August 22

There was a knock on the door in the morning.

"Who is it?" I whispered to Mom and Dad.

They were in the kitchen, making some string bean and corn soup since they claimed that they had a stomach ache and wanted all of us to eat something more lightweight, but we all knew that they were trying to save food, at least until the greenhouse came online.

Their eyes widened, and they looked at each other.

"Looters?" Mom whispered.

"Maybe," Dad said. "Or maybe it's Leon."

Mira walked into the room. "Leon? He's here?"

"Shh," Dad said. "We don't know. It could be looters too or some other bad person."

"Why would looters knock on our door?" she asked. "If they wanted to loot, they would just break through our windows."

"Do we have an escape plan?" May asked as she crawled into the room. "Today's not my day either."

"We can—" Mom said before there was another knock on the door.

Everyone froze and for a second, it was like time had paused, the gray skies unmoving and all of us staring at each other, eyes rimmed with various levels of fear.

"Backdoor," Mom said. "We can hopefully sneak around them and get to the van. There might be a little bit of gas in it, so we can get at least a couple of miles of separation."

"What if they have people in our backyard already?" May asked.

"Then, we've already lost," Mom said. "So get to run. And in the meantime, remember where you guys were when Leon came, and we thought he was dangerous."

May nodded vigorously while Mira and I gave her weird looks. Mom continued, "All of you guys can hide behind there."

"You too," Dad said to Mom. "In case I don't make it. We're still going to need someone to take care of our kids."

"No," Mom said. "I have to back you up. The both of us will have a better chance against them, and maybe we'll give Mira and Neal and May a better shot."

"I'll answer the door," Mira said. "I need to know. Please."

"No," Dad said. "I'll answer it. It's better if a man—"

"That's so sexist, Dad," Mira said.

"That's society." Dad sighed and looked at her. "If it's Leon, we'll all know, but if it isn't, maybe you'll be able to get a better chance of seeing him again if I answer."

So Mira, May, and I hid behind the counter as Mom and Dad, armed with axes, answered the door.

"Who is it?" Dad asked with a gruff, rough voice, probably for intimidation, as he stared through the peephole before turning back and mouthing to Mom and all of us. "They've got big guns. Not Leon."

Mom tightened her grip on the axe as Mira's face fell, the dust-tinged joy on her face crumbling into ashy fear. I suddenly remembered something. "What about Grandpa and Grandma?"

"Oh, shoot!" Mira said. "I forgot about them. I'll sneak out and inform them."

"Hurry up," May pleaded. "We don't have much time."

Mira sneaked into the other room as those people introduced themselves as "Mr. and Mrs. Shepard, neighbors from a couple blocks down."

'What are you here for?" Dad asked.

"It'll be better if we can talk face-to-face," Mr. Shepard said. "It'll make explaining what we're doing much easier."

"Put your guns down," Mom shouted and Dad flashed her a look, but she ignored him. "Not on the floor but on the base of the staircase of the porch. And all your other weapons too, if you have them."

"Okay," Mrs. Shepard said, though it sounded like a muffled whisper through the door. "We're putting down our guns."

"What if they shoot us?" Mr. Shepard said. "Maybe they've got guns and are ready to fire as soon as we put ours down."

"They're scared," Mrs. Shepard said. "And your guns aren't helping. I told you that we shouldn't have brought them. We're scaring people off faster than we're recruiting them."

"We're unarmed now," Mr. Shepard shouted. "Can we talk now?"

Mom and Dad looked at each other, and Dad nodded. He opened the door. "What do you guys want?"

They both outstretched their palms and Mom and Dad shook them, dust spilling onto our hardwood floor. Mrs. Shepard turned to Mom. "Sorry about that. You know, you can never be too safe given these circumstances."

"Maybe knocking on people's doors isn't the right idea."

"Maybe," Mrs. Shepard said and shrugged. "But we need people."

"For what?" Dad asked.

Mr. Shepard ran his hand through his hair. "We're forming a neighborhood watch. With the incident at the food drive— you guys remember that right?"

"Yeah," Dad said. "How could we forget? It was two days ago after all."

"Yeah, yeah. Totally," he said and looked down. "Anyways, we're looking for men to volunteer—"

"And women," Mrs. Shepard added. "We're going to need as many volunteers as we can to keep ourselves safe. With the cops gone, we need to take matters into our own hands."

"So? What do you think?" Mr. Shepard said and smiled as he pulled out a flyer from his pouch bag. "Our first meeting is next Monday, early afternoon. We'll be going over shifts and assigning patrolling shifts for every night along with training if you're unfamiliar with firearms."

"Isn't this illegal?" Mom asked.

"Sometimes, we need to bend the rules to keep ourselves safe," Mrs. Shepard replied. "Some of the laws of before just can't apply now."

Dad sighed and leaned his arm against the doorframe. "Thank you, but I think we're going to pass. Having more people with weapons and guns around, it's just too dangerous."

"I agree with my husband," Mom said. "Our first priority is keeping our family safe, and if either one of us gets hurt, who will take care of our children?"

The smile on Mr. Shepard's face morphed into almost a sneer. "Your—"

Mrs. Shepard cut him off before he could say much. "You two have children?" she said gently.

Mom and Dad looked at each other, probably because they didn't want to give out too much information. "Yes," Dad answered tersely.

"I've got two daughters, both wee tall," she said and smiled while putting her hand at the heights of her children. "And I'd want to protect them with my life, and I'm sure you'd do the same for your children."

