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Water, fire, food, and shelter were the first four things that Xeno thought to obtain as soon as he broke out of the stone. He didn’t believe in miracles, but waking up from his multi-millennia slumber in the middle of spring was something he could only chalk up to fate. But he refused to believe in such a thing. Once he established himself in this new world, Xeno decided he would sit down and try to figure out why the duration of his stone imprisonment lasted as it did.
The fifth thing Xeno thought about when he woke up was Stanley.
Stanley had pushed him to the ground and covered him in an attempt to protect him when the beam hit. He remembered it like it was yesterday. It did feel like yesterday, yet it didn’t at the same time. It had been three thousand and seven hundred years since then, but time encased in stone was different. It was like he had simultaneously lived and slept the entire time. There were so many thoughts swimming in his head about the science of it all, but for the time being, Xeno needed to get certain things in order. One of them being Stanley.
They had been right next to each other when the beam hit, but when Xeno had woken up, Stanley was nowhere to be found. Neither were any stone fragments indicating that he had woken up before him. Of course, there were several possible scenarios that could have taken place over the past couple millenia to explain it, but that didn’t stop Xeno from being disturbed by Stanley’s absence.
Xeno could survive without Stanley. He had been navigating the wilderness on his own thus far. He could survive without him in this post-apocalyptic-scape, but no real progress could be made without him. Stanley was far more powerful than him and had the strength to shoulder all the heavy lifting. And besides his physical prowess, Xeno could use Stanley’s intellect. The man was more than just his strength after all.
Xeno could come up with a million practical reasons why he needed Stanley to wake up, but none of them really mattered. At the end of the day, Xeno wanted him to break out of the stone because it would give him peace of mind knowing that his best friend was alive.
And Stanley would wake up any day now, he wouldn’t have let his mind slip. All Xeno had to do was find him and move him to a safer location so that his statue wouldn’t wither.
Xeno was okay with waiting. He had waited for Stanley his half of his life. It would be just like all the times spent waiting for Stanley to come home from wherever godforsaken location he had been sent to. Just like old times.
The comparison did little to quell Xeno’s anxiety, somehow managing to make him feel worse.
The next day, Xeno retraced his steps back to where he emerged from the stone and used it as a starting point to find Stanley. Initially, Stanley had been behind him and although the terrain had changed, Xeno decided that walking in the direction that had behind him would be a good start. He didn’t have to walk too far because right in the middle of an empty field, surrounded by greenery, was the man Xeno had been looking for.
Stanley was crouched in the field, his right hand almost touching the ground. Xeno touched his own face, trying to remember what Stanley’s hand felt like, but the waking and dreaming feeling of petrification made it hard to remember. It was a memory lost to time in favor of counting seconds.
He walked closer and knelt down beside him. Stanley was intact and still had all his limbs attached. Xeno didn’t have a point of reference besides himself, but he guessed that if Stanley were to break out of the stone without an arm or a leg, it wouldn’t look pretty.
There was a slight smile permanently engraved on Stanley’s face and a dip in his lip where a cigarette must have been. Why he would be smiling, Xeno had no idea, but it was just like him to smile in the face of defeat.
His original plan had been to move Stanley to a better location, but he seemed to be fine right where he was. He wasn’t that far from Xeno’s setup and there was no imminent threat.
So Xeno went back down to the river, recovered the fish that had been caught in his makeshift trap, refilled the trap with new bait, and returned to his campsite to roast his fish over the fire.
Xeno didn’t realize how many things he took for granted until he had to survive by himself in the wilderness. The sleeping mat he made out of sticks and dry leaves made him miss his old mattress. He always had trouble sleeping, suffering from bouts of insomnia from overwork and stress, but even his comfortable mattress couldn’t lull him to sleep. Imagine how difficult it was to fall asleep in a human-sized nest in the middle of the California woods. The dry leaves crunched under him as he tossed and turned through the night.
He may have found Stanley, all in one piece, but Xeno was still nervous. How did the petrification work? If Stanley had truly kept his mind active, why hadn't they woken up at the same time? How much longer would it take?
What if Stanley hadn't been able to stay awake? Xeno squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the thought away.
He didn't want to do this by himself. He shouldn't have to do this by himself. They had spent years separated from each other, but Xeno and Stanley were still a powerful, inseparable duo. It only made sense that they would embark on this new journey together. Xeno didn't want to rebuild without him.
Xeno had elaborate dreams, plans he had been conceiving alongside all the counting he had done for the past few thousand years. The new stone world had so much potential and Xeno was itching to transform it into the landscape he imagined. But he found no point in building the kingdom of science he dreamed of if Stanley wasn't there to share it with.
