I can feel a cold draft of wind caress my skin, ushering me into the waking world.

  I sit up and look around to find my sister talking with another kid. Wherever I am it is intensely dark except for the beacons of light called fires. It is around one of those that I see my sister and a few other kids.

  My head turns to take in the rest of the building I’m in. There are three other fires, each of which has adults and teenagers around it. Where I am, I cannot feel the warmth of the flames, and so I stand up.

  I walk towards my sister when I hear another voice speak up.

  “Hey! Raul, your sister saved your ass!”

  I turn to the voice, and an involuntary sigh escapes me. One of my classmates, Taj, is walking up to me with some other teens. His black curls are surprisingly well-kept, considering everyone else looks like they went through the wringer.

  “Taj...”

  “Bro, we found your sister dragging you to our school. What happened to you?”

  “I fought one of those demons... not everyone got delivered here perfectly.”

  Taj caught the slight and scoffed, “We had common sense and ran from them.”

  “Good for you. I’m going to leave now.”

  Taj takes a tentative step forward, an unusual behavior for him. He is so close I can smell him. Vanilla and cinnamon luxuriously combined waft into my nose.

  “Your hair changed color. As we carried you, it went from black to white, and now it’s back to black. Just thought you should know.”

  “Thank you for that info. I’ll be on my way now.”

  I turn and walk away. After fiddling with my hood and throw it on. My half-sister sees me approaching and runs up to greet me. She’s smiling from ear to ear as if the world had not just been toppled.

  “The adults here are so kind! They’ve been going out to hunt for food. They feed the kids first, then us teens.”

  I nod and reply, “Why are you with the kids?”

  “Keeping watch over them. We’ve been rotating watch over them,” she pauses and whispers, “None of their parents survived.”

  I grimace; these kids were going to have to struggle, but they were young, so they had the time to adjust well.

  “I see. I think it’s time for us to go. Where there are people, there is gonna be trouble.”

  She shakes her head and says, “Nah, I want to stay with this group.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, they are helpful, and the adults are beginning to teach how to survive ranges,” she smiles, “We’re calling going out of this building a Ranging.”

  I move to click my tongue, but catch myself. This was the very chance I wanted; I wanted to be a hero when the world needed one.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Leaving the people you need to protect is not exactly great heroism. So instead, I nod my head, and I reach for my knife. It’s not in my holster.

  My body freezes. That was the only weapon I had on me. My eyes scan the fires to see who has it.

  My half-sister speaks, “I let one of the adults borrow your knife. I’ll introduce her to you so you can get it back.”

  Internally, I thank her; externally, I simply nod.

  My half-sister walks through the darkness and goes to the furthest fire. The ground beneath my feet is stable; it seems to be the tile of some sort of hospital or emergency room. I can’t confirm because my eyes cannot pierce the darkness.

  As we approach, a woman, perhaps two years my elder, stands up. She has brown hair and hazel eyes, with my knife in her hand.

  I cannot see what she’s wearing until we’re directly next to the fire. I see that she’s wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Strapped around her body is a shotgun, and so I genuinely wonder what she needed my knife for.

  My half-sister speaks, “Hey, Celeste, my brother wants his knife back.”

  Celeste nods and hands me the knife, handle towards me. I grab it and holster it with swiftness.

  I say, “Thank you for returning it to me. I’ll be headed out now.”

  Celeste replies, “I wouldn’t do that, kid.”

  I turn around, putting my back in her sight before saying, “I ain’t you.”

  I walk away towards the right-most fire, where I can see some light peeking in through a door. My half-sister walks away to watch the kids, but says bye. I am about to open the door when I hear Taj say something.

  “Yo! Don’t go out there by yourself! You’ll be killed instantly.”

  I groan and turn back around, “How so?”

  Taj replies, “It’s a long story, and you’re going to want to hear it.”

  I nod, restraining myself from strangling my classmate. He walks towards the nearest fire and sits down.

  Taj then says, “Alright, everybody, introduce yourself, with your helpful skill. This is Raul, he’s the only one of my classmates that I found.”

  I wasn’t aware of how kind Taj could be. He always hung around people I couldn’t imagine to be good people.

  Next to Taj, a girl speaks, “I am Lenore, and my skill is... cooking.”

  She’s got dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s wearing jean capris and a black top.

  I resist laughing, but I can’t stop a smile from crawling onto my face. The girl smiles, reading my mind perfectly.

  The next guy speaks, “I am Tanner, I’m good at woodcarving.”

  The guy emphasizes his point by tossing me a handmade flute. I catch it, and I am genuinely surprised by its quality. The dude grins; however, I am unable to see his eyes because he’s got his dark hair covering them.

  I listen to the rest of the group introduce themselves and instantly realize that absolutely none of them are going to go on a ranging. They just don’t have any actually helpful skills, only theoretical capabilities.

  There are two people, however, that I find the most important, and it is the two who spoke last.

  Han is a kid with good mechanical skills, and he is the one who works on the transport vehicle they use for ranging. The other kid is Samantha, her skill is advanced first aid.

  Taj speaks up again and begins to explain what they think happened.

  “Vampires and monsters attacked us over a week ago. I was at the park near our school when it happened. I ran into your sister carrying you and some of the others here. Han is the one who transported us out of Phoenix.”

  I nod and follow along.

  “The monsters, from what the adults have divined, are resistant to gunfire, unless it’s a very special weapon. For example, Celeste’s shotgun has no ammo, but she’s somehow capable of firing air bullets from it. It drains her quickly. Otherwise, basic weapons like knives and swords work without needing anything special. So do wooden stakes and spears, basically anything before the invention of guns.”

  That is good information, good enough for me not to regret staying.

  “The vampires are only a worry at night; however, the monsters are a worry day and night. I don’t know what they want with us humans. Oh, also, the internet is down, and so is most of the infrastructure.”

  I reply, “Do you plan to stay in the building the rest of your life?”

  Taj genuinely ponders it.

  Lenore replies, “No, we should move north, that's where I saw a lot of people going when we were escaping. There has to be a good reason for them to move up there.”

  I ask another question, “As a cook, are the monsters edible?”

  I look around, and everyone seems to be surprised by the question. I groan in annoyance; it’s like they don’t have brains.

  “We haven’t tested it.”

  “What have you been eating?”

  “Animals: birds, snakes, etc.”

  I nod and say, “Perhaps we should go kill one of those monsters and see if it is edible.”

  Taj stands up, and I follow him towards the furthest fire. As we are engulfed by the light of the flame, Taj begins.

  “We’ve got an idea.”