You can see the sun, just barely rearing its head over the glowing horizon. Its perpetual warmth chases the dull ache of the cold out of your bones and carves a shrine of benevolence deep in your chest.

After so long underground, you forget how bright the day is. You forget what it's like to hear birds singing to one another, and what a gentle breeze feels like in the warmth of the sun. You shie...

There is a stranger in the street.

She has brown hair.

She wears red shoes.

She smiles at the dogs.

She wears a yellow raincoat.

She recently moved house.

She misses her mum.

Her favourite colour is blue.

Her birthday is the 14th of October.

Her brother recently got a divorce.

Her biggest fear is the dark.

This stranger in the street, was yesterday my friend.

But yesterday is gone, and...

The house was just as she'd left it- from the outside, anyway. Same old brick walls, overgrown vines and patterned curtains, drawn to shield it's insides from the horrors of the outside world. Though if the moss blooming from the nooks and crannies of the walls were any indication, the outside world had found it's way in.

Abilene held tight to her bag as she guided the others through the overgrow...

"You can't possibly be serious right now," Simon's eyebrows knitted, glaring at the paper in her hands. "This is ridiculous."

"But it's worth a try." I insisted, trying to keep my voice steady and reasonable. This was for Juno. I couldn't let myself be talked down from it; I had to stay confident and show that I couldn't be swayed.

Simon shook her head, her dark curls tumbling along with it. "Ab...

We lost our sun.

Our means to growth,

our nourishment.

We lost our root,

the root that kept us here,

together.

We lost our leaves,

the leaves that absorbed joy,

on the bleakest of days.

We lost our family.

Without her,

Our sun, our root, our home,

what's the point in staying?

Our loyalty lies,

now six feet under,

in a shroud of patchwork memories,

in the heart of a girl now gone.

We move for...

I glance up at Cassandra across the table, and find that she's completely and utterly still.

That's the first red flag. Because, in perfect harmony with her ceaseless energy and witty personality, Cassanda Olyen is never still. It's like she's in perpetual motion; always with a knee bouncing, hands fidgeting, mouth chewing. Even as she sleeps she moves, always tossing and turning and squirming.

...

12 October XXXX

If you ever find this.. good luck? I don't know what to say, really. I'd hope you're maybe a child or a grandchild of ours, but with the way things are going, you might find this on my dead body. How fun!

We are Abilene Finch, Simon Elizabeth, Cassandra Olyen and Juno Jane. We escaped the XXXX Camp a little over three weeks ago. The weather is getting worse, and I won't lie, thin...

"I didn't know she was going to tell me something so personal!" I groaned, leaning my head on the kitchen table.

"So you laughed at her?" Simon sounded exasperated, and I could tell without looking up that she was shaking her head.

"It took me by surprise!"

"You can't laugh in someone's face after they tell you about their trauma. God, even I haven't done that, and we both know I can be awful."...

Sometimes, I worry that I'll disappear.

Like I'm not tall enough,

or loud enough,

or big enough.

Sometimes, I worry that I'll disappear.

Like I don't take up enough space,

or nobody sees me

or I'm not enough.

When I do disappear,

as we inevitably do,

what will be left to remember me by?

We all disappear someday,

I fear my day has come too soon....

I think we forget, sometimes, that Juno's just a little kid.

I know I do. And it's awful, I know, but I think after growing up in the midst of an apocalypse, she's definitely matured much faster than I did.

That isn't, of course, to say she's not childish. Of course she is- I mean, she's only seven. She still loves to play pretend; she still loves to hear Simon's endless stories; she still loves...