I came to consciousness at dinner, as if emerging from the depths of a dark ocean. Light and sound gradually returned, filtering through layers of disorientation. The world around me sharpened into focus with painful clarity.

  It was our same old home, at that same wooden table, in our small cul-de-sac. We had lived on the outskirts of a small Alabama city in a middle-class neighborhood; a place I had believed lost forever.

  A lump formed in my throat, nearly choking me. I had dreamed about this table, begged whatever powers might exist to see it again. It was more than brick and varnish; it was the heart of our family, the gathering place every night at 6pm before everything went to hell.

  My hands trembled beneath the table. I clenched them into fists, digging my nails into my palms until the sharp pain confirmed this wasn’t another hallucination born of grief and exhaustion.

  Around the table, arguing about who should get the last of the mashed potatoes, were the people I had missed most on this entire planet.

  My beautiful wife, Aurora, had her hands to her mouth, laughing at the kids and their animated stories. I hadn’t seen her face in what felt like an eternity. The sound of her laughter—God, that sound, it was water to a man dying of thirst.

  She wore her favorite low-cut blue top and her customary pair of blue jeans with flip flops. There were no scars or traumas plaguing her ivory features. No haunted look in her eyes from watching her children die one by one. Just my Aurora, unblemished by the apocalypse, radiant with life.

  Next to her was my youngest daughter, Nadia. With similar hazelnut features to her middle sister Maeve, she was about 13 years old and tough as nails. Even at this age, she radiated the fierce sense of justice that had defined her short life in the other timeline.

  I remember once when she was in kindergarten, a boy pushed a girl to the ground. She threw him to the ground and beat him with her lunch box, repeatedly screaming “Dad said boys aren’t supposed to pick on girls!” The memory, once fond, now carried the bitter knowledge of her fate.

  When The Fall took place, she immediately chose Warrior, much to our dismay. I ended up losing her during the second wave, as a Ruinous Ape slammed her body into a massive oak tree that spawned in The Killing Fields. The impact had been so violent that…

  I forced the memory away, focusing instead on her animated gestures as she argued with Margo over the potatoes.

  Margo, my vivacious and wild monster. She, above all others, felt giddy when The System descended upon humanity. Becoming a Mage and focusing on nurturing plant life, she had worked closely with Bev to understand which plants were safe to consume and process. Her knowledge had given us resources to bargain with the Merchant’s Guild at the nearby Air Force Base.

  I watched as she stealthily stole the mashed potatoes while everyone was fighting. Food and reading were always her constant companions and true loves. She was a wonderful person with a bubbly personality that had lifted spirits even in mankind’s darkest hour.

  In the days after The Fall, her plant magic fed multitudes of people across the local area. But that didn’t save her. The memory of her body lying on the ground, as plants grew around it returning her to the earth she loved so much, threatened to pull me back into the abyss.

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  Next to her sat the quiet princess who had been instrumental in saving our world. Maeve sat back with her customary smile, jabbing in digs at her brother and sisters, just enjoying the chaos of the moment.

  This is what her life should have been. A normal seventeen-year-old girl shouldn’t have to shoulder the weight of the world, shouldn’t have to make the kind of choices that would haunt a battle-hardened soldier. She shouldn’t have had to become a killer.

  At the other end of the table was my son, Xavier. Standing at six foot three, even at the age of 20, he struck an imposing figure. Tall, thin, and muscular with his dreads tied back into a ponytail, he couldn’t stop laughing at his sisters’ antics.

  Ever the joker, even after The Fall, he had kept everyone’s spirits up when it seemed impossible to smile. Xavier had chosen the Rogue class for its dexterity. Opting for extreme speed and high-pressure situations, he originally wielded dual crossbows as his primary choice of weapon.

  His death had been the one I never witnessed and nor fully confirmed. In my darkest moments in the apocalypse, I imagined him alone in the forest, body broken and bleeding out, calling for his father who never came. The uncertainty had been an open wound that refused to heal.

  But here, now, my son stood before me while enjoying the show of his family more than the potatoes that Margo had already stolen.

  The overwhelming cascade of emotions, while watching them smile before my eyes, shattered my carefully laid mental defenses. I’d spent years building walls around my heart, had learned to compartmentalize my grief just to function day-to-day. Now those walls crumbled like sandcastles in a tidal wave.

  I completely lost it.

  “Everyone, come here right now,” I managed to say, my voice thick with emotion. “I need a hug.”

  They looked around at each other with awkward glances, confusion evident in their expressions, but they stood up and came over.

  “Babe, are you alright?” asked Aurora as she rubbed my back while embracing me tightly. The warmth of her body against mine, the familiar scent of her shampoo, the sound of her breath; all sensations I had cataloged in my memory and revisited in moments of despair, were now all completely real.

  Her question was followed by an onslaught of children charging me in a big pile. I kissed the tops of all their heads one by one, my tears falling freely as I ugly cried at our reunification.

  “Sorry kiddos, I’m just under a lot of stress and it’s been a long day. I’d rather hear about you guys’ days, to be honest.” I said with a teary smile, desperately trying to regain my composure.

  As they each started giving an account of what had been happening with them, I listened intently. The mundane details of their everyday lives, homework struggles, friend drama, minor triumphs were like precious gems to me. In the apocalypse, we had lost the luxury of the ordinary, the blessing of the uneventful.

  The monotony of their stories no longer existed, and I fully embraced my children’s lives with a hunger born of absolute loss. Seeing Aurora staring at me with a worried look on her face, I gave her my customary wink. We’d definitely be talking about this later.

  “Let’s go get ice cream,” I said aloud. “It’s been a while since we’ve done it as a family.”

  For the rest of the evening, we enjoyed ourselves, ate ice cream and watched movies; all on a school night. Nadia fell asleep on my lap, and I stroked her hair gently, marveling at its softness. Margo and Xavier argued over movie trivia while Maeve watched them with her quiet, observant gaze, smiling every so often.

  I caught Aurora’s eye across the room, and at that moment, I saw a flicker of understanding. She didn’t know what had happened, but she sensed the change in me. She always could read me better than anyone. I know I had a lot of work to do, but not tonight. Tonight, I enjoyed my family.

  Later that night, while lying in bed, Aurora brought up my earlier outburst. “What’s up babe? You seem completely different than usual, almost…sad,” she said worriedly, her hand tracing patterns on my chest.

  “I missed you so much today,” I said, kissing her softly. “I’ll talk soon, I promise; just need a little time to order my thoughts. It’s nothing to worry about right now. Let’s just enjoy this night with you and me.”

  We embraced. And enjoy it, we did. The weight of the future could wait until tomorrow. Tonight was for remembering what I was fighting for.