Dear Journal,

Sorry it’s been a whole week this time, but when I tell you what happened, you’re going to be so excited that you forget that I forgot about you! You know, I would have thought that the end of the world would mean that I’d have so much time to actually focus on things like writing in a journal, and I would have thought I’d be so bored that this was the height of entertainment! Not that you’re not entertaining - no offense. But instead of sitting around, just staring at a wall for hours at a time because I’m so bored, it’s so busy that I can hardly sit down for a second! I kind of love it, though - when I’m busy enough, my mom can’t try to find other random chores to force me to do, like counting the food inventory for the umpteeth million time.

Okay, the thing that is so crazy that you’ll totally forgive me for not talking to you for a while! You know how last time, I was saying that if we ever did see that one group again, I would go up and talk to them because honestly, we need more people in our society? Well, I bet you thought that was all just talk because we would never actually see them again. In all honesty, I kind of thought it was all just talk too, although I did definitely want to have the chance to talk with them at least. But as it turns out, surprise! I actually got the opportunity!

So I was in the coffee shop, obviously because my mom wouldn’t let me go out anymore. I was on Mr. Williams watch, which is a lot less of an important role now that he’s actually been taking medicine and starting to feel better, so now it just feels like assigned hang out time, which is fine with me! Jared got stuck moving water bottles to a spot that my mom said was more convenient (although I’m pretty sure she was just looking for something for him to do) and Bryce was on muffin prep, as usual. While there’s a part of me that kind of misses working in the kitchen, I’m also kind of glad I’m not doing it anymore - it was fun, but I kind of burned myself a lot, and when there’s no running water, that means there’s no running water to run your burn under. But anyway, we were all busy, so we weren’t super paying attention, and mom and Ben were out scavenging again, even though it was pointless for them to go because they literally never brought anything back with them.

So I was talking with Mr. Williams and Hattie, and Mr. Williams we telling me about how he won a parcheesi tournament or something back in his day (honestly, I was trying to listen, but you know how old people are when they start telling a story that doesn’t really have a beginning, middle, end, or a point), when I looked up and there was another person in the coffee shop. For a second I thought I was seeing things because nobody was reacting (although I don’t think they saw him at first either), and also because the guy that was standing there was super hot! Think like Sam from the show Supernatural, except not actually like 35. Plus, he was super clean, which is something that none of us were ever expecting to be again.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

After a moment of blinking and trying to get my eyes to stop playing tricks on me, it was clear that Jared saw him too, because he almost pissed his pants. He’s really so ridiculous - if he wanted to kill us, he wouldn’t go through all the trouble of waiting until we saw him! But I stayed true to my word, and as soon as I decided that he was in fact a real person, I hopped right up and headed over to say hi to him.

So anyway, his name is Hansen, and while he was not in the specific group of people that we saw, he apparently lives with them, and when we saw them, they actually ended up seeing us, and they’ve been looking for us ever since. Guess we weren’t as sneaky as we thought, but whatever, it all worked out! Hansen said that his dad, who is kind of the leader of their group like my mom is kind of the leader of outs, was the giant man that we saw in the group, and he’d wanted Hansen to go out and see if we were friendly people, or if we were going to do something like hurt them to try to steal their resources. I swear, all the men who were left behind watched way too many zombie shows and got paranoid!!

I told him no, there was literally no way that we were ever planning on hurting his group, and in fact we didn’t even know his group existed before we went out there. I explained that we don’t really go that far out, because my mom wants to make sure that we all stay close to the coffee shop, and that she’d tried her best to make sure that we were never going to go that far out again. Hansen said he got it, because his dad is like weirdly overbearing like that, except he’s obviously not because Hansen was in the middle of our shelter instead of being locked away on his own, so I’m not sure if he was just trying to make himself seem super relatable or what. Either way, it was kind of weird, but you know how when someone’s hot, sometimes you don’t even care about them being all that weird.

Anyway, so Hansen didn’t really stay that long, because he said he had to get back to his dad’s, and it was even farther out than we had travelled to get to that drug store. I had no idea how he was going to manage to do that before it got dark, but he didn’t seem that worried about it, so I didn’t question. But as soon as my mom and Ben got back, I learned all of the questions I should have asked.

My mom was super disappointed that she had missed Hansen, but I partially think that’s because she wanted to tie him up and store him with the muffin mixes for our safety. When Jared told her about Hansen, I could almost see individual strands of her hair turning gray, even though I was actively telling her that Hansen seemed really cool and that I think we can trust him. But as far as she’s concerned, I’m her teenage daughter, so whatever I think is wrong. It’s so stupid.

But anyway, I think I’m somehow more grounded now, because I didn’t bother to tell my mom about the people that we saw when we were out on our scouting trip. Not that she asked or anything, remember, but still, totally my fault like always.

Anyway, when I was starting to get ready for bed, I saw my mom and Ben stacking some of the full bags of coffee beans against the door, probably hoping that that would keep other people out of the shop. I wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter, because Hansen probably wasn’t even halfway back to his dad’s house yet, but I knew that she wouldn’t listen to me, so I didn’t bother. It doesn’t hurt anything to move the coffee around anyway, so I guess if it makes them feel better, then whatever. It’s still stupid.

I’ll try to get better about writing. Tomorrow, for sure!

Love,

Kayla