All these if, ands, and buts swirled in Xeno's head as he attempted to fall asleep. It could've been minutes or hours, but eventually, exhaustion trumped anxiety and Xeno succumbed to sleep.
“Xeno. Xe,” a voice called out to him. “Wake up.”
It was still dark. Xeno was half-asleep, not able to see clearly as the low flame of his dying campfire did little to illuminate his surroundings. Maybe his eyes were deceiving him or he was caught in the middle of another dream, but a familiar set of amber eyes stared down at him, curtained by golden blonde hair.
“Stan…?” Xeno whispered hoarsely, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.
Stanley looked left and right, taking in Xeno’s meager setup. “This is all you?” he mused. “Proud of you, man.”
Xeno sat up and blinked a couple of times. Stanley looked back at him with a soft smile spread across his face.
“Stan,” Xeno muttered, trying to will the tiredness out of himself. “How did you…?”
“Followed your tracks,” Stanley explained. “Then, I had to evade all your traps.”
“Glad to see you’re smarter than the average bear,” he joked.
“Christ, you’re such a dork,” Stanley chuckled. “Go back to sleep. We’ll get to work at dawn.”
Stanley gently pushed Xeno back down onto his nest. Xeno, barely hanging on to consciousness, did nothing to resist, too tempted by the thought of returning to sleep. Muscled arms hugged him from behind as Stanley laid with him, pressing his chest against Xeno’s back. The warmth eased Xeno's tension and it wasn’t long before he was lulled back to sleep.
When Xeno woke up, he was alone. He shot up and brought his hand down on the spot where Stanley had been. It was empty and cold as if no one had been there at all.
It had been too good to be true. Stanley was still in the clearing, stone intact, and had not moved an inch. He must have missed him so much that his mind was trying to sooth him in his unwaking hours.
Xeno cursed himself. He’d be damned if he kept his mind intact for over three thousand years and then let it slip from the overwhelming longing he felt for his friend. He got up from his makeshift bed and put on all of his gear, trying to push away his thoughts of Stanley.
But there was something amiss. Xeno’s campfire should have died during the night as he wasn’t awake to keep it going, but the fire was burning just as high as it was the night before, with fresh sticks making up its base. Not only that, but Xeno’s handmade rotisserie had been set back up over the flames.
Pulling him out of his confusion was the sound of leaves crunching behind him, getting louder as the sound grew closer. “Finally awake, sleeping beauty?”
Xeno whipped his head around and saw none other than Stanley. He stood tall and proud, holding fresh hunt in his hand. Stanley's face and chest glistened with sweat having already put himself to work while Xeno was sleeping. He looked so... real. Not a trick of Xeno’s subconscious.
Stanley was awake. He was alive.
“Stan…?” Xeno said in disbelief.
“Happy to see me—”
Xeno ran at him, throwing his arms around the man and squeezing him as if he would disappear if he didn’t hang on tight enough.
“Woah, woah!” Stanley laughed, holding Xeno with the same amount of desperation. “Be careful. You didn’t have any spare clothes, so I’m as naked as a newborn.”
Xeno stepped back and briefly glanced down. “I can see that,” he said humorously. He took off the leafy shawl he made himself for the breezy spring air. “Here,” Xeno said, handing it to Stanley, “you can use this as a coverup until we make you some pants.”
“Much appreciated,” A wild piece of wheat stuck out of Stanley’s mouth. He chewed on the end of it like a cartoon cowboy.
“What are you doing?” Xeno asked, not trying to hide his smile.
Stanley shook his head with a sigh. “Shit out of luck without my cigs,” he said lightheartedly. “Had to make due.”
“Who knew that a post-apocalyptic event was the push you needed to finally quit.”
“Man, shut up,” Stanley cracked a smile, giving Xeno a light shove.
Day had given way to night and the pair sat by the fire, eating the juicy rabbits Stanley had caught and skinned earlier in the afternoon.
Xeno had spent a majority of the day filling Stanley in on what exactly had transpired and how many years had gone by. It was one of the few occasions Xeno had seen Stanley genuinely taken aback by something. But being the hardened soldier that he was, Stanley was able to accept and push past it rather quickly.
The rest of their conversations involved talking shop, figuring out what their next course of action was. They decided that their current location was not desirable. They would have to move further north to achieve better living conditions. However, they couldn’t just up and leave.
Stanley had given anyone that could hear him the order to keep their minds active, per the findings of Xeno’s research. There were at least twenty people from the expo that Xeno had found prior to Stanley’s awakening, most of which being members of Stanley’s squad. If any of them followed the order, they would be waking up any minute.
