Exworth was without a doubt the most boring town in all of America. It was not small or rural enough to have any charm. It was not large or diverse enough to have any interest. It was a solitary grey splotch of suburbia in an otherwise featureless piece of nowhere.

On the outskirts of Exworth there was a single junkyard that was the home of many broken and abandoned treasures. Seeing as this junkyard was the only noteworthy thing about the town it attracted many children and teens in search of entertainment.

Alex was once told that the government had been transporting nuclear weapons over the town when they very nearly accidentally dropped them. Since then Alex has been convinced that the world would end in their lifetime, if not intentionally then from sheer stupidity. Alex was of course correct in this assumption. Alex found the space around the junkyard a convenient location for creating a small garden of edible and medicinal plants. They also found the junkyard a fun spot to practice scavenging for supplies.

Quinn was brimming with creativity seemingly from the moment of her conception. Every small inconvenience in her life would eventually evolve into an idea for some invention or another. Quinn thought that the junkyard was the perfect spot for finding scrap bits and pieces to add to her contraptions. She built herself a workshop on the outskirts of that junkyard and it was in that workshop that she spent most of her time.

Mason was practically born feral. He was born with a pet dog, courtesy of his parents, and he soon acquired another dog, every stray cat in the neighborhood, and a few ravens that loyally follow him after having been fed. Training a small army of cats and birds was frowned upon in residential areas so when Mason was not busy volunteering at the local shelter he found himself at the junkyard.

The three of them spent all of their days in the junkyard. Alex grew in their gardens food and medicine for the three of them. Day after day passed and the group grew more and more thankful for the food and medicines that they grew because it was becoming difficult to get to a grocery store or a pharmacy safely. Each little thing that Alex grew was something that the others did not need to find a way to buy or steal.

Quinn kept building little contraptions and bits and pieces of technology. Day after day passed and the group grew more and more thankful for the little contraptions as it seemed to be getting more and more difficult to get power without a homemade generator and it seemed to be getting more difficult to be friendly with strangers without a radio length distance between them. Each little watt of energy was a thing that they wouldn’t need to worry about later.

Mason kept to his pets and his animals. Day after day passed and the group was thankful for the increasing number of birds and critters Mason kept around as they all knew that there were fewer trees for them to live in otherwise. Each little critter that Mason took in was a small little life that they could save.

Day after day and month after month the group of young teens grew into older teens. Month after month and year after year the three of them lived day by day as they had been.

One day the three of them were sitting together in the junkyard and they realised that during the day by day life of theirs the world had been ending, piece by piece.