"I know that you're worried that you won't be able to protect and take care of them if you get hurt, but think of the alternatives," she said and paused. "If people who want to hurt both of your kids come into the neighborhood, and if we're not all here to protect you all, you guys might get more than hurt, you know?"

Mom and Dad nodded, so Mrs. Shepard continued. "While I can't promise that you guys won't get hurt, I can say that you and your children will be much safer with all of us here together keeping them away. So what do you say?"

There was a long pause and Mom and Dad looked at each other. May whispered, "Are they going to take it?"

"I don't know," I said. "I hope not, though."

"Why not?"

"I mean, imagine Mom and Dad walking through the streets at night with guns," I said. "They wouldn't even be able to see much since it is pitch-dark, and plus, what if they accidentally shoot someone? That person will die, you know, with the hospital in who-knows-what shape."

May didn't say much as I focused my attention on Mom and Dad.

"I'm still not interested. What about you?" Mom asked and looked at Dad.

"We're sticking with our original choice," Dad added on. "Killing people, weapons, everything. It's a little too much."

Mr. Shepard stepped forward. "If you don't join, we cannot guarantee the safety of your neighborhood. Members of the watch will have their homes as first-priority for protection, and you guys will need it, especially since your neighborhood is deserted."

"We're sticking with our choice," Dad said.

Mrs. Shepard stepped forwards. "I know it's a lot to consider, so take the week to think about it."

"Alright," Mom said and turned to Dad before saying, "Can you check the stove? I hope we haven't overboiled our soup."

Dad scrunched up his eyebrows and looked at Mom weirdly. "I'll go check."

Dad walked away to the kitchen before Mom looked at Mrs. Shepard. "Sorry. We're being extra-careful. Food is pretty spare after all."

"I understand completely," she said. "I hope to see you both next week."

Mom waved goodbye to both of them before shutting the door and twisting the lock with a loud thunk. Dad walked back to the front door while all of us emerged from our hiding spots.

"Wow," May said. "Second time you guys were wrong about a looter, first with Leon and now with whoever these people are."

"What was that soup thing for?" Dad asked.

"He threatened us," Mom said. "Or at least tried to. So I did what I had to: underplay the amount of food that we have to show that we aren't worth looting when things go bad."

"But now they think that we're weak," Dad said. "It'll make us easier targets."

"But we won't be," Mom said. "If we underplay the amount of food we have, we get the best of both worlds. We'll stay safe for now, and if someone attacks us, we'll be more powerful than them."

"How do you know that?" Dad asked. "People might think that we're easy targets and go for us first."

"Would you rather go for a home bursting with cans of food or one with a couple of cans?" Mom asked before pausing. "Exactly what I thought. Going for people's homes is already risky, so you might as well go big than go small."

There was a pause between Mom and Dad's argument, so May stepped in. "So... are we doing the whole watch thing or not?"

"Nope," Mom and Dad said at the same time before Mom added, "It's just too dangerous."

And I agree with them. The winds must've been blowing hard today because when Mom opened the door, the stench of the ocean and rotting fish and kelp seeped into the room, covering everything with the aroma of death. When I closed my eyes this afternoon as the lights filtered through the ash-tinged windows, I could see that rotting body on the asphalt by the houses, their face bloated and seeping with dark fluids, whatever was left of their eyes glaring at the Moon as they laid there, warm but lifeless.

There's just too much death in the world, too many lives lost from the tides and the volcanic eruptions and ash storms and none of us giving food to others. And I just can't even think about taking another person's life because I don't think I can handle the guilt that everyone in the movies feels afterwards when they stand over a person as whatever made them alive disappear.

I've just gotta keep everyone around me alive, which reminds me: I need to prepare the backpack of food for Charles. Hopefully, his family is safe from those gun-toting raiders.

August 23

The sky looked less gray this morning, and I could hear the howling of wind all night. Maybe there was a storm brewing over the horizon or maybe there was some weird jet stream change. I wonder if the blue sky will reappear sometime this week with the wind blowing all the clouds of ash inland.

Anyways, in the morning, I saw Mira wetting towels and laying them out. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Preparing the seeds," she said. "I talked with Mom and Dad. We're going to try growing some mustard greens and peas and a couple of onions and potatoes."

"Maybe we'll finally get fresh food," I said. "And things will become better."

"Don't get your hopes up too high," she said and placed the seeds on the wet towel to help them first germinate. "Actually, on second thought, keep your hopes up high. Maybe some of that positive energy can help the plants grow as well as they would be in the South."

There was an awkward pause before I said, "He made it, you know. Don't worry about it."

She sighed. "It's just— It's so frustrating not knowing. It's like that cat in the box, you know, where he's both made it and not made it at the same time. And with all those raiders and looters."

There was a pause as she abruptly cut herself off before she said, "Sorry for dumping all of that on you. God, I feel like one of those people that dumps all their insecurities and worries on other people."

"Don't worry about it," I said and smiled a bit. "I can handle it."

"I still feel guilty," she said. "You know what, here's something good that happened today: I think I saw the sun come out."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"Well, not technically out," she said. "I woke up early this morning and saw a bit of pink between the clouds near the mountain, and when I squint and concentrate hard enough, I can see a faint blue."

I looked outside of the window and gazed at the sky, squinting hard. I didn't see any blue, but maybe I wasn't using my imagination hard enough. "You sure you're not hallucinating?"

