Hey everyone, me again. I guess this might become a daily thing. Routine helps to keep us sane, which was honestly probably one of the few things I can really say I learned on my own.

So, journal writing, you're getting chucked in with the other thousand things I do to start my morning. Good for you!

I mentioned it last time, but the first couple of weeks were the hardest for me. Learning how to deal with living here was tough, and that was before "they" made their appearance. But probably one of the hardest was the first week.

I'd already kind of settled into a routine. Reading survival guides in the morning, trying to plan out my day and make preparations for the following week, and most importantly: surviving the dogs.

It turns out that when domesticated dogs get hungry, they will hunt things. Especially if they've already formed packs. And on the sixth day after everyone disappeared, the dogs were very hungry.

As it also turns out, a power grid doesn't shut off cleanly without interference. It will sputter and surge the first couple of times, which fries the wiring in a lot of buildings. When I woke up that sixth day, I remember the first thought I had was: why does the air burn?

It was nearing the end of day five, and I was determined to get this fucking generator working.

I'd been reading and rereading the guide to setting up a generator, and it seemed simple enough. It warned against just hooking up a bunch of extension cords to the generator, as it posed a pretty significant fire hazard, so I'd rooted around the local Home Depot to find a Gen-Cord. That was as far as I was willing to take it, as I had zero confidence in setting up a power transfer switch.

At this point though, I'd had to make multiple trips to that same Home Depot because stupid dumb idiot me didn't realize that amperage was a thing.

Now, after double checking that all of the things I needed to be powered were connected - lights, small extension cords, the fridge and the oven - I turned the fuel valve.

"Alright baby, be good to me." I whispered, pulling the choke handle and pushing in the start switch.

The generator chugged to life once again, and as I held my breath and looked at the house, I fist pumped when I saw the lights flicker on.

"YES!" I shouted, popping to my feet and shooting my hands into the air. "FUCKING YES! I DID THAT! I AM MAN! I MAKE ELECTRICITY!"

I quickly looked up and down the block, pride flaring through me as every house remained dark except for mine. The power had been flickering on and off over the past couple of days, but seemed to have finally winked out earlier this morning. That had been a real kick in the ass to get this generator running, because without it I'd become very limited in my food storing options.

I checked my phone, and watched the wifi symbol pop up on my screen. I'd learned that the internet would go pretty soon after the power did in larger population centers, though not all at once. Google still kind of worked, as did Youtube, but a lot of the sites refused to load. Thankfully I'd saved most of the guides I needed on my computer and phone over the past couple of days.

Still, it kind of bummed me out to realize that the last traces of other people existing were starting to disappear.

Nope. Nuh uh. Not letting myself go back to the depression fest of realizing I was probably the last person here.

I patted my generator lovingly, before walking to the front door of my house. As I was about to walk in though, I heard some bushes rustle to my right, and I paused. Over the past week I'd seen some dogs meandering through the street, and they'd started to notice me. Though they tended to shy away whenever I got close, they still came up to my door every so often.

Sure enough, I saw a brown lab and a german shepherd cautiously approaching my porch. Their eyes were trained on me, ears flat against their heads and their tails wagging slightly.

I frowned, my heart aching as I saw the collars around their necks and the leashes that trailed on the ground behind them.

"You guys hungry?" I asked, and their ears twitched upwards, tails beginning to wag a bit more. I nodded, my lips curving upwards into a smile. "Yeah, you guys are pretty hungry huh? Hold on just a second."

I walked into my house, hearing them skitter away as I moved. I rooted around in my fridge before finding a couple of t-bone steaks that I'd looted over the past week. The ice I'd been using to cool it had mostly melted with the power off, but now with my generator running I wasn't worried about that.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I stepped back out onto the porch, and their eyes immediately locked onto the steaks in my hand. I chuckled, and tossed the first to them.

"Alright, and steak number tw-" I froze as the dogs both lunged for the steak on the ground, and in a fraction of a second went from growling to ripping into each other over it. Shock flooded through my system, the immediate, vicious ferocity on display before me stunning me for a few moments.

"HEY!" I shrieked, throwing the second steak between them. They didn't stop, panic now taking over as I rushed towards them. "HEY, STOP! STOP!"

I tried to get a hand onto their collars, then screamed as the lab snaked its head back to bite my arm. There was a moment of agony before I wrenched my arm back, and I looked on in horror as the german shepherd took advantage of that distraction to sink its teeth into the lab's neck. There was a sick yelp as the shepherd ripped its head back, the lab weakly mewing once before the german shepherd bit it in the throat again.

