In the end, Carl’s words turned out to be prophetic. On the following morning, the house no longer had electricity, and since Danny had placed the power generators he had bought at the warehouse, they would have to go without energy for now on.

That wasn’t a bid deal though. Given that Danny could foresee such a scenario, naturally they were well prepared to deal with it and it wouldn’t impact their routine too much.

To be honest, other than the reduced comfort from the missing use of the electric appliances that came with the house, like air conditioning and shower heating, they were not losing much.

Most of the food Danny had prepared consisted of canned products and packaged snacks, things with a long shelf life. Therefore, the refrigerator sat in the kitchen mostly unused as if it was just a mere piece of decoration.

This time of the year wasn’t cold as well, so there was little use for the heating systems. On the other hand, their cellphones were still useless – given that there was no signal and no way to call or text someone–, and would most likely remain so for the near future.

Lighting was probably what they would miss the most going forward, but even that could be circumvented by using candles and adjusting their schedules in accordance to the availability of natural daylight.

When Jane left her and Janice’s room, Danny was already up. He was lying down in one of the sofas of the living room, which was next to the kitchen.

Danny laid there with a pensive expression. He had his mother’s music player on his left hand, and an old cheery pop song was playing in his earphones.

Listening to music had a slightly different meaning for Danny than other people. Sure, he appreciated music just as much as the anyone else, but he was not particularly interested in it either. Instead, for Danny, listening to music was a way for him to connect with his mother and to treasure her memory, of remembering her and her teachings.

As music had also been literally a self-defense mechanism for the greater part of his life, Danny often associated music with memories not only of a happier period of time, but also of moments of despair and hatred, of struggle and defiance against darkness.

His mother enjoyed to listen and sing the very same kind of cheerful songs as the ones playing in his ears right now. Even after their lives took a turn for the worse, she never truly stopped looking at the bright side of life, which was something Danny admired despite not being able to replicate.

Those happy songs presented a very different view on life than Danny’s own, thus he could not relate to the lyrics and feelings conveyed. Nonetheless, he was very fond of those melodies, because it was as if he could feel his mother’s presence hidden in between the words, which made some kind of sense given that the mixed tapes Danny kept playing were originally hers after all.

Danny never bothered expanding his collection, contended on keeping and guarding the few tapes his mother left him, as if they were priceless treasures.

“Hi Jane. Good morning”.

Noticing Jane had arrived, Danny took off the earphones and kept them and the music player in the backpack that was lying on the floor by the sofa, while greeting her.

Given that nowhere could be considered safe anymore, Danny did not feel at ease leaving his most prized possessions behind. What if he was forced by circumstances to immediately flee without time to grab anything? Therefore, he made sure to keep his mother’s memento, a spare weapon and a few supplies with him at all times.

“Good morning, Danny. Did you sleep well?”

“As well as possible, given the circumstances, I guess. What about you?”

“I kept waking up during the night, and couldn’t bring myself to relax. I kept dreaming that something was inside the house and creeping closer, so, no matter what I did, my eyes kept popping open”. Jane adjusted her hair behind her ear and smiled tiredly.

“I am sorry to hear that. Though it is understandable you feel that way right now, you should be able to rest properly again in time, it will take some getting used to this.” Danny consoled her before inquiring. “Where are the others?”

“I hope so” Jane nodded her head, agreeing with Danny’s prediction before answering his question “They should be here soon. We had agreed to meet in the kitchen for breakfast early in the morning”.

“Okay then. Should we go ahead first then and start eating while we wait?”

“Fine by me”. Jane smiled, not refusing some time alone with Danny. The more she knew about him, the more the mystery grew as well as her interest.

Jane and Danny didn’t have much time to chat before the rest of the bunch trickled into the kitchen, greeting the earlier arrivals as they entered the room.

Not long after they were all gathered around the kitchen’s counter, each one enjoying their own choice of breakfast.

Seeing that everyone already had settled down, Carl said “So, Danny, Janice already got us up to speed about everything you told her yesterday. I think I speak for everyone when I thank you for your help. I don’t know where we would be if you haven’t stepped up.” Carl said in a humble manner. Even though he did not agree with some of Danny’s actions, it was important to show appreciation for his timely intervention and to give credit where credit was due.