"Maybe I am," she said. "But it's better this way."

"That's the right type of mentality," I said. "You just got to believe, you know."

"It's hard to though, with all the possible scenarios running through my head about everything terrible that can happen."

There was a pause before I asked, "Have you tried journaling? Like writing down all your thoughts and everything? It might just be good to get all your thoughts down and out of your head to just rationalize them."

"Will it help?"

"It could," I said and shrugged. "I'm really guilty for doing what you're doing right now, with my whole anxiety after finals even though nothing I could do afterwards could change it, so take anything I say with a grain of salt, but maybe it could help you, not move on, but move on with the idea that everything's not going to be alright."

She nodded tentatively, so I asked, "Did anything of what I just said make any sense? Sorry for the bad explanation. There's a reason why I quit debate club freshman year."

"It made sense," she said, nodding. "Well, at least as much sense as it could."

She turned towards me. "Do you actually believe everything's going to be alright?"

I paused before saying, "Yeah. We've just got to hold out hope."

That was a half-lie, and the truth is that some days I feel like everything is going to turn out fine and that life as we knew it will return back to normal and we won't have to worry about what comes after and then some days everything feels hopeless, ash-storms clouding the midday sky, a pit of throbbing hunger in my stomach, the memories of my old life slowly fading to gray. But I kept the second part out because it wouldn't help Mira, and I'm worried that if I tell the truth that I'll make things worse for her.

I'm such a hypocrite because I'm not practicing what I'm preaching, but maybe this is one of those good lies and good times to be a hypocrite. And if I say it enough times, maybe I'll fully believe what I'm saying.

In the afternoon, I was just about to leave, my backpack filled with books and the cans for Charles, when Mom stopped me. "It's too dangerous to go."

"What?" I exclaimed, my plan to help Charles falling apart at that moment.

"I know," she said. "But with the news of the looters and raiders, it's just too risky."

"But those are just rumors," I retorted. "And they're probably not true since people sometimes just create panic and chaos because of their wild imagination."

"You think that those men in guns were imaginary?" Mom asked rhetorically, and I didn't respond because it would only get worse. "That's what I thought."

"Thirty minutes, Mom," I said. "I just need twenty minutes to tell Charles about this change of plans. It's not like our phones work, and I can just text him."

"Twenty," Mom said. "And you better be home on time."

"Fine," I said and quickly slipped into my shoes before speed-walking to the library, being careful that my backpack didn't clang too much as I left the house, so that Mom and Dad would not find out.

Even though my heart was racing, and my mind was jumbled with panic thoughts (the same ones that Mira was probably experiencing), random and outlandish plans, and the terrifying thought of telling the truth to Mom and Dad, I felt oddly focused. It's like those times during finals, where I feel overwhelmed, but at the same time, feel a weird sense of determination. Maybe it's because the lives of Charles and his family are at stake right now.

When I arrived at the library, nobody was there. I wasn't too surprised. Meeting each other in the afternoons was always fraught with error without a clock since it was difficult to tell what time it actually was. So I decided to head to where I knew he was going to be: his home.

But before I did that, I needed to return the random books in my backpack, so I grabbed an old flyer about that summer fair festival back when the Sun was still shining bright and scrawled "Book Return" on the paper with a sharpie from my backpack before placing it on the stack of books that I had. Hopefully, the volunteer will pick it up tomorrow.

As I neared his house, I noticed more and more shattered windows, leaves and ash being blown into people's abandoned homes as the ocean breeze gusted across these empty streets. It felt symbolic, in a way, that the scent of death was being blown into the homes of people who deserted our neighborhood for cleaner skies and warmer air.

It's almost as if the world is hinting that all those who had left had died. Or maybe it's a warning to those of us who remained that death was coming for us, and that those who had escaped made it out before death could engulf them. Or maybe I have been thinking too much about literature class and not about actual survival and real-life stuff.

As I turned into his neighborhood, I saw that almost every single window on this street was smashed, the glass shards glimmering in the brighter than usual sunlight. I was a couple of homes away from his house when I heard my name being called from being me. I looked back.

Charles was running behind me. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't see you at the library," I said and then looked down at his leg, where there was a thin rivulet of blood. "Your leg is bleeding."

He looked down and swore. I stepped towards him. 'What happened? Do you need help?"

"It's nothing—"

"Doesn't seem like nothing," I said. "Is everything alright?"

"It's fine," he said, but in the tone when he told me everything was alright even though he and his family were quickly running out of food. And I knew that he was hiding something again.

He continued. "I just fell in the morning. It's a small scratch, and it's nothing."

I looked at him skeptically because there was no way that this was from a fall. People scrape their knees and elbows during a fall, not the sides of their calves. Unless it was a very awkward fall, I knew that this didn't come from a fall. But I didn't question him then because there were more important things to handle, so I just said, "Okay."

"Don't need to worry about me," he said. "Anyways, what did you run to my house for?"

"I don't think we're going to be able to meet up," I said. "Not for a while with all the looters and judging by everything that's going on, this while might be a long time."

"And I just want to give you this," I added and opened my backpack with the cans. "I can help take it to your house since it's, like, a couple of houses down."

"It's fine," he said. "You seem to be in a rush anyways."

"Yeah," I said and sighed. "My mom gave me only twenty minutes to give this message to you, and I literally had to run from the library to get to your house."