I ran back to my door, throwing it open and slamming it shut behind me. Breathing roughly, I stumbled my way to the window and peeked open the curtain. The german shepherd was standing over the lab, its fur bristling as it took the steak into its mouth. It limped away, lacerations clear on its legs.

I let the curtain drop, my heart pounding in my chest. My body felt numb, except for the hot, aching throb in my arm. I looked at it stupidly, a row of puncture marks leaking blood from where I'd been bitten.

A week.

It had only been a week, and the pets had stopped being pets.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I had to clean my arm. I stood, my body strangely not feeling like my own as I went to the bathroom. I pulled open the cupboards, and found a first aid kit sitting behind cotton swabs and a bag of nail polish.

I grabbed it, the aching throb now starting to develop into its own special flavor of pain. It wasn't until I was pouring alcohol over the puncture marks that I realized I was crying, pathetic whimpers and sniffles escaping from my mouth as I sobbed on the bathroom floor.

I angrily wiped away the snot, scrubbing my face with my shirt.

I just needed to make it one day without breaking down into tears.

I clenched my jaw as I gingerly wiped the alcohol away from my wound, the pain sharp and stinging as I unrolled a bandage and wrapped it around my arm. Then I packed everything back into the first aid kit and tossed it back underneath the cupboard.

For a long while I stayed there on the bathroom floor, resting my back against the cupboard door. A wave of drowsiness washed over me, lulling my mind into unconsciousness like the tide pulling a person back out to sea. I shook my head, groggily standing up and shambling out of the bathroom. I don't remember walking to my bed. I just knew that I felt relief as my face hit the pillow.

It's hard to describe the feeling of waking up, and immediately knowing something is wrong.

I didn't wake up naturally. It was the pounding headache that did it, along with a single thought; Why did the air burn? I scrambled out of bed and fell to the floor, biting the inside of my cheeks as that action sent a sting of pain through my arm. I'd bandaged it pretty tightly, but coupled with the headache and the panic I was beset by it caused my mind to fog for a few moments.

I dazedly looked around, before realizing that the inside of my bedroom had a thick haze of white that curled through the air. One sniff told me all I needed to know: there was a fire somewhere.

For a few moments, I worried I might have botched the job with hooking up the generator. But the smoke wasn't heavy enough inside for that to make sense. I pushed myself up to my feet, rushing to a window and throwing it open. Craning my head outside, I realized that there wasn't a fire somewhere; it was everywhere.

The street I was on was blanketed by smoke, and I could see animals racing between buildings to escape it. The air itself burned my face, and as I looked around I could see multiple houses glowing red hot through the haze.

And more than that, was the noise. There was this constant burning roar that engulfed the vicinity, mingling with animals yelping in distress to create a horrific symphony of terror. I ducked back inside, sprinting out of my room and down the hall to the front door.

As I stepped outside, the smoke cleared somewhat, no longer being funneled in between the small spaces between the houses. It billowed upwards, blotting out the starlight.

It looked like the houses directly around mine hadn't caught on fire yet, but from the sheer amount of flickering light now illuminating the city I didn't know how long that would last. I ran back inside, some part of me vaguely recalling that I needed to stay low to the ground to avoid smoke inhalation. I grabbed the duffel bag I'd taken from my dorm room and stuffed it full with water bottles and canned food, as well as the first aid kit underneath the sink. Then, running back outside, I took the animals' lead: I got the hell out of there.

I didn't stop running until I was nearly doubled over from the pain in my lungs, hacking and coughing as my body tried to expel whatever poisonous vestiges of smoke it could. I heaved up my dinner, my stomach squeezing painfully as I vomited into the street.

When I'd finally finished emptying my guts out, I stood straight and wiped my mouth, looking around to try and figure out where I was. It looked like downtown Ann Arbor, though with the amount of buildings that had been crashed into and cars crumpled together on the street it was kind of hard to tell. I took out a water bottle and gulped it down, turning around as I did.

The city was on fire, and from here I could see Tower Plaza burning brighter than any of the other buildings around it. I squatted to my knees with a groan, not knowing what to do other than ball my fists into my hair.

...

You know…

I'd always kind of wondered what the city would look like without Tower Plaza.

That thought caused a giggle to leave me. At first it was short and sharp, but it gradually built into a full blown fit of laughter that put me on my hands and knees, racking my body with its force as I continued to watch the city burn.

I was so fucked.