1 We Didn’t Know

"Can I at least write a message on the floor to say goodbye?" I cried out, "fine but hurry up," that's kind of the last words I heard before my death. You know, I never suspected to hear "fine but hurry up" as the last words I'll hear, especially from a random military man. After that I guess it kind of changed my opinion on everything, I used to look up to cops and the military but after this I'm not so sure I trust anyone now. Oh! Sorry, hi I'm Carlos. Not much of an introduction I know, but once I finish telling my story I don't know if we'll ever see each other again but "may we meet again," now to start off from the beginning again, well again for me. "Carlos wake uppppp!" Huh? Where is that coming from? "Addison?" I mumbled, "breakfast is ready come on" Addison said as she started to walk out the room. I got up and started to reach for this navy blue shirt that was folded up, it was one of my favorite shirts my dad gave it to me right before he left, I don't really know where he is and I don't think anyone in Harcken does either. So after I put on some light blue jeans and my favorite shirt I headed to the bathroom to fix my hair, then I started to run down the stairs before Addison could eat all the bacon. I started to look around to where all the food was, "if you're looking for the bacon I ate it all," Addison chuckled, "you mother fu-" " LANGUAGE!" Blurted my mom, "sorry!" I shouted. I started to head towards the couch, picked up the remote and then sat down, " hey! I was watching that!" Addison screamed, "you owe me for the bacon!" I snapped. I started to surf the channels, nothing really that good was on so I decided to put it on spongebob and just watch something on my phone. As I turned on my phone I had 23 missed calls from Afley and 203 unread messages "I'm screwed," I sighed. "Why what happened" Addison questioned "Afley called me 23 times and texted me 203 times." "Hah. Good luck with that." Addison smirked, I rolled my eyes then picked up my phone and read all the messages Afley texted me "something came up…, look I know its late

but I really need you right now, Carlos I'm scared I don't know what to do right now I need you, I know you see my messages, quit ignoring me please, etc." Man I'm really screwed. I started to text her back, "hey Afley sorry I didn't answer it was a rough night and I was knocked out cold XD" Read 10:09am. Fuck, I really screwed up, I started to type again, "haha very funny I get it, it was my bad I'm sorry r u done ignoring me now?" Read 10:10am. Is she away from her keyboard? I put my phone back in my pocket, I'm just going to wait till she's done ignoring me. "How mad was Afley?" Addison asked, "she's ignoring me" I said. "Oh wow you really did fuck up huh?" I rolled my eyes. Ding! I pulled my phone out my pocket, it was a message from Afley. "That was quick," I stated. "What was?" Addison wondered, "Afley texted me 'hey whats up?'" "Oh," Addison sighed. I started to type "nothing much just wishing Addison didn't eat my bacon." She texted back "hah. Karma, anyways wanna hangout today?" "Yeah sure let me tell my mom then I should be there in a while, ttys" "Ttys" I turned my phone off then started to walk towards the kitchen where my mom was. "Hey Afley asked to hang out, can I go?" I asked, "yeah just be careful on your way there" my mom exclaimed, "I will, bye." I headed towards the downstairs closet, grabbed my shoes and started to put them on. After I was done with putting my shoes on I went outside, grabbed my bike and started to ride it all the way there. Afley lives far away from me but close enough to ride a bike there. As I was riding my bike up to the stop sign, it looked like it had been replaced with a giant pole, and what looks like a giant microphone on it. As soon as I got to Afley's house she grabbed her bike and we started to get the rest of the group. It's usually just been me and Afley but ever since highschool we've made new friends and now were a group, Afley is the type of girl whos always fun to hang around and she's always had really curly hair, I think one time she told me it's really long if she brushes it out, anyways she is kind of

