Joel’s feet ached from the endless trail the he and you treaded. Your back was spent from holding the heavy filled backpack—packed items for survival and combat. But you held a smile the whole time.

The papers at first called the national scientists have identified a brain eating fungus, the cordyceps. You knew the end of the functional world was coming to an end. You remember when you, Joel, and Tommy stood around a radio, listening, the nation pressing the button, an atom bomb hitting what would be your home.

And as the earth burned to the ground, it was still you Joel laid with—holding you to remind him that he still had something to fight for. Waking up from treacherous nightmares—where Sarah wasn’t the one that he lost—your presence calming him down .