Saturn County

Four | Breakfast at Macy's

June 2nd

"after all the hands we've been dealt, I still bet on you"

"Woah, woah, wait," one of the newcomers said as he approached Emma and Clara in the middle of the store. He seemed a few years older than them with wavy brown hair and a smile that contrasted his tired eyes. Familiar, Emma thought. Probably went to their high school. "We know you—Clara Green, right?"

Emma turned towards her friend whose eyes narrowed for a moment, trying to place this face to a memory. "Yeah," she said. "You were Lucas' friend from the McDonald's."

"Damn, that was a while ago," he laughed, then clapped Benji on the shoulder. "You remember the Greens, right Ben? Her brother Lucas played football, they ran with us for a bit at the start."

"Yeah, yeah I do," Benji nodded, then turned back to the girls. "Sorry, I'm shit at faces. Lucas still with you?"

"He is, yes," Clara said. Emma almost wanted to shoot her a glare, normally that would be too much information to give up, but she had a feeling that these boys already knew. Or at least they would know soon enough. "And that's alright, we've all met a ton of people. I didn't recognize you either."

"Have we met?" the other boy asked, this time looking to Emma.

"No, we haven't," she said. "I'm Emma."

"Tyler Taney," he extended a hand. The name did ring recognition. If she was correct, he'd graduated with her sister. She didn't know much about him, but the alliteration in his name made it hard to forget. "You go to Hillside too?"

"Went," she corrected. It wasn't just Tyler who made the mistake—Aria said it all the time. Stop, you're still in high school, Emma. She didn't go to Hillside High any longer. Aria was no longer in college. It was the permanence she knew her sister couldn't fully accept. She tried her hardest not to think about it. The future was a vast black hole and the uncertainty could consume her if she let it so instead she pushed it aside and breath by breath kept moving, step by step into the future.

"I graduated there last year with Clara's brother." Clara remembered again why they'd spent any time with Tyler at all—he was good at making people trust him. Lucas had been adamant forever that they were all on their own in the end of the world, even at the mall he refused to converse with anyone else as far as she was aware. But he liked Tyler. Tyler made him feel important. "If you girls aren't running off somewhere else, I'd love to talk, figure out what we're walking into here."

"Do you plan on staying?"

"That depends," Tyler said. He then waved over the rest of his group to join him. Three teens approached, all younger than Tyler. They'd all gone to Hillside. "This is Marko, Carmen, and Danna. You already met Benji." She already knew Marko, of course. They'd grown up on the same block, played ghosts in the graveyard for hours when they were kids with no cellphones and it was too late past dusk to ride their bikes to their friends. Carmen and Danna she recognized but never knew their names.

"Emma Delos!" Marko called, a smile illuminating on his face as he came in to embrace her in an unexpected hug. "Seb and Aria here too?"

"Wait, Aria Delos?" Tyler interjected. "I know her, that's your sister?"

If Emma had wanted to maintain any form of secrecy, she'd long lost her chance. She should have worn her mask, at least. They were all supposed to do that anyways but no one paid attention once they were abandoned in the wastelands of their world regardless. These people knew her, they knew her family—Marko had been her friend once upon a time.