September 9

For the food situation, we ended up going for the sneakier route. Last time we had force fed Mom and Dad, the situation was different because while we didn't have any sunlight, at least we had a stable but diminishing food source, but now, they'd probably be less receptive to us breaking their food rationing list.

"That seems like a lot of string beans," Mom said.

"Maybe that can had extra ones," May said with a shrug. "But who cares? When good things come, don't question them."

Mom was right though. We had given her one and a half cans of string beans, splitting that extra can we planned to give her across brunch and dinner. Mira wanted to give them three meals, but May thought that that was too suspicious and didn't work well with their food apportionment, so we ended up going with her plan.

"And you guys are following our food list?" Mom asked. "And portioning everything correctly?"

"Yes. Now eat and stop being weird."

"I'm being careful," she said and looked at both May and me. "You guys want some?"

"Worry about us later," I said, and then, Mom started eating her food. Then, we woke Dad up and made him eat food, and he asked the same questions as Mom, and we told him the same reassurances, mixing lies and truth together.

And soon, they began looking a lot better, and Mom began moving around the house, organizing the pantry, counting the amount of firewood, before pulling out an old workplace calendar, x-ing out the dates up till today. She then took out expo markers and began assigning tasks for every day, and May said to me, "Maybe, it might have been better to not give them food."

"Mom is probably going to forget about whatever she's making," I said. "Considering how she completely forgot about the textbooks that we got. Have you even touched the textbooks?"

May shook her head. "I tried reading the book that you got, Gatsby or something, but it was so boring. I don't even know why the librarian person recommended it."

"Yeah," I said. "Classics are super overrated anyways."

"But I think this time Mom will remember," she said. "It's like last time she was just trying to, you know, make everything normal normal even though it isn't, but now, she's just trying to make things normal."

"So deep," I said. "I have no clue what you just said."

"Whatever," she said and walked away to a corner of the room before plopping onto the couch and staring at the ceiling. For all our worries about the world ending and people starving and dying, sometimes, the apocalypse can feel so boring, almost. We're washing dishes and watering our tiny sproutlings and playing card games as the world crumbles around us.

When it was the evening, I stared at the sky, watching the colors swirl around, the oranges and lavenders and ruby reds, and it made sense why it was called magic hour. Because when the sky comes alive like that, it's almost as if anything is possible because the world is glowing and breathing life and saying that everything's going to be alright for the night as the pinks fade to deep purples and then indigos.

I thought about Leon's wish about hot-air balloons in the sky and the dusk blossoms around them, and I thought about me with some guy that actually cares about me being there. The awkward chemistry, the warm breaths, the stargazing and constellations speckled above us. Maybe it could be real because it's magic hour and anything's possible.

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But then again, magic hour isn't really magic, and the colors are just light bouncing weirdly off of air and dust and clouds, and I'm worried that everything won't turn out the way that I want it to. I feel like I'm taking a step forward and a step back every time I write about this. I know the way forward, and I know it's right, but it's like I don't know why I can't take it and just say it.

That's exactly when Dad interrupted me. "What are you thinking of? You've got that look, like you're staring in the distance."

I snapped out of my stare. "Nothing. I'm going to eat dinner now."

"Sit down," Dad said gently. "I know I've been busy lately, but I feel like we have really had a lot of father-son time."

"There's nothing really much to talk about?"

"Anything interesting in the book you're reading?" he asked, and I shrugged before he added, "Then, tell me about your last book. Anything exciting happen?"

I couldn't tell Dad what I was reading about, but I, for some odd reason, was feeling extra bold in that moment, so I said, "Well there's, I guess, some romance—"

"Romance," Dad said. "I didn't know you were into that since it's so..."

But I got the memo of what Dad was saying, so I quickly backtracked. "It's only a small part of the story. Most of it is in a fantasy world, with dragons and knights and people fighting to save a kingdom."

"Sounds awesome," Dad said, and I cringed inside as a moment of silence stretched along. Then he pointed to his lip. "You really need to shave—"

"Goodbye," I said and left the room. Dealing with my emotions was more than enough change for today and tomorrow until forever.

Dinner was relatively standard. Everyone was a bit more upbeat today, though Mom and Mira, when she came back at around eight or nine, didn't talk much, except for when Dad warned us about tomorrow. "We've got to be careful tomorrow," Dad said. "We got lucky last time with the mayoral meeting, but that was when there was still food and security. May, you're staying at home with your grandparents. It's too dangerous and you're not old enough."

Normally she'd have a snarky retort, but she just sighed without resistance. "Fine."

Dad turned to Mira. "Mira, I want you to bring your handgun."

"What?" Mom said. "We never discussed this."

"This isn't up for discussion," Dad said. "It's dangerous out there. Last time, weapons were kept outside, but this time, guns are going to be flowing all across the room, so we need to keep ourselves safe. Otherwise, we might just end up like the couple last week."

"We can take knives or lighters," Mom said.

"Knives are more dangerous than guns," Dad said. "They can slip, and we can cut ourselves badly. Guns are safe. There are safeties and other measures to prevent them from hurting someone accidentally."

"We agreed that we weren't having guns in our house and around our kids."

"We agreed to not bring guns into the house," Dad said. "But we never said that we couldn't take them out for self-defense."

"Are you prepared—"

"Yes. I'm prepared to shoot the gun to kill," Dad replied, deadly serious. "I don't like it, and it goes against all my religious principles, but there's nothing that'll stop me from defending my children, nothing. Mira already taught me the basics, and I'm ready"

"Let's have a vote—"

"Just trust me," Dad said. "I've made mistakes, but I know this is the right thing to do. And you owe me for the rockfall situation."

Mom gave Mira a glare before looking back at Dad. There was an awkward silence here, May and I scraping our spoons on the bottom of the bowl, attempting to get the last of the cool coup. Mom then sighed. "I'm trusting you on this. You both. If anything bad happens—"

"Nothing will."

"This is a bad idea," Mom muttered and put her bowl in the sink.

"It won't be," Dad said. "Just trust me."

It's going to be bad, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want this argument to continue. But it's going to be scary having a gun around us, and I know that I'm supposed to feel comfortable around guns because it's the apocalypse, but I don't because having the power to kill so easily, right in your hands, it's terrifying. I remember that time when that gang of armed men showed up before disappearing into the blizzard of ash, and I remember just waiting for the bullets to start raining all over me.

But I don't want to ruin things with Mira, and I think I have to force myself to get used to it because this is the new normal after all. I've just got to try not to think this way because at some point, I won't be able to.

But still, I can only hope that this normal doesn't end with me lying on the street, bullet hole in my gut as I finally see what comes after life.