I took out the cans and placed them on the ground. "Are you sure that you're alright? Is there anything—"

"We're doing fine," he said. "It's the truth."

"Okay," I said, but I think he knew that I didn't believe him.

"So when are we meeting again?" he asked.

"Actually," I said. "Meet me in front of my house next Tuesday. I know my mom is worried about the whole raiders and looters thing, but hopefully, if we're close by, then there won't be any issue."

"I think I'm over time," I said. "See you next week?"

"You better have your fourth goal down," he said. "I think we're already past our summer deadline."

"Well that was before the volcanic eruptions," I said and looked back as I walked away. "Bye!"

"Bye," he said and turned away, and for some reason, the soles of the thick boots that he was wearing seemed to glisten under the sunlight, almost like little shards of glass. But I ignored it. Much like Mira seeing blue skies, maybe I was just hallucinating too.

When I got home, Dad announced that we were going wood-gathering tomorrow because he, like pretty much everyone in our family, forgot about the wood-gathering Monday since we gathered wood on Thursday, which just messed up everyone's internal clock schedules. As the sun set after we had finished dinner, I gazed outside, hoping to see a flash of orange or pink or just vibrant color from the sky, any sign of life at all.

But the sky remained gray before shifting to deep indigos and darkness, and all I saw was the soft light of the Moon behind the clouds, reminding everyone about everything they've lost. Hopefully, the winds blow more ash out of the skies, so at least, the bright sunsets and sunrises will make the bright Moon taste less bitter.

August 24

The sky is getting lighter.

But the winds were really rough in the forests. Even with all the cushioning from the dying trees, we could still feel the sting of the winter winds on our cheeks. When I looked up at the sky while I was picking up sticks, I could see slight movements of clouds in the sky, breaking the monotony of the normally unmoving gray. Maybe that clear sky day (or hopefully week) will finally come.

I think the brighter skies filled everyone with a little more life. I felt giddy almost, like the last week of middle school, where no one did any work since we were all just waiting for summer break. Mom and Dad managed to chop down all two trees and bring the small logs of wood back without dying from exhaustion, though Dad let out a couple of loud, almost heaving, coughs that reverberated through the woods.

After we got back, Mom, Dad, and May began testing out the greenhouse system. They moved the whole set-up closer to our house's heating vents, so that instead of using the heater machines and wasting batteries, they could essentially kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Hopefully natural gas doesn't run out any time soon, not just for our sakes but also for the plants' and Charles' sakes.

In the meantime, May and I had to set up the phone charging stations with the solar chargers.

"How are we going to make this as efficient as possible?" I asked.

"Maybe we should move them around?" she suggested. "You know because the sun rises from the west and sets in the east."

"I think it's the opposite."

"Who cares?" she said.

"I mean, if you're trapped in the woods all alone without a compass and—"

"Okay, get it," she said. "Sunrise east. Sunset west. Now move on."

So we set up two phone charging stations, one on the east side of the house and one on the west side, right in front of the windows. May opened the curtains wide open, letting the even brighter sunlight wash into our kitchen counter, before Mom shut them close.

"What are you doing?" May asked. "I was trying to charge the panels."

"It's unsafe letting people know we've got access to power," she said.

"It's a couple of phone solar panels. It's not like anyone cares."

"I don't think we want to know if someone cares," Mom said and May nodded. Normally, she'd come up with a snarky retort or a disgusted groan or some reaction, but ever since that plaza incident and maybe even before that, she's lost some of that spark. It's like she's afraid of dying or something.

So we closed the translucent level of the curtain but left the opaque one alone. There was a slight reduction of light, but for the most part, I think there was enough light making it onto the panels for them to work decently. "Maybe we should try using the aluminum foil strategy for these too."

"Maybe," she said. "Anything to keep ourselves alive."

And we spent most of the afternoon just taping aluminum foil to the old cereal box cardboard, hoping that it'll work. "I thought that guns and weapons would be our saving graces during the apocalypse, but who knew that scissors and tape would be the real heroes?"

"I think everyone that doesn't watch movies would know that," I said. "Now that you're in the apocalypse, would you rather have those fancy yoga pants that you can't even wear anymore because the ash will ruin it or those trusty pairs of scissors."

"Pants, obviously," she said. "You can steal a pair of scissors from any other house, but it'll take too many houses to find another pair of these pants."

She continued. "Also, speaking of stealing from houses, did you notice the broken-in windows of the houses around us?"

"When'd you notice?"

"I saw a couple of them back when we were running away from the plaza after the whole incident," she replied. "Those people are smart, you know, taking while the houses are still available."

"I mean it's dangerous too," I said. "Especially with the whole neighborhood watch program starting. Not to mention the glass cutting people and the whole issue if the house isn't actually deserted."

"A little glass hasn't hurt anyone," she said. "And it's super obvious to see whether someone actually is living in the house or not."

She said in a lower whisper. "Maybe you and I should try doing that sometime, you know, like what we did with the Hunters."

"No way," I said. "I can't handle another one of your plans and all the lying and the close calls, where I have to do everything."

"Just suck it up," she said. "Better than being dead."

"We're not going to die."

"Whatever you say to make yourself feel better," she replied and went back to taping aluminum foil to cardboard. "Someday you're going to regret not doing this."

"Well that someday is not going to happen."

By the time that we had finished taping the aluminum foil to the cardboard pieces and tried setting them up to best reflect light, the sun was already setting, and everyone was hungry. When I went to check up on how Mom and Mira worked on the greenhouse, Mira asked, "So how is it?"

