The Aftermath
We thought the worst had already past.  I think it’s been 5 years since it happened,  no one really goes by the yearly calendar, or even keeps track of time at all.  Everything just goes by dusk and dawn nowadays.  Dawn, of course, is an exaggeration, since it is always so dull all the time.  I miss the days when it was actually light out.  Now the sky is at a constant dark red-ish color.  I hate it, but I guess that’s what happens when the world “ends”.  There were seven of us.  Everyone was appointed a certain job after we all found each other.  I, of course, appointed myself leader, and no one challenged me for the position, so I took it.  Basically, what I do is make sure we don’t turn against each other.  Without order, our group would fall apart, and since we were the only ones in the world left, we have to stay together.  I kept telling everyone this.  “We’re the only ones.  We’re the only ones.”  I just don’t want everyone in the group constantly thinking about finding others.  I told them just to worry about us and that’s it.  I told them that we have to be the ones to survive.  I’m very strong willed, in fact, I was doctor before this all happened.  I still remember treating patients, and just living a normal life in general.  Working until 6:00, and then going home to see my family.  I still miss them.  I remember waking up in the morning and seeing everyone in my family smiling.  It’s been awhile since I’ve seen any of them, clearly, but when I try to remember them, the only face I see on them is a smile.  I can’t figure out why, since everything is so horrible now, but it somewhat comforts me thinking about it.  I also try to think about how bright it would always be back them.  I know I said this before, but I just hate how dark everything is now.  It’s like the universe is telling us that we weren’t meant to survive.  I would just die to wake up and see the sun shining, and have everything go back to normal.  But none of that matters now, because those days will never come back, and I have a lot more to worry about.
Right after I appointed myself leader, I wrote out jobs for everyone.  We only have eight people in the group, so there really weren’t that many jobs to appoint.  I gave the security job to Ethan, the youngest member of the group.  He was always wandering off during his shifts, and that always irritated me.  I made it really simple for him, just to watch over the camp, and make sure nothing suspicious is going on, cause you never know what can happen nowadays.  The rubble that we were left with after the catastrophe made it so hard to survive, so I appointed a few people, John, Mia, and Derek, to scavenge for food and other supplies.  Sometimes they would come back empty handed, so I began thinking if they were even looking hard enough.  “Maybe I should just do everything,” I always say to them when they come back with nothing.  Sometimes I think probably should lighten up on them, but we all have to do our part to survive.  The other three people in our group, Jane, Caroline, and Tommy, all did different things.  Jane told me that she was a biologist before it all happened, so I asked her if she would be able to start a garden or something, just to try and bring in more food.  She told me she needed fresh water in order to do that, so we moved camp, very far away in fact, and found a stream still untouched from the catastrophe somehow.  I don’t think she’s made very much progress though, since all of the soil is pretty much ruined.  Finally, I had Tommy and Caroline work on our base.  Storms frequently hit now that half the world is ruined, so I want them to equip our base enough to protect all of our stuff.  I don’t want to have to start all over again.  Now, my job was to basically be the guy with answers.  Whenever someone needed help, they would come to me, and I would pretty much help them.  It always made me feel so wise to have an answer to everything.  However, one day, I didn’t have an answer.  John, Mia, and Derek unexpectedly came back to base looking for me.  They all looked frightened.
“Are you guys all right?”  I asked them.  I wanted them to go back out as soon as possible.
“We found something.  You have to see it.”  John said to me.
“Guys, I hope this isn’t like last time when you brought me all the way out just to see a dead squirrel.”  I said.
“No, Don, you have to see this.”
They all looked really serious.  I began to think that I’m not sure I wanted to go.  I don’t like changes, I just want everything to be normal. 
“Okay then, lead the way.”  I said back to them.
It took us about an hour to get all the way to where they were leading me to, but when I got there, goosebumps came up on my skin.  I started getting pretty frightened. 
“So, what do you think?”  Mia asked me. 
“I don’t know what to think.  It could have been anyone.”  I said.
“Does this mean there are others?”  Derek finally spoke up.
“No, it doesn’t this could be from before it all happened, you never know.” I responded, still trying to get them to think there’s no one else.
“Don, this base looks exactly like the ones we live in.  These people have to have seen us, watched us enough to build something almost the exact same as ours.”  John said.
“Then how have we not seen them before.  They weren’t living that far away.”  I said
“I don’t know, maybe because you’ve been telling us this entire time that we’re the only one’s left.  Mia said.
I could sense her sarcasm.  It really irritated me.
“She’s right Don, we’ve never looked for anyone other than ourselves.”
“Okay, okay.  I’m sure it’s nothing.  Let’s just get back to camp, and get ready for the night.  And I don’t want anyone talking about this anymore.”  I said trying to calm everyone down.