confusing but after awhile you start to understand everything that used to be confusing. When I picked up Afley she looked different. She didn't usually have her normal outfit like jeans and a baggy shirt but instead she had a normal sized shirt and leggings. After we got situated, we went to go pick up Spencer. On our way there Afley called him to start getting ready but when we got there you could tell he was not ready because he was holding his shoes in his hands when he walked out the door and he didnt even fully have his shirt on but, I think the shirt thing was on purpose because he has this huge crush on his neighbor and I think he likes him back too but hes not supposed to, because his parents are homophobic, anyways I think Spencer was trying to impress his neighbor. "Well look at you Spencer, trying to impress Aiden," teased Afley. "Shut up!" Spencer snapped. Spencer is the type of person who seems like a dick but is really nice once you get to meet him, to be honest he's actually a big softie we just make fun of him a lot, oh and Aiden is his neighbours name. "Did you call Dominic, Wren or Gwen yet?" Spencer questioned. "Not yet," I said. We headed to Spencer's backyard to help him get his bike. Once we got his bike we started to head to Wren and Gwen's house. Wren and Gwen were both kind of the first ones in the group. Despite them being twins they are polar opposites Wren is more of a "push me and I'll hurt you" kind of guy and Gwen is more of a "sorry I wasn't looking where I was going" person, but once you become friends with them for a while they both start to act alike. We got to their house but Gwen was sick so Wren was the only one that could come and once he got his bike Afley started to call Dominic to see if he could meet us at the hangout, he said he will be there as soon as he can. Once we got to the hangout, Dominic was already there but so was his girlfriend, which was against our friend laws. The friend laws, something we started as soon as we had everyone in the group, the laws were

simple: Never bring anyone but us to the hangout, don't forget about us when you're dating someone, and Saturdays are only for our group and guess what day it is, Saturday. So not only did he break 2 rules but he broke 2 of the most important rules, and absolutely no one likes his girlfriend Valentina, except for Dominic of course. We all mostly don't like Valentina because shes homophobic even though HER BOYFRIEND IS BISEXUAL. It's ridiculous because she's always shaming Spencer for being gay, not to mention Afley and her used to be bestfriends until she just started ignoring her, shes always misgendering a lot of us too, mostly Gwen. You see, Gwen is non-binary but Gwen's birth gender was female and no one told Valentina but she found out somehow and now shes making fun of them which is complete bullshit. "Look I know what you're thinking but she's changed guys!" Dominic sympathized. "Dominic we need to talk, alone." Afley barked. "Look, I'm serious Valentina changed." "Dominic you broke two rules, the most important rules." Afley sighed "I broke one rule and that was bringing her here," Dominic replied "IT'S SATURDAY!" we all screamed "Shit. Guys I'm sorry." Dominic started to walk all the way back over to Valentina, they started whispering and they both seemed mad but then Valentina stormed off and gave me a weird look. "Dominic, you know the consequences," Spencer said. Dominic sighed and said "I'm not doing that, we're no longer freshmen and that's dumb." "Hey what the fuck Dominic, if you have a problem with this then leave." Wren snapped. We were both staring at each other for a while, then Dominic grabbed his bag and started walking off. "Are you serious right now? You're choosing your girlfriend over us?" Afley asked. "At least she doesn't act childish," Dominic replied. It was complete silence after he left so I decided to break the silence, "Well there's that, let's go get some snacks," We all grabbed our bikes and started to head to the store. "It looks like they restocked everything," Wren said. Let's just get our stuff

and get out," Afley urged. I don't think Afley is ok but I mean there's nothing really I can do, yes I know I could ask if she's ok but what am I supposed to do after she says she's not ok? Exactly so just shut up and let's finish this day already. Once we got down the candy aisle we all picked out two bags of candy that we thought everyone would like, then after the candy we decided to get some lunch too. After the shopping we headed back to the hideout and layed down a blanket so we could sit down and eat, "hey Afley are you ok?" Wren sympathized. "I'm fine," Afley replied. Damn. By this point I think everyone knows that when a girl says she's fine it doesn't mean she's fine. We all kind of stared at Wren with our eyes wide open, well everyone except Afley. I don't even know why she's upset this has happened before with Dominic. It's not really a big deal. He's just being a dick and he will realize it sooner or later. oh I forgot to ask, "Hey Afley, last night when you called and texted me was everything alright?" I said. "I don't want to talk about it." Afley sighed. After we were all done eating we all grabbed our bikes and decided to go to my house. "Hey guys, I don't think that Dominic is going to apologize and come back to the group" Afley grieved, I turned my head around just far enough that I could see her but still kept my balance on my bike. "Why do you say that?" I asked. "Because last night he told me he was thinking about leaving the group because it stresses him out." Afley's voice cracked when she said that and it was so obvious she was trying not to cry. "HEY CARLOS WATCH OUT FOR THE POLE!" wren screamed. I immediately turned my head back to infront of me. that's the last thing I remember "he's not waking up I think we should call the ambulance" I could hear muffled voices but mostly ringing "it's fine he'll wake up, hey dominic wake up buddy come on your fine" i started to see everyone standing around me and spencer started to dial something on his phone. Once I got up on my feet, the pole that I bumped into, the one with the