"It looks great," I said, and it really did. They'd changed up the design a bit, where instead of having the clear, plastic sheet draping on the sides, they decided to fully utilize the plastic sheeting by solely making the top plastic and instead of clear, plastic sides, they had aluminum foil walls built from plastic box covers and Styrofoam with taped foil on them. By the time they were done, they'd already finished one roll of aluminum foil, with only one more left, but their design was already as large as a table tennis table.

"We should've bought more aluminum foil," Mom said. "Who knew how useful it would be?"

"Arts and crafts save the day once again," Mira said while gazing upon their greenhouse. "It's beautiful."

"We should take a picture," Mom said. "Of all five of us. Neal, are the phones charged?"

"I think so," I said as my phone booted up, the loading bar slowly becoming full in the dark waiting screen. Then my bright ocean froth home screen came on, with the phone battery at 5%, just barely alive.

Even though the battery was low, and we needed to use the phone fast before it died, all of us were frozen, mesmerized by the phone as we stared at it. It's so odd that something that we used to take for granted now feels so foreign, the bright turquoise of the home screen felt like it was from another planet.

"Let's just get the photo over with," May said. "Hurry up."

Mom called Dad over, and as Dad set up my phone for a timer, he asked, "So what's the occasion?"

"Greenhouse Day," May said. "Or celebrating how we've survived till day whatever-it-is of the apocalypse."

"I like Greenhouse Day better," Mira replied.

"Let's call it our first day where we're building back life and taking it from the Moon in the sky," Mom said.

'Which movie did that come from?" May asked.

'Why?"

"That was too cheesy to be original."

Mom put her hands to her waists. "Well then I guess I am a cheesy person."

"All right," Dad said and put the phone on a bookshelf before running back towards us. "Everyone say cheese."

The camera flashed and I turned to Dad. "That was an awful pun."

"Who cares?" he said and shrugged. "I liked it."

Dinner was noodle soup, with an emphasis on the soup part since we only had about a handful and a half of noodles in everyone's bowl. Mom made us eat everything, including the soup because of "li li jie xin ku," which basically means that with every grain of rice, there was a lot of work put into making it, so you better finish all your food. And even though my stomach was grumbling at the end of the meal since I wasn't filled, it was nice to have something warm to eat, especially because we had spent half the day freezing outside.

At the end of the meal, Dad said, "So what's everyone grateful for?"

May groaned. "Not this again. And you literally gave us the gratitude curse because we literally almost died in the plaza."

"But we didn't," Dad said. "Maybe our gratitude staved off this darkness."

"Staved off this darkness," May replied. "What century are we in?"

Dad ignored May and turned to the rest of us before pointing his arm towards me. "So Neal, do you want to start us off? And please don't say family like last time unless you want to highlight a certain family member."

He pointed at himself, and I stifled a groan before ignoring him. "Well, I'm grateful for the wind because maybe we'll see the sun again."

Mom added on to me. "Well, I'm grateful for the Sun then. Hopefully there will be sunnier days in the future."

"Gross, Mom," May replied and fake vomited, and Mira and I nodded along with her. "You're really on a cringe-roll."

"Well, do you have anything better?" Mom asked.

"Yeah," May said before turning to the rest of us. "I'm grateful for that stash of tequila in the pantry. Being drunk during the apocalypse sure beats being sober."

No one said anything for a couple of seconds.

"That was a joke, right?" Dad said.

"Obviously," May replied before adding. "I was just trying to tone down the cheesiness. What I am actually grateful for is being alive."

"Wasn't that the same as last week?"

"No," she said. "Last week, I was grateful that I was not dead. This week I'm grateful that I am still breathing. Big difference."

"Okay," Dad said and nodded aimlessly before clearing his throat. "Well, I'm grateful that we've got a greenhouse, even though it's more like a green-box. Hopefully we'll be getting fresh vegetables soon."

"And I'm grateful for tape," Mira said. "Without it, I don't even know how this would even be possible."

"Can I get a toast for tape?" Dad asked and raised his glass of water.

Mira and Mom both raised theirs up with Mom even giving a loud whoop while May buried her face in her knees out of second-hand embarrassment. Everyone but May clinked their glasses together and said, "Cheers."

Before I went to sleep, I gazed at the greenhouse (or as Dad put it "greenbox") that we had built. Even though it's a mishmash of Styrofoam and plastic and reflective metal, there's something beautiful about it, the way that it will be an incubator for life in this world surrounded by death that seeps through every crack in our house. Even with the windows closed, I could smell the lingering scent of the briny ocean and carcasses of kelp and people laying in the sun. Just before I went to sleep, I closed the opaque curtains to make sure that no one would be taking this life away from us.

August 25

"Put the soil in with a little more love," Grandma loosely said in Chinese as Mom and Mira shoveled our pretty rock-hard soil into the cans.

Mom said the equivalent of "Whatever" in Chinese and put the soil in more gently.

All morning was spent cleaning out old cans to make them pots. We tried cutting the cans to make the bottoms breathable, but the scissors were too dull, and Mom was worried that we'd stab ourselves and get tetanus (though I'm pretty sure that we already got vaccinated for that). So we just washed old cans and put them side-by-side underneath the greenhouse until we've crammed as many as we could.

