. I helped mom change him, helped get the bottles ready and helped to feed him. I did everything mom did. At night, I'd sit with him in  his crib, holding him in my lap. I'd sing to him and tickle scratch up his little arms and rock him back and forth  until he fell asleep. As he got older, I taught him how to talk and helped him learn how to talk. And then as I got into my teenage years when I was too cool for everything, I would snap it him and find him annoying. But as I sat there with him in my arms, I wished I hadn't changed and wished I hadn't treated him that way.
    I stood up and put the empty duffel bags away. The bunker door opened and Bailey and Bear came inside, Bailey holding a dog brush I'd found in one of the apartments. Bear looked like a completely different dog; Bailey had brushed out all the mats in his fur and made him look like a dog again, not a matted mutt. I wore a half grin as I saw him and I bent over, scruffing the dog's neck. He licked my face and I laughed.
    "There Bear," I said. "Now I can see just exactly how handsome you are."

    Time went on and things were good for a while. We had enough food and medication to last us at the very least the winter. Oliver and I would occasionally make runs to the city if there was anything we desperately needed, but we were pretty much set to stay in the bunker comfortably.
    We made plans for the springtime to build a greenhouse to start growing our own vegetables in. We also knew we'd be able to harvest the apples come late summer and into the next fall, and I made sketches in one of my notebooks for water collection systems, compost systems, and had made bold plans to go to the city and get solar panels from one of the hardware stores. We had a lot of plans, but a lot of things came unplanned, too.
    Like the amount of travelers coming through. We called them Scavengers, because they'd drive around from house to house and take what they needed, and then would move on to the next place. Some were friendly, some were hostile. The friendly ones we would try to convince to stay, if the group wasn't too big. We managed to convince another family of four to come, a mother and a father, as well as their 13 year old son Ethan and 11 year old daughter Emily. The mother's name was Mary, the father's, Carl. Mary was a nurse who worked at a small clinic outside of the city, and Carl was a carpenter and electrician who had owned his own business before the bombs. Their kids were quiet and well mannered, and they managed to get along well with Bailey and William.
    With the new additions to our family, we moved back into the farmhouse. We figured it was safe to at that point. We took a whole day to move the majority of the supplies back to the house, but left some in the bunker in case of another emergency. The boys shared William's room, and the girls shared Bailey's. My room went to Mary and Carl, and Bailey and I all slept in mom's and dad's room. Robert and Natalie had the guest room, and Oliver slept in the living room. The house was full but it felt nice to have people around. It made the world not feel so empty.
    It had been exactly 2 months since the days in the city. Mary and Clark had been with us for a month, Oliver and I had been hunting for the family, we had been keeping the house warm with the fireplaces, and everything was good. It was the tail end of winter, but it was still cold as all get out outside. I was wondering if the winter was ever going to end.
    I was outside chopping wood on one of the colder days of that particular week. I lifted piece after piece onto the chopping block, and with one swift strike I was splitting the wood into hales, and then into quarters. I threw the split pieces into the wood box, which was getting close to being full. William, Emily, Ethan, and Bear were running around the yard, the boys chasing the dog who had William's kangaroo, Roo, in his mouth. They were laughing and running around, and Bear was very cleverly keeping them around me so I could keep an eye on them.
    Oliver was off in the woods somewhere hunting for game for dinner, and everyone else was inside. If I were to take a bet, I could guess that Bailey and Ethan were in the study, and she would be showing off mom's medical books and showing off her knowledge, and Ethan would be sitting there politely and intently listening. Natalie and Robert were probably helping get ready for dinner, Mary sewing clothes, and Carl fiddling around with some new machine he was working on. He'd managed to write out actual blueprints for the greenhouse, and he was working on building a wide range radio to try and pick up on anybody else trying to send out a signal.
    "Bear, come back!" William squealed. He ran around all dressed up in his snow suit, winter jacket, hats, mittens, and scarf to keep warm, Emily wearing a matching outfit. Bear continued to run away, dodging snowballs the kids threw at him. I watched them for a minute and laughed to myself before going back to splitting wood. I had been splitting the wood from behind the barn, and the dog took the kids in front of the barn where I couldn't see them. I didn't worry, though, I knew Bear would take care of them.
   I raised my axe and brought it down, splitting a piece of wood just as I hear Emily scream. Her scream wasn't a fun filled scream like the one I'd heard all afternoon, it was a scream filled with fear and panic. My head shot up and my eyes went wide, and I dropped what I was doing. I turned around as Bear came barreling through the barn out to me, barking frantically. He stopped and barked at me and then turned around, and I knew it meant to follow. I followed him out tot he front while grabbing my gun off of my hip underneath my jacket, and felt my blood boil as I looked at the sight.
   A group of Scavengers, 4 men and 3 women. One of them had William in his arms in a headlock, his eyes filled with a seething viciousness. His face was brown with dirt and his dark hair was slicked with grease. He wasn't particularly large, but his arms were muscular and his face was hard. One of the women had Emily, the little girl scared stiff, her arms being held behind her back. I guessed that Ethan must have been able to run away and go inside to get the adults. I aimed my gun at the group of people and shouted, all of their eyes catching mine. The remaining people aimed their guns at me, looking similarly feral like the ones holding the children.
    "Let them go!" I shouted. The man holding William snarled at me and William whimpered tears streaming down his cheeks. My eyes caught to the left when Robert, Natalie, Mary, and Carl came running out of the house, each with guns in hand. They stood beside me, and some of the guns aimed at me shifted towards them. "Let them go now!"
    The man holding William chuckled madly and shook his head. "You want me to let them go?" He asked, his eyes crazy with aggressiveness. Emily called out to her mother who could do nothing but let angry tears trickle down her cheeks as she shifted her gun, aiming at the woman holding her daughter. 
    "Let them go, or I'll shoot every single one of you to the ground!" Robert shouted. His own eyes were red with anger. It was a flashback to the night my father had died.
    "We'll let them go as soon as you agree to get in your cars and leave," The man countered. Robert shook his head slowly, gritting his teeth.
    "Not going to happen," He snarled back. Beside me stood Bear, his teeth bared and the fur of his neck standing up on end. His body was low to the ground as he stood, ready to take off and attack at any second.
    " Well then," The man said, quickly reaching to his hip and grabbing a gun, holding it to William's head. William cried out and more tears slipped down his cheeks and I took a step forward, sharpening my aim. "I guess you don't care about the boy very much."
    I felt tears in my eyes as panic raised in my throat. "Wait!" I shouted. I caught William's scared little gaze and I shook my head. I turned back to the man. "You can't do this, they're just kids. Please, don't do this."
    The man gritted his teeth. "People like you killed my boy. People who already had a home who weren't struggling in this world. They just killed him because he was going through their trash trying to find food scraps. I'm not afraid to kill children," His voice was slicked with venom, each word fuelled with hatred. My lips were quivering, and behind the trucks in the distance, I saw Oliver. He raised a finger to his lips, motioning me to be quiet.
    "I am sorry about your son, but please don't do this to our kids. They're innocent. We'll help you, we'll give you supplies, just please let them go," Robert said to the man. He laughed a crazy laugh.
    "You think that's going to help?" He asked in a voice filled with disbelief. His laugh faded and his face went hard again as he glared at Robert. "You people have it easy. You don't know what it's like to be out there with nothing. It's a cycle, you see. The people with nothing take over the places of the people who have everything and leave them with nothing and get everything for themselves. It's only fair."
    "That is not fair, that's ludicrous!" Natalie shouted. The man looked her up and down in distaste.
    "Maybe to you. But that's life for us," He clicked the safety off the gun and pressed it further into William's head. William cried out and my heart panged with pain at the noise.
    It was that moment that mom came running out of the house. She collapsed into the snow between us and the Scavengers, her cheeks wet with tear.
   "Please, give me my boy!" She pleaded, her body uncontrollably shaking. She didn't have a weapon, she was just begging for the life of her son. The man spat at her which made her cry even more. She was pathetic. My blood boiled. She couldn't even try to help her own son, all she could do was cry over that, too.
    "Leave the farm, and you will have your kids! Did you not hear the man?!" One of the other men shouted, his light brown hair curly and wild, his eyes sunken in and dark. His beard had grown long and he had a scar running across his cheekbone.
    "No! We are not leaving! You have 10 seconds to surrender these children," Carl shouted angrily. Everybody had something to lose.
    "We're the ones with the guns to the heads of your children, and you're the ones making threats?" The woman holding Emily cackled. "That's quite cr-"