siren started going off. next thing you know everyone is bursting out of their houses and running, to where? " guys we have to go now!" Spencer warned. "why" wren asked "I don't know but i got an amber alert that's saying to head to harken's soul bridge immediately" spencer usually played jokes on us but this certainly did not seem like a joke. We all grabbed our bikes and pedaled as fast as we could to get there, and I started to worry about my family. What if they never make it there? " holy shit guys. Look" afley said "its a nuclear bomb. WE NEED TO FUCKING GO" spencer condemned. As soon as we got to the soul bridge a guard stopped us on his vest, said Sergeant dickson. "Names" grunted sergeant Dickson "oh hi im Cain, and that's Sarah, Nathan,Andrew,and levi." Spencer shouted quickly. Sergeant Dickson pulled out a small notebook and pen, he started to scroll through the pages. "Your names are not here screw off" he provoked, he started to push spencer out the way the same with everyone, "great going doofus, now were going to fucking die" afley shuddered "dont worry sarah I'll figure something out" spencer joked, but it wasnt usually how he normally joked, he mostly jokes with pride to let people know hes sure of the joke he told and whether or not you laugh he wont care but this time I heard his voice crack and he seemed uneasy. "You know I read in a book once where there was an apocalypse with zombies and shit and these 5 friends all went to the grocery store and there was a bomb shelter, IN THE GROCERY STORE crazy right?" wren excitedly said "that's it!" Spencer shouted "what is?" i questioned "We can go to the store and hide in the backroom under the counter" spencer beamed, the only reason spencer knows about the counter in the backroom because he used to work there before he got fired for letting us get a discount which is bullshit because were supposed to get a discount in the first place. "And what will we do if it's a mushroom cloud?" afley questioned.

A mushroom cloud is the worst bomb to happen (in our opinion). "The amber alert didn't say it was a bomb" Spencer teased "but with everyone running into a bomb shelter like that it's either a zombie apocalypse or a bomb either way we should run far away from here now. In this bomb book i read the mushroom has to be smaller than your thumb to barely get grazed so let's go now we can come back.'' We all ran back to the siren pole, grabbed our bikes and started to ride as fast as we could far away from here. "This is a bad plan, what if the zombies are in the next town already?" spencer pouted " it won't happen" I addressed "And how do you know that" Spencer replied "Because zombies aren't real" " in the next few seconds they will be'' Spencer barked back. As soon as we arrived at PPVille ( a city just west of where we live) it looked like a ghost town. There was broken glass on the ground and there was dust everywhere. "Where is everyone?" Spencer asked. We all started to look around. "Probably in the underground shelter like where we're supposed to be." Wren growled. "I think we should find a house and go in the basement just in case the bomb or whatever is happening reaches us" I insisted "ok yeah but we need to board up the windows too, in case it's a zombie apocalypse" wren beamed. We all went searching for the best place to stay at, but we kept our phones so in case we got in trouble, although I don't think that will happen since no one is around at least we think. "Hey, I think I found one!'' Spencer screamed out, we all started to sprint over there. " Hey guys what are we going to do about Gwen, it's been a while and we haven't seen them at all" Wren's voice cracked as tears started pouring out of his eyes like a waterfall, he started to wipe them away but, they just kept coming he couldn't stop. Eventually afley speaked up "Hey Wren it'll be ok you'll see them soon" usually our team never really cries because we all just don't care about anything but I

guess now that someone is at risk in our group i guess you just can't help but worry. I felt something small and warm roll down my left cheek, I wiped it off to see what it was. A tear? Am I actually worried about Gwen? Yeah they are a part of the group but i'm not one that would cry about that "damn it, its locked" afley yelled. "Hey, hey afley you ok? It's not that big of a deal we can just go in through a window or go find somewhere else" Spencer spoke out. As soon as Spencer said that Afley fell to the ground, sat against the wall, curled up and started to silently cry. Again I'm not really great with emotional support but I try. We all sat down next to her, and sat there in silence."is everyone ok? I was gone for a few hours, that doesn't mean I'm dead." Gwen nervously jokes. We all looked up and saw Gwen and a strange man next to them, we all screamed out "GWEN RUN THERE'S SOMEONE BEHIND YOU" Gwen then turned around, "oh him? This is John we met at the gate and we have just stuck together since then." Gwen replied. We all then ran to gwen and hugged them