While all of us were doing that, Dad was in the garage, searching for anything that might be useful, and he actually managed to find a bag of potting soil from a long, long time ago, though it only had enough soil to fill ten cans. Which meant that some people had to dig up soil from our garden for the vans.

"I'm going to fix up the bottom of the greenbox," Dad said. "To make sure that the bottom doesn't start to get dirty and help with excess water."

He quickly ran off into the garage, probably to avoid the joyless work of shoveling dirt. Sometimes, Dad was very immature. But, to be fair, I also didn't want to spend hours trying to break apart our rock-hard oil, so I said, "I'll go make support structures, like those crisscross ones—"

"Trellises?" Mira suggested.

'Yeah, those things," I said. "So, yeah, I better get going to do some building."

As I was leaving, Mom shook her head and muttered, "Men these days."

And apparently May also followed me to my room since she refused to shovel dirt, and as we dug through drawers to find tape, popsicle sticks, and yarn, Mom and Mira were shoveling dirt into the forty cans that remained. There was a corner of the garden with softer soil since I remember composting vegetable remains there for a middle school experiment, but they could only fill half of the cans before running out of dirt and hiding the rock-hard soil underneath.

So they had to dig from the rest of the garden, soil cracked and hard from years of neglect and drought (It's crazy to think that about a third of my life was spent in drought, including all of my middle school years). When I looked outside, they were pouring a bit of water on the ground, probably trying to soften the soil, before Mira came in a couple of minutes later to call Dad outside.

In the meantime, May and I were building these trellises. We laid down the popsicle sticks, spaced a few inches apart and laid yarn across the popsicle sticks, taping each segment of yarn to a popsicle stick, so that it looked like one of those farm fences. We did that multiple times until that farm fence morphed into a crisscross of yarn and popsicle sticks, basically becoming a trellis.

"That looks great," Mira said and picked our creation up. "Yarn to make this. That's pretty cool."

"It's really random, but I remember reading it online in a comment for a zombie book," I said. "Who knew that it would be useful?"

I looked outside at Mom and Dad pounding away at the soil. "So, what's happening out there? Why'd Mom send you back in?"

Mira sighed and looked down. "The usual thing she says, all the ash in the air, especially since it was taking way longer than usual and the water wasn't helping soften the soil that much."

She looked at me. "I was thinking about going to the ocean tomorrow."

May and I's eyebrows shot up. I didn't know why she'd want to go to the ocean. I don't know why anyone would want to go to the ocean unless they wanted to see death and heartbreak and random corpses littering the soggy soil and algae-stained rooftops of the formerly seaside mansions, now partially underwater.

"What?" I said. "Why? It's not like there's even a beach."

"It's not even for a beach, silly," she said. "And I just meant the edge of the tidal zone, not the actual ocean. I just want to grab some kelp to fertilize the soil."

"No," May said and joined the conversation. "Our house is going to be so stinky."

I ignored May. "It seems like a pretty good plan," I said because it objectively was a smart idea even though there was this undertone of panic in my voice.

Mira turned to May and me. "I was thinking of making it a whole family thing. Plus, maybe it'll be nice, not in a good way but in a relieving way, to just face down the threat of the ocean, together."

"Maybe you all can go ahead," I said. "I'll stay behind. Just in case there is an earthquake and tsunami and everything so that at least one of us stays alive."

Of course that was a flimsy excuse. I just didn't want to go to the beach because it reeked with the stench of death. The last three times that I visited the beach— the school trip before everything, the rotting corpse that plagued my nightmares, the time that I found out that Charles and his family were starving— were all tinged with the feeling that everything was falling apart. The first was my friendship, then it was my mind and my dreams, and then it was Charles and his life. It was just too loaded of a place to head to.

But I held my objections behind when Mira said, "C'mon. It'll be family bonding but without those boring board games."

"Fine. I'll come if Mom and Dad agree to this," I replied, hoping that they wouldn't force me to go. There's just something so hard about saying what I'm thinking, just worried that Mira or Mom or Dad would get worried that I'm worried, and then I'd have to spill all of my secrets for them to understand without coming up with some paper-thin excuse. I guess it was just better for them to think everything is fine.

August 26

I woke up in sweats this morning, a hazy nightmare plaguing my dreams. The details seemed so clear in the dark grays and blues of the dawn, but the sharpness quickly crumbled, and I was left with a vague sense of dread and a vestige of my nightmare, a guttural breathing mixed with the sound of bubbling water ringing throughout my mind.

Mom, Mira, and I ended up going to the beach sometime during the afternoon because Dad felt like being sexist and forced me to tag along with Mom and Mira because they needed a "man with them." May was too lazy to go to the beach (or maybe too scared because honestly, sometimes it's hard to tell when she's lying or telling the truth) and said that she needed to defend the house too. Just before we left, buckets in our hands, Mom grabbed the tiny axe.

When I was walking outside, I looked at the sky. It was so close to being clear, and that tinge of blue that I tried seeing a couple days back actually appeared, the thick haze transforming into a light fog that was just waiting to be burst. I could even taste summer on my tongue even though it was only around fifty degrees in the middle of the afternoon. Even with the ocean breeze blasting my face, there was this feeling of life.

"The sun's almost out," Mira said to me. "And the sky's almost blue."

"And this time it's not an illusion," I replied. "It's actually real."

We walked a couple of steps, and she turned to me. "Yesterday, you seemed kinda weird about going to the ocean. Is everything alright?"

"I don't know. It just seemed dangerous."

