Not from the personal narration of Thomas Dale

Everything went downhill after the earthquake.

Holland traveled with the remaining three survivors - Anna, Lise, and Xavier. They were running on no fuel - Holland only had one can of fish left, something he found on the ground, as he was the one who carried the silverware. They had no water either, and they were now sure - completely sure - that if they didn't reach the refuge in a matter of hours, they would collapse under the heat of the sun.

The only time that Mother Earth showed mercy to them was at night when the temperature cooled down to a bearable normal summer day. Holland, making sure to guard the remaining fish can with his dear life, tucked it into his jean pocket along with the pistol that he decided to bring along.

They slept on the hard, dry ground that day, Holland clutching his backpack in his sleep. They were all huddled together, in a fear that some predator would come to kill them off one by one, and, though it took a while, at last, all of them manage to doze off into another nightmare. 

Or so they thought. Half mad and starving, Anna, the oldest girl who was already in the third year of the Placement Courses, got up from the ground and stepped past Lise and Xavier's trembling bodies and nervously slid the pistol out of Holland's pocket. She saw it there a while ago when the instructor fell and the pistol showed its rear end. She would use it tonight, Anna thought. She would use it... blow someone's brains out if she had to - and take that last can of food for herself. She HAD to. She was starving and if nobody was going to eat the can, SHE WOULD. She could and she would and, in her mad, malnourished mind, she thought: I SHOULD. ONE OF US HAVE TO MAKE IT OUT ALIVE.

Grinning madly at the thought, Anna felt Holland's pockets for the can. The can. THE CAN. Where was THE CAN? She saw Holland put THE CAN into his pocket, but where was it? Oh yes... the other pocket. Struggling to roll the instructor over, Anna froze as Holland groaned, stirred, and then went back to sleep. The girl went back to rolling the instructor over.

And behold, there was THE CAN, slightly flattened under the weight of the burly instructor but inside his other pocket was THE CAN! Breathing heavily, Anna took it out, holding the pistol tightly between her free hand, and finally exhaled when the can was out.

She would eat. And then she would run.

That was when Holland stirred again. Panicked, Anna frantically stuffed the can into her own pockets and then realized that they wouldn't fit. She needed to hide it. She had to. They would kill her and execute her if they...

Now the instructor was yawning as he woke up from his slumber. Reacting on instinct, Anna dropped the can, causing it to fall onto the ground with an audible metal crunching sound, and then pointed the gun at Holland. The instructor was no longer an instructor. To her crazed eyes, he was a monster. A threat. Something that wanted THE CAN. But THE CAN was her's and only hers and would only be hers because it was THE CAN and she needed FOOD.

Holland blinked, and that was when he saw Anna, fogged because of his nearsightedness and fatigue, pointing the gun at him. The instructor flinched. "Ann-"

Anna shot him.

Soon later, she would regret what she did. Perhaps the instructor would give her the can in exchange for his life. Maybe the instructor, (Anna wildly thought), was planning to give her the can. It was too late now. Holland was dead, collapsed onto the ground with a bloody stain around his heart.

The next events were a blur. Lise and Xavier quickly pulled out of their sleep by the gunshot, yelled in surprise and despair as they saw the instructor's lifeless body, and, after noticing the gun still in Anna's hand, charged at her with fear in their eyes. Lise tried to pull the gun out of Anna's grip. Xavier tried to choke Anna, or was it a headlock? Lise was sure Xavier was trying to headlock Anna.

The mad girl, all the sanity gone from her, lashed at them, biting Xavier's arm and mercilessly firing at Lise. She was strong - Xavier was only fourteen and Lise was sixteen, as she was at least two years older than them - and she soon got out of Xavier's grip after Lise fell down, screaming and holding her leg in pain.

It appeared that, in the flurry of bullets, she had been shot twice in her left leg and one in her foot. 

Anna slammed the pistol down on Xavier, and the boy fell to the ground, momentarily knocked out under the heavy blow at the skull. Thinking about the can, Anna slowly moved towards the wounded and unmoving Lise, who frantically made a last sprint before she fell down several feet away from where she was seconds ago.

Anna grinned as she moved even closer, and something else - perhaps the final strain of her moral code - snapped inside her. Pointing the gun at Lise's forehead but not touching her, as she still wanted her to squirm and crawl back futilely, she squeezed the trigger...

...And out came a slender metal rod, which only went as far as it was connected to the back of the gun. Thinking quickly, Anna realized that, while the pistol was out of ammo, the rod could still do some considerable damage if it was point-blank range at the temple...

Anna only moved several steps before Xavier swung something at her, sending her flying head-first to the ground. She spun around, looking at what hit her, and then saw with only the first flash of fear crossing her eyes, Xavier carrying Holland's silverware-backpack.

"Night-night," the boy muttered before he swung it at her head again, causing the silverware inside to shatter as it knocked Anna out. Xavier swung it again. Again. All he knew what that Anna simply couldn't live. No, she was a threat and a danger to the world. Sighing and wishing her good luck in the next world, Xavier delivered the final blow and Anna went limp.

The boy checked her heartbeat. None.

Somewhere beside Anna's corpse, Lise gave a faint whimper and then passed out.

*     *     *

Xavier tended Lise's wounds that night. He was working plainly on improvisation, but in the end, he only managed to stop her bleeding. The bullets were still inside, and she might've been infected, if not anything worse.

Lise woke up the next day, her condition significantly worse.

Not able to walk, Xavier, who didn't want to simply leave her there, tried to carry Lise on her back before he realized she was far too big and heavy, (Xavier was also uncomfortable with doing such a thing), and began dragging her on the ground as she went into another coma, trying his best not to hurt her.

Lise died halfway through the journey.

Burying her beside a dead bush, (which did not have the Green Plague, as it was dead already), Xavier moved on, a mad smile creeping over his mouth.

"Oh, say can you see... by the dawn's early light..." 

At sundown, Xavier ate the final can of fish, realizing that the events that happened the previous day were simply over this. Did he dare eat something that three other's died for? 

Xavier sighed. But he tried to save Holland.

But I failed.

He had tried to save Lise.

But I failed.

He was the one who killed Anna, wasn't he? If it weren't for him, Anna wouldn't have had her skull crushed in.

I'm a killer.

"...What so proudly we hailed... by the twilight's last gleaming..."

Singing the national anthem, and thinking how crazy the world had become, Xavier staggered his way towards the refuge. He didn't know where he was going. Where was the refuge? Forward? Did he miss it?

"...Blessed with vict'ry and peace... may the heav'n rescued land..."