Knocking coming from the front door of Rein’s small apartment woke him up from a deep sleep. Exhausted the small teen carefully crawled out of bed. His trip to the hospital turned out to be a success, and now he was paying for it. He expected to be able to wait the sickness out without too much discomfort, but found the side affects of the sickness a lot more severe. Still bundled up in a blanket, Rein lifted himself up on tip toes till his eyes aligned with the peephole in the door. “Hello?”
A slightly familiar figure faced the door on the other side, but the distorted image of the girl made it hard to figure out who it was. “Rein? Is that you!?” Hearing the other person’s recognition was a little awkward.
“I’m sorry, who is it? I can’t come out because I’m sick.” Reign explained, hoping the other would just leave. Most people would know instantly that he was in quarantine if they herd this. Unfortunately this girl wasn’t most people.
“Still? Every time I see you you’re sick? You don’t recognize me? It’s Pam! Hurry up and let me in. I already caught the cold going around, so don’t worry about it.” COLD? Hearing someone call the zombie virus a cold was, a little comical. Knowing that she wouldn’t be going away, and feeling a little curious about who she is, Rein reluctantly let the girl in. Pulling the door back, the teen stepped back to let his guest in.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I haven't eaten lunch yet, and I’m starving, so I picked us up some lunch boxes from that taco place down the street.” A rather unassuming girl headed right to the kitchen table in the corner of the apartment. Her dark hair, and soft facial features weren’t the typical characteristics of beauty, but her posture held character. Seeing the girl immediately sit down and start eating, Rein knew he was in trouble.
‘Who was she? And why was she so comfortable showing up like this? Nobody has come to visit me in months.’ Thinking it over, Rein did his best to act like nothing was wrong. Sitting down across from the girl, he took the box offered to him and carefully started eating. It wasn’t a good idea to eat food random strangers gave you, but society hadn’t fallen yet, so it should be fine. Besides, she looked to be around his, current, age, so she should be harmless. He wouldn’t say she was pretty, but she made up for it with personality.
“What happened to your place? Did you get robbed? I mean, you didn’t have much before, but this is ridiculous.” Finally having gotten the chance to start eating, Pam finally took in the bare apartment. Criticizing it, she looked to Rein for an explanation, only to see how tired he look. “Oh, you are sick. I mean, it sucked when I got sick, but I didn’t look nearly as bad as you look now.”
Watching the girl curiously, Rein decided to entertain the conversation a bit. “Yeah, it’s been rough these past couple months. Nothing I can’t handle though. I should be fine in a week, though I did forget you were coming over.”
“Well, I guess. As long as you make sure to go see a doctor if things get too bad, then it shouldn’t be an issue. And I’m not surprised you forgot, since you dropped out of school and all. You’re an asshole for that by the way. The professor paired me up with Matt after you left. I made it about one week before I kicked his ass to the curb.” Suddenly it became clear on who she was, but it didn’t clear up why she was hear. Pam Manson was Rein’s classmate from college, and lab partner. The two of them weren’t friends, but they worked well together in class. Thinking back on it, Rein could understand why this girl was such a stranger to him. He couldn’t even remember what there project was on.
“Actually, this house call really isn’t for your well being. Sorry. I actually came to get the work we did on our astronomy project. You had most of it when you left, and since I put the work in, I wanted to come collect. I’m doing the project solo now, so I was hoping to just pick up where we left off. That way I wouldn't have to do as much.”
With how candid the girl was being, he couldn’t help but like this girl a little bit. Though, part of that might be because he was relived. She wasn’t someone he’d feel obligated to try and save later. One of the biggest reason Rein didn’t go looking for his remaining friends, was because he didn’t want any lingering attachments on doomsday. He just wanted to pick up, and go when the time came. The only people that mattered to him now, weren’t people he could find at this moment.
“Rein...Rein!” Pam waved her hand in front of the boy’s face to get his attention again.
“Oh sorry. What did you say?” This wasn’t good, it looks like his absentmindedness had turned into an issue. He’ll have to fix that if he was going to be taking on Zombies soon.