She gave me that look, and I knew that she knew that I was lying, probably because I didn't put much effort in that lie.

"I'm just not comfortable talking about it," I finally said.

"Okay, yeah," she said and looked down before looking at me. "I just realized that you guys would be starting school now."

"You're about one week late," I said, holding up a finger. "And you'd be in college right now, doing college stuff."

"You want to hear some college stories?" she asked. "Or have any questions, you know, about college."

I shook my head and sighed. "There's no point."

I really wasn't that pessimistic or downtrodden, and in reality, my heart was pounding out of my chest. Just the mention of college sent a spike of anxiety in me, and I began thinking about how it would be my junior year if high school was still open and how I'd finally have to make a choice about what I wanted to do in the future.

Luckily, Mira said something before everything became too awkward, "It sucks that you're missing a whole chunk of your life because of this. Your best years of life, just after you're old enough to do adult stuff but still young enough that everything isn't so serious."

"College applications and endless days of doing SATs," I quipped sarcastically. "So much fun."

"Well, not that stuff," she replied. "Like dating and going to prom and making new friends and just living your best high school life."

"None of that seems interesting," I said and shrugged. "A comfy sofa and an interesting book seem like a lot more fun. I mean, those characters living in those books have way better lives than any of us."

"Living through people vicariously is not living life," she said. "And plus, dating and going out is lots of fun."

"What's so much fun about getting rejected over and over again?"

"It's about finding a special connection," she said. "When dating starts again, I know you'll find the perfect girl."

"Yeah, totally," I said, shrugging a bit. I didn't tell her that I might not be interested in dating a girl, and that I might be not interested in dating or maybe interested in dating a guy or maybe not. I should probably stop writing about this since all these "maybes" are making me dizzy, but still, I guess I wonder how dating another guy would even work.

Anyways, back to more important things, like how after that, we didn't talk much. Maybe it was because of the stench of the ocean breeze, the rotting odor that smothered the life of our conversations. I think it was mostly because there was nothing to talk about. Well, actually, there were things to talk about, but it's just like I can't hold those heart-to-heart conversations like the people in the movies do. With everyone spending time with each other all the time, anything new will be personal and personal stuff is just weird to talk about, especially when I'm the one that has to do the whole talking about my personal stuff.

When we got the yellow tape, Mom and Mira looked down at the flooded neighborhood below. The walls of the houses looked worse than below, caked with sand and mud while there was kelp strewn all over the street, stinking up the air.

"Okay," Mom said. "Let's get to it."

Mira gingerly crossed the yellow tape, now tattered and laying on the ground, and put on some rubber gloves before picking up handfuls of kelp and putting it in her bucket, while Mom and I picked kelp from a safer distance. Flies flew in circles around our faces, and despite the pretty frigid temperatures, my body was hot and tired.

All of a sudden, there was a rumbling towards the ocean, and all three of us looked in the distance down the street that led to the ocean. At the very end, I could see the water, frothing and quickly moving towards us.

"Get back," Mom said and we scrambled away from the flooded zone and back behind the yellow tape.

The water rushed towards the middle of that street before receding, and then rushing another 10 or so yards forward every couple of seconds until the dry street that we were standing on was flooded by a foot of water after a couple of minutes. There was a loud screeching nearby, probably a broken car being dragged across the asphalt, and we all looked at each other, probably thinking back to the first day when everything happened, and the beach got flooded. I think there was a reason why no one had survived.

"Let's go," Mom said and we began partially carrying and partially dragging our buckets on the ground. I guess everyone was tired and glum after the waves and the work (even though it was for only around ten or fifteen minutes).

We were just about to leave when Mira looked back and shouted, "Look."

We gazed at the horizon, and suddenly, it was like the ocean was hit with a burst of light. Golden rays streamed from the clouds breaking apart above the ocean, the wind finally carrying the ash to new places away from here, as the sun began setting. The surface of the ocean, previously dark blue and moody, blossomed into jewels of amber and sapphire.

"It's beautiful," Mom said as Mira just gaped at the ocean.

"Maybe this is the end," Mira said before quickly correcting herself. "Not the end, but maybe a new beginning."

"Maybe," I said and gazed at the streams of light pouring through the clouds like rain.

Suddenly, I was hit by a barrage of memories of old summers. I don't know why my mind does this sometimes. It's usually always with music, an old pop song reminding me of tennis summer camps or a country song taking me back to those days where I stared at a computer and played Minecraft all day.

But now, it's like the streams of sunlight are stitching all my summer memories together, all those bowling camps when I was in second grade and that school pool party that we had in fourth grade and the strawberry popsicles that we got from the Asian mart coating my fingers with stickiness and the beautiful summers that I spent creating clover bracelets and random leaf and twig contraptions. And, for some reason, I felt this overwhelming sense of joy as I turned to Mira.

And for some reason, she was crying. "Is— Is everything alright?"

"It's nothing," she said with a smile and wiped her tears. "Actually, it's not nothing. It's just that I can't stop remembering that summer day that Leon and I met. It's like my mind is just playing it on a loop."

"He's made it," I said. "Maybe it's a sign from the people above or maybe it's just a sign of the universe. But if it's sunny here, then maybe, wherever he is, it's sunny too."

"I think he's made it too," she said. "I really do."

"He's probably got hot water," I said. "And actual electricity, not just some batteries, and an infinite-supply of instant-noodles—"

"He hated those in college," Mira said, laughing a bit. "Called it the most overrated college essential."