“But, Don….”
“No, I don’t wanna hear it.  Let’s head back to camp now.”
When we got back to camp, of course, Mia spilled the beans, and told everyone else about the base we found.  It’s like no one listens to me at all.  It took me what felt like a lifetime to calm everyone down.  Again, it’s my job to make sure everyone survives.  I kept telling everyone that the base we found could just be a coincidence, and that everything is going to be okay.  But I realized right away that “coincidence” was not the right thing to say.  It freaked everyone out more.  Everyone started yelling at me how this could be a coincidence.  Eventually, I broke and started yelling at everyone like they had been yelling at me.  I told them that there was nothing to worry about and that everyone should just go to sleep.  I told them that we’d figure it out in the morning.  I thought to myself that that would give me enough time to think of an excuse to settle everyone down.  So, everyone went to bed, including myself, and I began thinking.  A few minutes later(yes my mind works that fast) I came up with a great idea.  Now, when we found the base, it was half destroyed.  So, I was going to tell them that a windstorm(which are recurring) probably blew an old base of ours to that spot.  So, that base, is one of our bases.  It was brilliant, and I fell asleep easy, so proud of that plan. 
“Don, wake up.  Don wake up!  We need you this is an emergency.”
“What is it, I wanna sleep a little more.”
“Don, we’ve been robbed.  All of our stuff, our food, our supplies. It’s all gone.”
“What?!  Are you joking?!”  I was in complete shock.
“Call everyone together.  We’ll figure all of this out.”  I said, trying to stay as calm as possible.
After everyone gathered, I began talking right away.  I thought to myself, there was no way of covering any of this up anymore. 
“Now, I know I’ve been trying to censor all of you from the fact that there could be others out there, but I think it’s about time that you all know that clearly, we are not the only ones.”
I was kind of just speaking on the fly, I came up with stuff to say as I was saying it. 
“So, these people think they can just come into our base, and steal all of our food?  No.  I think we have to hunt them down, and show that we are not the people to get pushed around.”  I said.
“Don, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  Mia said.
“These people are good.  They managed to come into our base and steal all of our stuff without making a single noise.  They were so silent that none of us woke up.”  She continued to say.
“Not to mention they’ve survived this whole time.”  Derek added.
“Well so have we.  I suggest we go out tomorrow morning at dawn, and hunt them down.  We’ll take the rest of this day to prep.  C’mon guy do you really want to live the rest of our days on this earth knowing that people are out there to get us?”
“I sure as ---- don’t.”  Jane said.
“Yeah, I think we should find them.”  Tommy agreed.
Eventually everyone else agreed, and we began to prep.  The time flew by, and I couldn’t tell if everyone was nervous, or running on adrenaline.  Nervous was my guess, since no one said a word to one another.  We made weapons, mostly out of sticks, and packed up any food that was left.  I made one last check to make sure we have everything we needed, and then we went out.  We went back to the same base we found a couple days ago.
“Well what do you know, there they are.”  I said looking straight at them from a distance.
“It’s like they’re just waiting for us.  I don’t like this, I think we should all go back.”  Derek said. 
“No, it’s too late.  We have to do this….. For our survival.”  I said.
The rest agreed and we just walked up to them.  It wasn’t my idea to do this.  I wanted to run straight in and attack.  I mean, these people stole all of our stuff.  We had to show them what we could do.  There were five of them.  3 men, 2 women.  The men were big, but not that much bigger than us.  It relieved me that we had more than them. 
“Who are you people?”  I asked with a voice I’ve never used before.  I tried to make it lower to sound more intimidating.
“We are the true survivors of this devastation.”  One of them said, who was most likely their leader. 
“Were you the ones that stole all of our supplies?”  Mia shouted out.
“Yes.” 
All he responded with was just a plain yes.  Like he didn’t even feel bad about it. 
“Yes?  That’s all you have to say?  All of our supplies are gone because of you, and all you have to respond with is yes?  Well, buddy, we have also survived, and we will continue to live no matter what problems confront us.  Even if it means eliminating you all.”  I said trying to sound confident.
“Hahahaha, you think you can beat us?  You know, we’ve been watching you guys for a long time.  How you operate, live, survive.  You guys aren’t a group, because you are not a true leader, Don.  You have no authority whatsoever.  No one respects you, they make fun of you behind your back.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re gonna regret saying that.”  I said.
At that moment, I made eye contact with the others in my group, and gave the signal to charge in.  They all obeyed, each one of them, Ethan, John, Mia, Derek, Tommy, and Caroline.  We ran straight in, and out fought our foes.  Because of our outnumber advantage, we were able to defeat them, along with our will to survive.  After battle, I looked at each person in our group, and thought to myself, I am a true leader.