“Man, you are sick. I asked if you still had the work we did.” Pam explained a little exasperated.
“Oh, yeah.” Remembering the school bag in his room, the one he hadn’t touch in months, Rein was fairly certain it would be in there. “Wait here a second.”
Finished eating, Rein quietly went into his room, returning a moment later with a few papers. “Here it is.” He nodded, holding the papers out to her. An eager hand quickly reached out for them, but Rein didn’t let go when the girl tried to take them.
“What gives?!” Pam glared.
“Nothing, it’s just...” Rein thought about it for a moment. Was he really about to warn this girl about the end of the world? She’d definitely think he was crazy. But, for some reason Rein felt like he’d feel guilty if he didn’t at least try to help her. She said she was already infected, so really the only thing he can do is hope she survives the zombie virus’ activation. How would he convince her to wake up early to watch a sunset though? “I just remembered that there was something I forgot to write down for the project. It was kinda important.”
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Hearing Rein’s explanation, Pam quickly got excited. “Well, quick tell me. Wait, let me get a pen and write it down.”
Rein continued. “I herd from a friend, that on next year on May 20th, there would be a solar flare that you can see around 5-7am. Kinda like the northern lights. It will only last for a few seconds at sun rise though. It would probably be best to go camping, or something away from the city so that you can see it properly.”
Seeing the girl write everything down quickly, Rein knew his plan had worked. Relived, he finally relaxed his shoulders, unknowingly feeling a little tense. Maybe he could use this excuse on a few other people too. Pam would certainly stay awake all night long just to see it, why wouldn’t others? Though she may not survive, she still had a better chance than if she were sleeping. Even if she didn’t get a good ability, she’d at least wouldn’t get blind sided when the apocalypse started...at least not by much.
“That’s a good idea. If I can get a few photos, or even a video, of this, then it will really help with my presentation. Thank you...I wonder why I never herd about this before. Either way, I’m glad you told me. This end of year project is really kick my butt, and I’d hate you if I missed something like this and you didn’t tell me.”
Soon after exchanging a few goodbyes, the girl left. Watching the girl leave down the hallway, Rein felt good about his good deed. Now he could finally go back to bed.
---
After spending a couple of weeks sick at home, Rein continued his plans like normal. Between learning about cars from the mechanic down the street, working out at the gym, and ordering supplies, the young survivalist found little free time for anything else. It wasn’t until his mentor forced him away from the auto repair shop, making him take a break, that Rein finally decided to do something fun. After being reborn, the teen found that he no longer had an interest in most of his hobbies from before the apocalypse. Video games were dull, TV was a waste of time, and sports were only fun when you had friends to play with. Having dropped out of school upon reincarnating, Rein’s network of friends had long dissolved, and It didn’t take long for his few acquaintances to lose touch. What did hold Rein’s interest though, was reading.
Ever sense returning, Rein had found his thirst for knowledge un quenchable. He read books like one one would eat food. After a while it became apparent that the lack of reading material in the apocalypse had caused him to become mentally starved for books. It was this that prompted Rein to look into finding a way to bring this new passion with him on his journey. This however was not easy to do. Taking a large amount of books with you into the apocalypse, is the equivalent to hording a bunch of dead weight. At most, you’d be able to stow away one or two books before things started weighing you down. This is why condensing the information one carried was crucial. So then, what would be the lightweight alternative for carrying around a library? Data. Having already obtained a couple of portable generators for the truck, Rein only needed a laptop and storage device to feed his new addiction. So, while he was out during the day, he set up his computer to download books from an online library. These books he copied to a number of external hard drives, that he then labeled based off of their genres.
Starting with practical how to manuals, before moving on to more specific information like computers, mechanics, and gardening, Rein downloaded a lot of useful information. Next he downloaded things such as language, and education, prioritizing the things necessary for teaching. Lastly he branched out to more personal interests, like: martial arts, science fiction, and romance novels. The whole process took days before he was satisfied. In the end Rein found himself with over thirty hard drives with hundreds of thousands of books to read. He doubted he’d ever read all of them. He locked the hard drives in a water proof storage container, along with a couple of tablets dedicated to viewing these files, before stowing them away for later.
