I awoke in the middle of the night and left the couch to the master bedroom which Brett usually slept in on the fourth floor. The door was open, I entered, and locked the door behind me. I walked to the bed, and doused myself with Brett's smell of bedsheets. I cried into the pillows, and blamed myself for Craig's death that I saw in my nightmares. I blamed myself for ruining the balance of this teetering household. I even blamed myself for getting trapped here.

I want to get out of here. I want to go home. I want to go back to my normal life in my normal house with my normal parents. I miss my phone, I miss the internet, I miss Spotify—I miss food, I miss not being afraid to drink water lest we run out. I want to go to school. I want to walk through the walkways of the paseos between our houses in the planned communities, look at the trees and the flowers and the butterflies that were always there.

I fear the world has been flooded. By God, by science, by the ice caps melting, by the men on Earth smoking. I fear I will never be able to use my MoviePass card again to see a movie every day for the price of ten dollars a month. I fear I will never make a new friend again, and miss the luxury of being able to lose old ones without having to take much notice. I fear I will never have an adult life like the one I'd sometimes longed for, a mature relationship with a mature man who was willing to be a hard worker and balance his work with a loving heart that always had time to spend with his family. I fear I will never experience the wonders and the pain of having a child. I used to care if I had a girl instead of a boy, but now that I fear I will never have a child at all, I fear in the deepest part of my heart that I had been too picky about the life I would eventually live in the future. I understand that girl Anne Frank now, at least I can relate better, on the account of seeing the future as less than a sure thing. . . My future was hanging on a thin thread, a string in the air, not even a probability, but simply a possibility.

Being the woman of this house, I feel I am the underdog when it comes to my sphere of influence. Jack calls the shots because Travis's loyalty to him makes Jack's power that of two men instead of one. And because Brett and George would never join forces due to their dissimilarities to each other, Brett and George are each only one vote against Jack's two-vote's-worth power. My vote counts for nothing. I am a cuckolder to Jack, and the other boys trust me neither. I am a ghost in this house, more alone than a stranger in a sea of passersby. I have the premonition that I will be the first to die, and the feeling that no one will really care. I'll just be one less mouth to leach off our scouring food supply. The food cabinets were looking bleak, and we've been eating cereal and oatmeal without milk for a week. I'd forgotten the crunch of a fruit or vegetable, and vitamins were their only compensation.

I was the prettiest girl in my school. I was even the richest girl in my school. I must gloat, my grades were top-notch for a girl who would have no trouble finding a rich husband when I would (presumably) meet him in Harvard. And even if I chose never to marry, my inheritance would keep me a queen if I ever chose to liquidate my parents' assets. Fashion brands had begun to sponsor me for my millions of Instagram subscribers, and I was wearing Coach in my photos to appease the company that paid me—even when I'd rather wear my Versace or Prada sunglasses. Boys swooned over me, girls envied me, and yet I always stayed true to my boy Jack, at least for the beautiful times we shared before hunger and frightened delirium came over me and I cheated on Jack with Craig. . .

I've decided to stay away from the alcohol, even though it was cleaner than the water coming out of the sink. Or at least that was the conclusion I came up with a couple minutes ago as I laid my head on Brett's wet pillows that were soaked in my tears. In truth I would drink alcohol to calm my thirst and avoid the unknown toxic danger of the water in the housing pipes, along with the rest of the boys. . . and we would see where our hunger and drunkenness take us—as we wonder where Craig is, and this house starts to get smaller and smaller in population.

I wonder who will last.