Dear Journal,

Oh my god, why did no one ever say that that end of the world was going to be so uncool??  I mean, I guess I should have figured. I’ve seen The Walking Dead, I know everyone on that show is disgusting 100% of the time. I’m pretty sure they have dirt that’s just like permanently caked under their fingernails, which is just like, ew, you know? I get that there’s no running water, but you’d think you could at least like kind of get them clean by running a leaf under them or something. I know it sounds crazy, but I’d actually tried it, and it’s not that bad, and I’ve got to be like 1000% cleaner than anyone on that show. And I’m talking about the characters on the show, not the actors. Although probably the actors too, if you think about it, if they’re still alive. I hope the guy who played Carl is still around here somewhere. He was pretty hot, and would be much better than the slim picking of guys that we have around here.

Anyway, hi! I didn’t actually introduce myself, which is so actually rude of me, but also you’re a book so I don’t think you really mind. And if you do, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not like you can say anything to me about it anyway. So hi, I’m Kayla! I’m 17, brunette (I know, I hate it too, but my mom said that hair bleach is not really a thing after the end of the world, and if we found any, it would have to be used for other more important things, so I guess I’m embracing my natural hair. Even though I don’t like brown, it’s still really pretty when I tie it up all nice, though), and before all of this went down, I was super popular at my school! I guess I’m still pretty popular around here, but it’s different because there’s really not like a lot of people who are around here who aren’t just adults, and like, who else is going to be popular?  Jared??  Obviously fucking not.

I guess you probably don’t know what all happened, do you? Or maybe you do, I don’t know, I found you under an overturned bookshelf after all, and it looks like you’ve got some burnt parts around the edges of your pages, so maybe you know everything.  Can you even know anything? I guess that’s something that we can figure out together, isn’t it? Maybe this can be like that ridiculous book in Harry Potter where the book starts talking back to you! Except not evil. It’d be super cool if the book wasn’t evil, and you don’t seem evil. You’re pink - literally, how could you even be evil??

Okay so anyway, according to my old world history teacher, Mr. Walton (I don’t know if he’s actually dead, but we sure haven’t seen him around here, so he’s either dead or he’s with another group, and if that happens, then he’s dead to us. RIP in peace, Mr. W!) at one point last year stopped actually teaching us about the history that he was supposed to be teaching us, and he started talking about all this stupid political stuff that was happening in the world. I didn’t really care enough to pay that much attention because I’m not really a political person, I don’t even like trying to choose the prom queen unless I’m trying to get others to vote for me. But he kept talking about it, which was kind of annoying because I knew that we were going to have like our tests coming at the end of the year, and how were we supposed to do good on the history parts of them when we never learned any history?? It was so stupid - I even tried to have one of the cute in a nerdy sort of way guys teach me about what we were missing by not going through the books, and he just kept being all like “no, why would we even talk about history when there’s this big bad coming at us right now” like we were characters in this Marvel movies trying to figure out what to do about that big bad purple guy. Like I tried to explain to him, I couldn’t do anything about politics anyway, so there was no point worrying about it when there were more important things to worry about, like whether Zach was still dating someone or if he was back on the market. He never was back on the market, which was so lame - I just wanted like one date with him, but no, we have to do an apocalypse instead.

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

So anyway, I was worried about that sort of stuff rather than all the stupid political stuff, and then one day, I’m at work, right? And I work at the coffee shop that my mom owns, which used to be like the place that everyone would hang out in because who doesn’t love coffee, right? And I used to be able to give practically everyone coffee for free until my mom said that I wasn’t supposed to do that anymore, which was so stupid that I yelled at her, and I was kind of hoping that she would fire me, but she said it was a better punishment to make me keep working. To make me keep working but not allow me to give coffee to any of my friends. So anyway, I was at work, making coffee just like any normal Saturday morning, when apparently, whatever political guy was ultimately like the big bad purple dude decided to say fuck it, they were done trying to act bad without doing anything. So basically, they let loose some bombs, and then we let loose some bombs, and then everyone else let loose some bombs because if some of the bombs are flying, then they might as well all be flying, right?

So you’re probably asking yourself, self, if the whole world blew up, how is Kayla still here, even though I’m really glad she’s here so I don’t have to be left to decay under a fallen bookshelf? Well journal, you’re missing the coolest part of the story. When my mom was looking for a place to set up the coffee shop, my dad (also RIP we think - he never showed up at the coffee shop, so we’re pretty sure he’s dead) gave my mom a strict budget, just like he did whenever I was going to go to the mall and get some new clothes. And my mom was having a really hard time finding anything in that budget that she could actually buy, because my dad gave her like a ridiculously small price for a building. She probably could have bought a little cart or something, but who wants to try to make coffee out of a little cart? That just sounds like you’re going to spill everything constantly, to be honest.

Well, my mom was super determined, just like I would have been if my dad had given me a budget like that for my prom dress or something, and she said fuck it, I’m going to find a place anyway. So she worked with this realtor dude who was like “you know what? This might sound crazy, but I’ve got this super ridiculously great deal that you should totally take us up on right now if you want to actually have your coffee shop.” And my mom said “hell yeah, that sounds great” and bought the building right away because it was well within the budget. That was great, because she needed the rest of that money to redecorate, because the building that she bought was an old bomb shelter from the first world war! And while I really don’t think it was still intended to be sheltering people from bombs, apparently they really made the shelters to last, because I was in here when the bombs dropped down, and I’m just fine! Kinda gross, like everybody is in the apocalypse, but otherwise fine.

Okay, I gotta go, I’m running out of space on this page, and the next page is for a different day. I’m pretty sure this journal was originally meant to make someone want to journal every day, which I think is really cool, but in all honesty, I don’t know what day it is. I think it’s in August?? But it’s definitely not January 1st. But either way, we’re all going to pretend that it’s January 1st, and then when I come back, we’re all going to pretend it’s tomorrow even though who knows if it actually will be. But we’ll pretend, because that’s about all we have left to do around here anymore.

Okay, gotta go, bye!

Love,

Kayla.