---
During one particularly cold night, Rein sat in his quiet apartment looking out the window at the cityscape in front of him. Admiring the many lights of F city, wrapped in a warm blanket, Rein casually sipped some hot tea as an unexpected snow storm blanketed the city in a light layer of snow. Nearby a half eaten piece of cake sat on a coffee table. Today was February 1st, Rein’s Birthday. Despite years of chaos, he never forgot the date. He half wondered if anyone could truly forget their birthday. Tonight, the young man turned twenty years old, again. There was less than three weeks till the world ended… again.
---
During the last two weeks before Doomsday, Rein finally returned to one of the truck rental companies to sign a two week lease agreement. Already knowing what truck he wanted, the youth strategically convinced the rental company to provide him with the make and model he’d need for ‘Moving.’ Having previously arranged to rent out a work space from his mentor, Rein began working on his new project.
At first Rein thought about painting over the logo of the yellow 16ft moving truck, in case anyone came looking for it, but after some thought the boy realized it was better to leave it be. If anyone had the time to go looking for a missing rental truck during the end of the world, then they deserved a medal...but not their truck back. Till then, the logo would be the perfect camouflage against looters. Nobody bothered to loot from rental truck at the beginning of the apocalypse. They were usually empty or carried useless furniture. The kind of trucks people usually went for, were bigger trucks that could have possibly been transporting food. Seeing as the truck he was working on was only a fourth of a size as those semis, nobody would think there was anything valuable inside.
Skipping the paint job, the first thing Rein did was replace the engine. A while back the teen had found a steadier, and more reliable, engine that he had planned on using. This would be the most difficult part of the modification, and thus was the first thing he had to finish. If the truck was too slow, or broke down too easily, then the mobile home he was working on wouldn’t last very long. This took a majority of the first week, but with the guidance of his mentor he’s managed to skillfully finish. It was fallowing this endeavor that Rein started to realize how reliant he’d gotten on the old man in the workshop. He’d have to do something to make up for all the help.
Fallowing the changing of the engines came the reinforcements. Most of the truck was pretty sturdy, but in case he had to go off road, Rein decided to replace the wheels and suspension with something that was a little more shock resistant. This also took up a lot of time, putting the youth well into his last week before the apocalypse. Now short on time, Rein’s last few days was spent replacing the windows with bullet proof fiberglass, and welding a few metal grates onto the sides of the truck. He was just able to reinforce the interior of the truck with a few extra reinforcements, before he was forced to quit. If he had put off packing the supplies any longer, he wouldn’t have enough time to make his escape. Saying goodbye to the old man, and carefully imploring him to take shelter the next few days, Rein drove the truck to the underground parking lot below his apartment complex.
Two days remained. Rein spent both days packing up his supplies into the back of his truck. There were a few modification he hadn’t gotten around to, forcing him to shove most of the spare parts in the back of the truck. Failing to keep things organized, the youth got a little creative with how he stored things. Things such as food, seeds, water and other consumables would be held near the back, while the various equipment, such as solar panels, car batteries, and gasoline would be stored near the front making for easy access. There were a few other things as well, such as cloths, and other necessities stacked up randomly in what ever space was left, but wouldn’t be so easily gotten too in a hurry. By the time he’d finished packing, the truck was already half filled up. This would get Rein past the initial stages of panic in the beginning.
However the teen still couldn’t buy everything he needed, due to a lack of money. So, he would still have to brave the streets of the city to pick a few things up. He had already been pushing his luck with the landlord these last two months, and had just barely managed to make it these few weeks without being evicted. If the world didn’t end like planned, he’d immediately become homeless. Rein often laughed to himself about this. What if the world really didn’t end this time? All his scheming and tactical planning would suddenly become a series of horrible life choices. At least he wouldn’t be the only one.