By the end of the week, Adan's vitals had at least improved enough for Ilian to let him off the monitors and back into his own bed. Of course, he still had all the fractures and muscle damage to heal from, which could take weeks. Weeks wherein he'd have to either suffer or continue to take the painkillers. And considering his disdain for the possibility of getting addicted, he chose to suffer more often than not.

This was one of those nights. He was once again attempting to grit his teeth and bear the pain, which led to him actually not falling asleep before Aura that night. They had shared a bed for nearly three months now, and he could count on one hand the number of times she had actually fallen asleep before him. And nearly all of those times had been since he had gotten shot.

It was around midnight when he finally gave in and reached toward the pill on the bedside stand. With his still rather limited movement, combined with the darkness of the bedroom, he ended up knocking it into the crevice between the bed and the stand instead.

Biting back a sound of frustration mixed with pain, he attempted to turn onto his still quite injured side to try and locate the fallen pill. Perhaps it was the darkness, or the searing pain that was blurring his vision, but he had no luck spotting the tiny, elusive narcotic.

His eyes then moved to where his phone had been left there on the stand as well, still on the charger, though it had been powered down for weeks now. After all, it had been rather useless since the internet gave out. But at least it could still be used as a flashlight, if nothing else.

His injured arm had been in a sling since his original stay in the infirmary. This forced him to have to do everything with his right arm, as if the blinding pain wasn't enough of a deterrent for attempting the use of his left.

Still doing his best to stay quiet despite the pain, Adan managed to eventually get enough of a grip on the phone to pull it off the charger and turn the power back on in search of the built in flash light. Though as soon as power was returned to the device, he was immediately assaulted with multiple missed message notifications.

“What the...” he mumbled as they flashed across his screen.

“What was that?” Aura murmured, the sound waking her from her ever fitful and light slumber.

“No idea. Haven't had this thing turned on since like week two,” he stated distractedly, though with a bit of guilt in his tone for waking her from the sleep that she so rarely got.

“Were those text notifications?” she asked, pushing herself up onto her elbows and wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“Sounded like it...” he stammered as he slowly laid back, rotating the phone as best he could to read the screen.

“Who the hell is texting you? Or anyone?” Aura asked loudly, now fully awake as she moved closer to peer at his phone as well.

“There's like eighty of 'em. All sent from some unknown number. All around the same time every day,” he told her, dark eyes wide as he scrolled through them.

“What? Well, what the hell do they say?”

Having scrolled to the top of the list of notifications, Adan tapped on the first to read it:

Unknown: “If you see this, please respond. I'll send this out every night to every phone still working within a twenty-mile radius. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep sending them, or how much longer we'll survive here. Please respond if you have a safe place.”

“Shit. Other survivors? Near here?” Aura breathed.

“Well, within twenty miles, anyway. But that may as well be twenty-thousand now,” Adan stated softly. “And that was only the first message.”

“Well, what does the most recent say? And when was it sent?” Aura questioned, moving closer to continue reading the screen over his shoulder.

Adan sighed, his pain nearly forgotten in light of this new development. He scrolled to the end of the list of notifications. “It was just sent tonight...” he swallowed hard.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“They're still alive?”

“Or else it's just automated, somehow?”

“Well, what's tonight's say?” Aura pressed.

Adan took a deep breath and tapped the latest message:

Unknown: “We can't go outside without masks. The air is somehow toxic now. We've blocked off any windows and doors we could, but we're nearly out of food. If we go out, we'll either be killed by the air or by some remaining patrol. Please respond if anyone else is out there and can help us.”

“Fuck,” Aura breathed the word.

“Sounds about right,” Adan responded, his voice a near whisper as well.

“Are you going to respond?” Aura asked him warily.

“And say what?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted, sniffling as she snuggled closer to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“Me neither,” he whispered back as the two of them continued to stare at the phone with tears threatening to escape their eyes.

* * *

“Get up, Micah! I'm fucking freezing!” A light-skinned young black girl was angrily saying as she kicked at the ragged pillow her companion was resting upon as well as a pile of equally ragged blankets.

“What are you on about now, Cleo?” he mumbled in response to the excessively high voice that had rudely awakened him yet again.

“It's freezing in here!” she told him in the same tone, hugging her arms around herself.

They both appeared to be in their late teens or very early twenties. His complexion was lighter than hers though. Her mother had been black, his Italian. His longish dark curls were unruly either from his recent sleep or perhaps naturally so. They were both dressed in worn clothing that looked like it had been expensive at one time.

Cleo wore a tight pastel blue baby tee under an equally expensive but worn leather jacket and excessively snug designer jeans, as if that sort of thing even mattered now. Whereas the male, Micah, was wearing a black shirt that looked like it may have been a rich velvet at one time. With that, he wore equally black leather pants and a long trench coat. Other than the difference in complexion, the two did seem to have nearly identical dark eyes; a gift from their father.

“It's a freezer, of course it's freezing. But it's also airtight. But by all means, if you prefer warmer, more poisoned air, feel free to sleep somewhere else,” he told her with a quiet sarcasm.

“You're such as asshole,” she mumbled as she turned away from him, knowing she had lost that argument. After all, he was the smart one in the family. But she was the pretty and successful one. Of course that was before all of this, when family or success were concepts that actually meant something.

“Again, if you'd rather go find someone else to keep you alive, well good luck. Though the alien assholes don't seem like they'd be very amenable to that idea. But maybe you can charm them. Offer to show them your IMDb page or something,” Micah told her mockingly as he pushed curls from his face and moved to reach for one of their last few bottles of water.

“The world's ended and you still hate me for all my success, just because I did something with my life, while you just hid in your room with your computers,” she continued the argument, hunger and cold doing well to sour the already poor moods the state of the world had left them both in permanently.

“Yes, you're success has really helped us out,” he scoffed, gesturing to the walk in freezer that had been their latest hiding place to sleep in over recent nights.

“How quick you forget; I'm the one who convinced dad to even take you in in the first place. You owe me!” Cleo shot back in that grating tone that became even more so when angered, which she usually was these days.

“Yes, I believe your words that day were something like, please come stay at the estate. You're such a screw up, it'll make it easy for him to decide who to leave everything to. Or something like that,” Micah told her bitterly as he took a sip from the half frozen water bottle.

“Yes, and it worked. He did leave me everything,” she returned.

“And a lovely pile of rubble it now is. Amazed you didn't wanna stay there among the debris. Almost like you preferred going into hiding with me here keeping us both alive as best I could for the last three fucking months! Who owes who now?” he bit back.

“Dick,” she mumbled as she glared and moved past the makeshift bed to rummage through their remaining food supply. As she moved past, something caught her eye. “You're phone's blinking. Did it finally die after all those pointless messages you keep sending to no one?”

“No, cause I've been using the generator to keep it charged...” he answered distractedly as he moved to retrieve the phone, eyes widening as he did. “Someone finally answered...” he breathed the words, both of them looking back at the phone in shock.