Hearing that, all the others nodded while some interjected showing their agreement and support to those words.

“It was no big deal. You are all welcome”. Danny smiled and politely dismissed his part as nothing worthy to write home about.

“To you it might not have been, but for us it was. But enough of that, what do you think our next steps should be Danny?” Carl reaffirmed his gratitude once more before making use of the harmonious mood to change the subject to a more practical matter. He was not willing to waste too much time on pleasantries.

“Our first order of business should be to gather more supplies, and accumulate as many resources as we possibly can. Food and water are a priority of course, but anything useful, ranging from weapons, medicine, fuel and others are also worth paying attention to”. Danny stated without missing a beat. He already expected being questioned over this, and had already formulated a plan of action on his mind beforehand.

On the other side, his classmates and the shop clerk also knew that Danny had more time to consider the problems they might face, given that he had been preparing on how to best deal with this situation for a while now.

Also, Danny was their sole source of information, thus, they wanted to make use of his insights and conclusions in order to better adjust their following steps.

“Also, although I have supplied this place well enough, I was expecting to be alone at the time, so what we have in storage is not as much as I would have liked. It would be wise of us to stock up a little bit more to be on the safe side”.

“That makes sense. Do you have an idea of how much we have exactly and how long we can last for?” Janice asked.

“Here.” Danny bent down from his stool, and took a tablet from his backpack before passing it to Janice.

On the tablet there was a complete inventory of everything inside the house before they arrived. It still had not been updated according to their consumption, but it would give a clear answer to her question.

The tablet would be able to run for a while still, since it was fully charged and Danny had a couple of pocket chargers as well that would allow him to extend that period even further, but even if eventually died down, he had already made a physical copy of the information just in case.

Janice skimmed through the lists before passing it over to the next person, so that the others could also get their turn to check up on the information.

Danny had kept every detail neatly organized, so they could understand their situation very quickly without wasting too much time.

When Danny prepared the place, he estimated he could last for half a year in there while consuming food and water normally if he was forced to bunker down. He would be able to extend that time even further if he rationed his provisions, but that time was now greatly reduced.

The reason for it was simple: he was not alone anymore. While Danny could last for a whole half a year, the whole gang would only be able to last a month. They went from one person to six after all.

“One month huh?” Chris said while clicking his tongue. One month wasn’t a short time, but it also was not very long. Although they did not feel pressured and didn’t need to hurry up in order to get things done, they could not get too comfortable either.

Of course, if Danny revealed his other stashes to them and they managed to retrieve everything and also gather them into one place, they would be able to turtle up for a very long time. It was worth noting that the house they were staying at was the place with the least number of resources comparing the three places.

However, Danny had no intention of doing so.

The tablet also did not contain any information about the other two locations. As was already stated before, Danny was a very cautious person. Therefore, when filling the tablets with the appropriate information, Danny considered many things, including the many ways things could go wrong, and imagining the worst scenarios he could think of.

One of those hypotheses was: what if someone accidentally came across one of those hidden stashes? If he had kept equal information on all tablets, that person might be able to use the location he or she had stumbled upon to find the others.

Given that, besides general information, like books, maps and guides, Danny chose to keep the information on those tablets limited to what was related to the respective spot, excluding any reference to the other two places. Therefore, inventories and alike were all individualized.

Sure, he could adopt other preventive measures, like security passwords on the devices for example, however he did not choose that course of action in the end. Danny had many considerations about the advantages and disadvantages of each plan he thought of, and felt like it was best to leave all the devices he prepared beforehand password free.

His reasoning was quite simple.

In the end, who knew what will happen? He might die this very day or even the next due to bad luck, without being able to make use of any of his arrangements. Maybe someone would then find his stashes and make use of the information contained there to build a better place to live, or to help other people.

Danny was no saint, but he would lend a helping hand to someone in need if he could. If he never had the chance to use those caches, he would leave to fate whether someone could find them and make use of the information contained within. If he could plant a seed of hope for others, and it did not conflict with his own plans, why not do it?