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But I still had my mom Not a lot of people could say that after the war, and she was a daood mom

So much had been lost, but Columbia was one of those cities that had been lucky For the most part, it was virtually untouched by the invasion Only soed, mostly due to random fires that broke out, and I heard that there’d been riots here, but there had been riots everywhere

Moinally lived outside of Hagerstown, another city in Maryland, and nearly all the cities along the I81 corridor had been da and airstrikes

And there were other cities that had had it so much worse

Some had been completely overrun by the Luxen, and those cities where the Luxen had rapidly assi theeles and Chicago Nonnuclear electronetic pulse bo every Luxen while also rendering every piece of technology useless

The newly formed Department of Restoration said that it would take decades to repair those cities, now referred to as zones They alled wastelands, empty of life and power No one lived there No one went there

It was hard not to think of them when I looked in the rearviewinto the sky like steel fingers It was hard to not think of those days and weeks after the invasion

It was even harder for me to really process how it only had been four years and everything was alone back to the work at the United States Army Medical Research and Material Compound at Fort Detrick in Frederick the o, ain and TV stations stopped showing reruns New episodes ofwith some new cast members, and one day, life was just back to the way it was before

At school, we’d just startedto enter University of Maryland next fall and would hopefully get into their nursing progra pictures, I kneasn’t good enough to uy Luc was helping, I wondered if nursing was the right fit for ain

Some days it was like everyone made a conscious decision to e eren’t alone in this universe or on this planet The world had exhausted itself on fear, and then said, Nope, no more

Maybe that was for the better, because how could we keep living if all we feared hat the next second or ?

I didn’t have an answer for that

My phone rang, pulling lanced at the screen and saw April’s name pop up Did I want to answer the phone? It felt like it was too early to deal with her Iuilt churned I hit the accept call button on the steering wheel "Hey!"

"What are you doing right now?" she asked, her voice carrying through the speakers

"Uruness "I really would love a burger right now"

"It’s, like, eleven in the er"

"Well, s to it, and you could call it breakfast"

My story"

"You’re always hungry," she commented "Better keep an eye on that Metabolis my eyes, I then scowled "Thanks for the info, Dr April"

"You’re welcoht "What are you doing?"