They decided that they would stick around for a couple of weeks to gain some numbers before making the trek up the north.
In the meantime, they would live everyday the way Thoreau intended, or so Stanley said. Xeno turned his nose up at the assessment. The life he wanted for them was far from that of what the old American philosophers pontificate upon. Life without science and complexity was one devoid of passion.
Stanley hummed a tune to himself as he chowed on his roasted rabbit.
“You’re rather nonchalant for a man who just found out the world ended," Xeno said.
“What’s the point in worrying when I know you’ve cooked up some super genius plan to fix this while I was asleep.”
He smiled, touched that Stanley had so much faith in him. “I’ve had a lot of time to think,” he confirmed.
“And?”
Xeno’s soft smile grew devilish, eager to spill the master plan he had been formulating for the past three-thousand and seven hundred years.
“Uh oh,” Stanley said. “You got that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The look that tells me you’re about to say the most insane shit I’ve ever heard in my life.”
That may or may not have been the case, but Stanley portrayed no sense of surprise or negative emotion during Xeno’s hefty monologue. He remained calm and collected as he chewed on the wheat stem in his mouth.
When Xeno was finished, he waited eagerly for Stanley’s follow-up. “So what do you say?”
“I say,” Stanley took the wheat out of his mouth and pointed it at Xeno, “you’re a crazy son of a bitch. You sound like Dr. Evil.”
Xeno exhaled mirthfully. “You couldn’t have chosen a better comparison?”
“Well,” Stanley shrugged, “you have better hair, at least.”
“He doesn’t have—” Xeno shook his head, not wanting to get side-tracked. “Nevermind. What do you think?” Xeno urged him. “We can do it, Stan, can’t we?”
“We can,” Stanley answered without hesitation. “I’ll get you what you want, no matter what it takes. Just say the word.”
Xeno stared at him for a long moment. “Hm,” he hummed.
“What?”
“That was easier than I thought.”
“What?” Stanley chuckled. “Was I supposed to ask for money or something?”
“No, but—“
“Well, there is something I want.”
“Pray tell,” Xeno said unamusingly. He already knew where this was going.
“In exchange for my services,” Stanley began, rubbing his hands together like a fly. “I want cigarettes.”
A look of disappointment slowly grew on Xeno’s face, his lips tightening into a thin line.
Stanley put his hands up in defense. “I know what you’re gonna say, but hear me out,” he said. “My lungs feel great.”
“Are you messing with me?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.” He put his hand on his chest and slowly inhaled before heaving a long, relaxed sigh, testing out his lung capacity. “I feel like I’ve never touched a cigarette in my life.”
There had not been a day that had gone by in the past five years where Stanley hadn’t smoked at least one cigarette. If Stanley continued to smoke, he wouldn’t start feeling any serious side effects for another few years. However, that didn’t mean that the daily smoking hadn’t already started taking an effect on him. If Stanley said he felt different, Xeno had no choice but to believe him.
“Hm,” Xeno thought. “There’s no way to say for sure.”
“You think the stone did it?” he suggested.
Now that Stanley had mentioned it, since emerging from the stone, Xeno had a sort of spring in his step. He had always been relatively healthy, but the years of pulling all-nighters and drinking copious amounts of caffeine didn’t do him any favors.
But since he had woken up, Xeno had more energy. He was more attentive. More awake. And way less irritable than he had been in the past. That was to say, Stanley’s theory wasn’t that far-fetched.
“I would say that is most likely the case,” Xeno agreed, “but we can’t make a definitive assessment without a proper evaluation.”
“Now don’t get any ideas about opening me up.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Stan. I just need the material to make a stethoscope so I can listen to your lungs.”
“Whew,” Stanley breathed.
“But no cigarettes,” Xeno said, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
“Oh, I’ll get them,” he insisted. “Even if I gotta find the tobacco myself.”
“As if I was going to find it for you. Just watch, by the time I get my hands on a stethoscope, your lungs will have already returned to their original state.”
Stanley rolled his eyes.
“Let’s just get back to work. I’m tired of sleeping on leaves. You—”
“Me?”
“—Are going to chop some wood.” Xeno picked up the stone axe that rested on the ground and held the handle out for Stanley. “It took me hours to craft that. Don’t break it.”
“It took hours to craft,” Stanley mocked him in a high-pitched, nagging tone. “Don’t break it.”
Xeno deadpanned.
“Yeah, yeah,” Stanley took the axe, adjusting it in his grip. “I’m on it.”