"Fine, then he'll have tons of pizzas and canned peaches and stuff," I said.

"Stuff?" she said.

"I ran out of ideas," I said. "But he's probably in paradise."

"Or at least as great as paradise could be," she said wistfully and turned back to the ocean.

"He's in a better place," I said before correcting myself. "Well, not the heaven better place, but safe and sound."

She nodded, and I could literally see the transformation in her. All that stress and anxiety and fear about Leon came one step closer to fading away. Maybe this was her way of letting go, not the idea of him or hope, but letting go of that fear and anxiety. It's odd that the Sun that we saw every day and every night for the past sixteen years of my existence is now so precious and filled with hope. It's these little things that you never notice until everything else is gone.

"I wish I had a camera," Mom said. "We can label this as our first Sun day."

"You better not post it on Facebook," I said.

"Why would I do that?"

"You literally post your life on Facebook."

"Well, you're lucky that there is no Facebook anymore," she said and gazed at the sea

"We should make a collage," Mira said. "To document everything that has happened."

"Document it for who?" I asked.

"Ourselves," Mira said and smiled. "For when all of this is over, and we're, like, ten years older and the world is back to usual. And we'll look over these photos and probably laugh at how happy we were to see the Sun."

May would probably say that we're making a collage for people to remember us by, once we all pass away from the ash or starvation or dehydration or a thousand different events, so that our existence wasn't a mirage or a dream but something real.

"We look a little ridiculous, though," I said. "I wonder what people would think of us."

"Who cares about what other people think?" Mom said. "When we've got each other."

And she hugged us, and even though she probably said the cheesiest line that she could think of to annoy us, there was something genuine behind it. Sometimes the most real things in life are the cheesiest ones (That sounds like a cheesy line in and of itself).

When we went home, we shared the news with Dad and May and Grandpa and Grandma, and even though the sky was still cloudy, I could see streaks of pink from behind the clouds during the sunset. We couldn't get a printed photo since the polaroid camera ran out of film and is garbage at capturing color, but we got one on Dad's phone and stared at it until Mom realized that we all were wasting batteries.

When we were at the dining table, eating some soup and a small side, Mom said, "When we were walking, Mira had a great idea that we should build a collage, and I think we should do it to commemorate this day."

She turned to Dad and told him to find an old spiral notebook and ordered the rest of us to either find or make something to remember this day about, even Grandma and Grandpa. After an hour or so of scattering and finding and coloring and making things, we finally all got together and shared.

Grandpa brought an old fishing hook that he had made in Taiwan a long time ago. I'm pretty sure there was a whole story to it, but I didn't understand his words, half in Chinese and the other in Taiwanese. Grandma brought the English word that she was trying to learn today, "Garden." "Your garden is beautiful," she said, and we all clapped for her as she beamed with pride.

"Our garden," Mom corrected her. "We all put work into it."

May took out a little suns sticker and pasted it on the paper. "I hope we're not jinxing it."

"Then, you guys better sing the anti-jinxing song," Dad said as May groaned.

"That's not even a thing," she said as Dad began clapping his hands to an unknown beat, smiling at May's suffering.

"This is the anti-jinxing song," he sang, though it sounded more like a wail. "We are not going to jinx-tomorrow. This is the anti-jinxing song."

He paused before saying, "Something-something-something rhyme. Sorry about that, I ran out of words."

Mom was laughing hard, and Dad bowed, though none of us clapped. Hopefully, it'd discourage him from doing this ever again. Dad then placed his object onto the collage, lyrics of his horrible song that he had written down while singing on a napkin. Mom went next and put in a picture of a sunset cut from one of those glossy magazines that we always received in the mail. It lay there in the center of the notebook, not taunting us, but almost reminding us of something we have to live for in the future.

Mira put a short haiku in there.

Dewdrops of sunlight.

Wash away ashy night skies

Blossoms of hope rise

"It's a bit rushed," she said. "But I didn't have much time."

"That's fine," Mom said. 'It's beautiful. It really is."

And I guess I was the last person to put my object in. Well, it was less of an object and more of a picture of a sunset: reds, oranges, yellows, purples, and blues made into a gradient that stretched across my picture sky, colored painstakingly with colored pencils. And then, Mom titled the entry with "Sun-Day - August 26th" and closed the notebook before waving us goodnight. For someone in the world, August 26th might not mean anything, but I think I'll remember it as the first time that the sun truly appeared (even though, technically, it was the second time).

Because even though this whole week started with death and guns, it's odd that everything feels so alive. I thought that I'd be bothered by the stench of the kelp, the rotten smell lingering in the living room despite us storing it in the garage, because it reminded me of that corpse lying on the street along with many others hidden by mansions and cars and the sea. But oddly enough, there's this sense of life too, like we're going to turn the kelp and death into fertilizer to grow our crops and bring life into the world. It feels ironic and poetic and weird all at the same time.

What's also weird is that I've been thinking about an old summer memory differently, back from all the way in elementary school. I don't exactly remember the movie, but I do remember thinking about the main character, a guy, for days, just wanting to be perfect and cool and smart like him. Maybe it's like what I thought it was back then and mostly now, just a twinge of envy and wanting to be him, but I believe it's more than that. Maybe that's when this whole thing started, and maybe I've been purposefully misinterpreting my emotions to keep everything normal, you know.

And maybe that normal just isn't me.