Reality Crisis

Backdated to the day of arrival

They were no longer in a place with apartment buildings. Carlos could tell that they'd left the remains of the city and had ended up in the suburbs. It was a little surreal, because there were a lot of houses that were relatively untouched by whatever had gobbled up a good portion of the city between the last cataclysm and the most recent one. And yet, the grass was overgrown or dead in some places, the weather damage was apparent on the sides of some of the houses. It looked like a suburb given way to a ghetto, if he was being honest.

Still. It had been awhile since he'd been anywhere that had actual lawns. That was a little surreal.

There were sign-ups for housing. Belia, as usual, wanted her fingers in the pie and was rationing out houses. Which brought Carlos to a conversation that he would have preferred to have under different circumstances. Living together was a big step and it shouldn't be a choice made out of survival or because you were forced to uproot and choose new roommates. And yet, he wanted Mag close. He wanted to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and reassure himself that she was still in this world. He liked the idea of being able to come home to her after a long day out taking care of whatever this apocalypse had to throw at everyone.

So when the line to sign up for housing formed, he found his girlfriend and took her by the hand. There weren't many places for a completely private conversation, but they could at least take a few steps away from the crowd while they discussed this.