Suffocated. Smothered. Strangled by the ever present, ever expanding crowd of people that now inhabit the growing metropolis I call home. I spend my days fenced in by an overburdened infrastructure that was not designed to sustain a populace of this magnitude. Lakeview was a small, some would say sleepy, little town that boasted a population of a little under 10,000 residents. Most recent counts showed the city now housed nearly 500,000 citizens, though that number continued to grow daily. A major fallout that targeted 10 of the United States’ major cities had pushed millions of displaced Americans out of the densely populated areas and into more rural areas, like Lakeview. I’ve heard that we are lucky and it could be worse, but I can’t imagine a more hellish landscape than this. Thousands of our residents sleep in makeshift tents that lined every street in my town. Cars were a thing of the past anyway, so its not like we need the streets anyway. 

I shuffle down the sidewalk of my once quiet street and cringe as I unintentionally brush the shoulders of the strangers I pass. I breathe a sigh of relief as I turn up the walkway to my house, but my solace is short lived. The first mandate that came after the fallout dictated that all single family homes be commandeered by the military and soon our home was filled with strangers. First it was military personnel and their family, but they were quickly replaced by all manner of refugees. My mother, being a former refugee herself, would never turn anyone away. 

I step across the threshold of my once peaceful home and am met with the stench of body odor and pickled cabbage. _Not Kimchi night… _I cringe inwardly and quickly make my way up the stairs and down the hall to the attic entry. Glancing quickly around I silently pull the small chain that lowers the ladder to the floor. I climb the ladder as quickly and quietly as I can and pull the trap door shut behind me. I let out the pent up breath I’ve been holding since I left work and closed my eyes basking in the silence that surrounds me. I take a deep inhale desperate to simply breathe my own air. My stomach drops as I catch a whiff of something strange and alien to my senses. I groan as I realize my mother has finally given up this last bastion of our home, my one remaining safe haven in a world gone astray. I turn to take in who or what is now occupying my once sacred space. I am greeted by a pair of shocking blue eyes set below dark lashes and above a small pert nose. Her perfect lips formed a small “o” as she scrambled to her feet. She looks guilty as if I have caught her red handed and I am filled with relief to know my mother has not betrayed me.

“I am so sorry…” she begins nervously as she turns and gathers her things including a small journal she must’ve been writing in. I feel a pang of sympathy for the girl who was obviously so desperate for her own moment of reprieve. As she faces me again I take stock of her face once again and realize she can’t be much younger than me. “I’ll leave…”

“No…” I say before I realize the words have escaped me. This girl likely had her life stolen away from her, just like mine was. “Stay if you’d like.” I say to clarify. I take my normal seat on a bench on the other side of the small attic and pull out the book I have been working on. When I glance up at her, her face has softened into a smile. She nods and lowers herself back onto the small crate she was using as a chair. She flips open her journal and resumes writing, and I gaze back down at my book and begin reading where I’d left off. Except 10 minutes later I find I haven’t moved past that page. When I glance up I notice her pen has also stilled and when my eyes find her face her eyes lock with mine. We both smile and immediately glance back down. For the first time in a long time, I do not mind that I am not alone.