Finally, we all ate and managed to settle ourselves down as much as we could. Aaron and I shared the larger mattress, Sarah had the other mattress and Jared had the couch.

"I got something!" Aaron said excitedly as he was messing with the radio. A male voice spoke, and the message replayed.

The whole message was as follows:

After hearing that message from the man in New Jersey earlier, I knew I had to make one too.

First of all, I'm from Arborline. I got out of the city right before they dropped the nuke, and kept moving around. I saw... so many things... things that I can't even begin to describe. If you're hearing this... I'm sure you know what I mean.

During my travels, I met others. And then we met more people in turn. We have guns, and food. We've been surviving all this time, moving around, unsure of where to go, finding desolate towns and only a few survivors here and there. Many of us died, but... there's still thirteen of us left.

We tried to go around the city... Tough luck.

The whole city is surrounded by this massive crevasse, way too big to get across. Maybe there's a way... but we don't know. We met up with some people from the East side. They said... they followed the whole crevasse until they reached Arborline. It goes all around the city in a half circle, but stops at the city itself. We followed the whole damn other side. There is not another way around.

Those things are digging beyond the half circle now too... God knows what the hell they're doing.

We started to go through the city but... he gulped, its way too bad in there. We had to come back. That's where we lost most of them...

If there's anyone around here, come meet us.

We're staying in the West side of Crestland now, in the radio station on Arthur Street, a few miles away from the city itself, preparing ourselves to go in... Strangely enough, there were these things all around the radio station, like they were guarding it or something. Lucky for us they were the type that bullets could kill...

We have plenty of guns, plenty of food and we'll accept just about anyone.

With what's in that city, I don't even know if an army coul- No, we'll make it through. But we'll need help. We'll wait here for a week at most. Then, we're going through. I can't stand being blocked in by these crevasses... I can't shake this feeling that something really bad is going to happen if we stay here.

For the first time, I felt a true glimmer of hope.

There were people out there, fighting to survive, banding together and ready to help others. For the first time... I felt like there might truly be some hope of humanity surviving this. It was a small glimmer of hope, but a glimmer of hope nonetheless.

"Well, I guess we know our plan, then," Jared said from the couch, examining his stump arm as he stretched it out in the air in front of him.

"This is great!" Sarah said, clapping her hands together, "Honestly, I was kind of worried we were going to be screwed, but well, if there's a bunch of people, we gotta be able to make it! I'm sure it's not that bad!"

I smiled, "Yeah, we'll definitely make it. There was a convenience store nearby, right? Tomorrow morning, we'll got there, find a map, and then we'll go to the radio station."

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We sat idly for a while, digging through our gear, trying to calm ourselves down and bring our uncertainty at ease. I always found it incredible how normalcy bias even extended to situations like this.

No doubt, the horrific creatures we had encountered, and our mind shattering encounter with "Richard", was at the forefront of each of our thoughts. But still, we tried to push it away, though it would not leave. We subconsciously tried to maintain as "normal" of a life as we could.

Jared was digging through his bag, and accidentally dropped a pouch, its contents spilling out.

"What's that...?" Sarah asked, stretching her neck to see it over Jared who immediately bent over to scoop them back into the pouch.

Around ten police badges were lying on the floor. Jared froze a bit when Sarah asked him what they were.

When he had finished putting them back in the bag, he picked up one and showed it to her, "They're... the badges... of my fallen comrades," he said solemnly, "This one's my brother's."

Her expression softened, "Your... fallen comrades? Right, you said your brother was killed by one of those things. So that means... all of them were killed, huh? I'm so sorry..."

He brought his brother's badge closer, "Don't be. They died in the line of duty. They gave their lives so that others could live... they protected and served. That's more than any other cop nowadays could have claimed to have done."

He looked up, then continued, "The whole reason I became a police officer was because of my dad's dying wish... but when I joined I was... so disappointed. I was naive, and I soon found out that there was so much corruption... all the cops were just looking to fill their wallets, they didn't give a shit about any of the citizens they were supposed to protect. Well, not all of them... there were some good ones. But as a whole, the thing was rotten to the core. So I decided that I'd work my way up the ranks, and change it from within. Make it an organization that could protect and serve, instead of a mafia that only looked out for its own interests and the interests of those ruling over us. My brother felt the same way. So I'm sure... I'm sure he's glad that got to die in a way that upheld that ideal. That's why I can't let him down, either. I gotta keep fighting, keep trying to help as many people as I can in this fucked up world, and maybe..." he took a breath, "Just maybe..." I could see a flame blazing in his eyes, "If we can rebuild society, I want to make sure things are done right this time," he sighed, "And I don't know if society was ever "right" at any point in time... but now we've got a chance at a clean slate. We can make some order from this insanity! I don't want it to go to waste... I don't want us to make the same mistakes."

Sarah closed her eyes and smiled, "Mhmm... that's a very righteous goal, Jared. I absolutely agree. If humanity makes it through this, if there's any way to rebuild.... even if there isn't a way to rebuild.. I want the society that rises out of the ashes of this nightmare to be one that we can be proud of. It will be our duty as the survivors... We will survive, after all, right?"

The four of us smiled, the glimmer of hope lighting our hearts.

Tomorrow we would meet up with more survivors, we would make it through the city, helping anyone we came across, we'd find more and more and more people until we could all work together to build a stronghold near the manor.

I'm sure there were hundreds of those creatures all around the world, capable of things we couldn't even imagine.

But even so... even so! We would band together! We would form an army! We would create a stronghold! We would survive!

"Now you've got me kind of curious..." Jared started, addressing Sarah, "Why did you decide to become a tutor?"

She blinked, then scratched her head, blushing a little, "Well... now that I need to put it into words, I'm afraid it will come out all corny... I became a tutor, because, children are the future!" she blushed more, embarrassed to say anything more.

Jared nodded, "Go on."

She smiled, "I mean... all those kids that I tutored, one day they were going to grow up to be the new people running this world. Not all of them, but most of them... they came from wealthy, selfish families... but I thought that if I could show them just a little kindness and charity, that maybe, just maybe... that would influence them to be better people in the future. Children are the future, and because of that, we need to be careful about the way we interact with them, we need to make them ready to take the reins from us once we're gone. That's why I became a tutor."

Jared smiled, "That's a very noble way of thinking. I like it." he glanced to Aaron, "We need to do everything we can to pave the way for tomorrow. To secure a future for those that will follow after us. Even now... I believe that's possible."

Before long, we decided it was time to get some rest.

Exhausted from the physical exertion, the terror and the uncertainty, but comforted by the bright horizon that was tomorrow... the four of us went to lay down and drifted off to sleep in no time.