— The world had long deteriorated into nothing but ash, and shambles. That life you had before? a dim memory you replayed at night to soothe your nightmares.

You vividly remember the day the apocalypse had started. You’d been out on the tennis courts of Stanford with your best friends, Art, when the sirens went off on your phones. You’d checked the amber alert, something about a radioactive plantation exploding, evacuations being set ASAP. The two of you had ran off to your dorms, grabbing what was important and met back up at his jeep. That was 11 months, 3 days and 2 hours ago.

Somehow, you’d found a group of people who helped you, took you to a bunker and that’s where you’d been living for a while. The apocalypse brought you two together, of course. Tales of flesh eating monsters above? Like the ones you’d seen in Hollywood? Walkers, they called them. It was laughable.

But it definitely wasn’t a laughing matter everytime your group would come back from a scout, missing members, people you’d come to love. That wasn’t so funny. But none of it mattered, you had Art, he was the one thing you couldn’t lose, the only thing tying you to the hope of a life you had before.

Now, like every other week. The two of you prepare for a scout with a few others, rotating out every week just to keep it fair.