    POP!

    A gunshot fired and there was a hole in the woman's head. At the same time another gunshot sounded, and I looked at William who had a similar hole in the side of his head. Everything slowed down right then. The man who was holding him let his body fall to the ground, and he looked down at the gun in disbelief.
    My mom screamed out and chaos erupted. People shot at each other but I dropped my gun and ran forward, adrenaline surging through my body. The man who shot my brother looked up and raised his gun at me, quickly shooting. He managed to shoot me in the shoulder, but I kept running. I ran as fast as I could and tackled him to the ground.
    We fell hard into the snow. I reached for the knife on my thigh, but the man threw me off of him like a ragdoll. He crawled on top of me and punched me in the face one, two, three times. He then wrapped his hands around my throat as tight as he could, his eyes filled with murder. My eyes went wide and my heart was hammering in my chest, fighting hard to escape. My hands gripped at his hands, my fingernails digging into his skin, drawing blood. I could feel my vision start to blur, and I reached down to my thigh. I struggled to reach, but I finally managed to grab my knife. I took it in my hand and stabbed it into the side of the man's neck, blood spilling out onto my body. I removed the night causing more blood splatter and shoved the body off of me.
    I stood up and looked around quickly. Amy ducked as she ran to take Emily inside. Robert was fighting with one of the men, same with Carl. I watched as Bear ran over and tackled the man off of Robert and bit the man's neck. He jerked his head and ripped his neck, tearing it to shreds. Mom was holding William in her arms. Natalie was lying on the ground not moving.
    I screamed as I got tackled from the side. As I fell, my head smashed off of the ground and I groaned. I looked up at the woman who had tackled me, who had fury in her eyes.
    "You killed my husband!" She shouted viciously into my face. She grabbed a small knife out of her jacket and went to cut my face. I managed to stop her from cutting me too deep, but I could feel the sharp sting where the knife had managed to slice my cheek. I grabbed her hand with the knife and her other hand, managing to restrain her. I took a deep breath and slammed my head forward, connecting it with hers. She cried out and fell to the side.
    I shook the blurriness out of my head and managed to climb on top of her. I wrestled the knife out of her hand and went to drive it into her chest when I was hauled backwards. I slammed hard onto the ground and hit my head again, black spots filling in the corners of my eyesight. I closed my eyes and shook my head, opening them again, only to be kicked in the side by one of the remaining men. I grabbed him by his foot and hauled as hard as I could, knocking him to the ground.
   I stood up as fast as I could and tried to regain my balance, but my head was spinning and my body burned with pain. I looked to the left and caught sight of my knife in the snow. I dove for it just as the woman I had head butted did. I grabbed it first and slashed it outwards, slicing her chest. I raised my knife to slash again, but I collapsed to the ground as I was kicked in the head. 
   I laid there face in the snow, vision completely blurred. My body burned, and a sharp pain in my side signaled I had been kicked again. And then again. And then I heard 2 gunshots, and then everything was black. I passed out.