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I watched Olandria kiss Nic and I realized that none of them realized that in a week, the world would be over.
The bunker was warmer than you might imagine it would be. I had been lucky enough to be labeled one of the “crazy ones,” but I wore that with pride now. I didn’t know how many people were alive out there, but maybe there were a few fighting still. It was hard to tell. The internet was hanging by a thread, and I hadn’t seen anything new posted in a long time.
Somehow, the Peacock app was still going strong though. Figures. Society can collapse, but media lasts.
I watched Huda charming Chris and I realized how thin the strand between assumed eternal life and destruction was. Everything seems so frivolous until it isn’t any more.
I didn’t blame them for feeling the way that they did in that moment, the way that Cierra beamed at the camera, hopeful that she’d be celebrated and remembered as one of the good ones. In about a week, her social life would be over. And then, shortly after, would be the end of her physical life, unless she was lucky.
Just a month between what felt like an endless stretch of beauty and hope and endless joy and the thin imitation of love painted in garish colors. And I loved every bit of it, because it was the only time capsule that was spared in everything.
I watched Olandria fight with Taylor again. Taylor chose Clarke. I knew it hurt Olandria. I’m sure it didn’t matter any more, if she was lucky enough to be alive.
Amaya’s bright eyes. Austin’s thin voice. Ace’s smile. Chelley’s warmth. They all felt like a lifetime ago.
I looked in the mirror and watched myself spoon a cold mouthful of beans into my mouth from the can I had managed to pry open.
“You had four days, Jalen,” I said quietly to myself, and I remembered every single one of those glorious, frivolous, luridly bright days like they were the most distant and impossible dream. “Hold onto that.”
And that was the only thing that got me to go to sleep that night.