– More like when a big bastard ruining said day.
– Remember to have fun; it's what makes us human.
– Even if your idea of fun involves mild electrocution or forced cardio.
---
The Fortress was quiet.
Not peaceful. Just... quiet. That kind of quiet you get after surviving a horror movie marathon and realizing the credits are finally rolling. We had snuck back inside after Barbie’s little outburst turned half of Cleveland into a demolition derby of undead. And now, all the zones we’d painstakingly cleared were crawling again.
So, yeah. Big day.
We needed to unwind. Which, of course, meant five different definitions of what that actually meant.
---
Gail decided to unwind by making the rest of us feel like underachievers.
He stood in the courtyard, shirt off, posture perfect, swinging a rusted pipe (filled with cement, who's Gail if he isn't building his body into a Greek statue?) like it was a samurai sword. His muscles had muscles. He looked like a motivational poster you’d find in a military gym.
And poor Harun—our gentle cinnamon roll of a human—was plucked from his post-nap coma and dragged into the courtyard like a confused Roomba.
“I said thirty minutes,” Harun groaned, rubbing his eyes.
“You got thirty-one,” Gail replied like a war crime.
To his credit, Harun tried. For a guy who still ducked when someone opened a soda can too fast, he managed not to pass out doing push-ups. Baby steps.
---
Alex's idea of fun looked like a safety violation in progress.
By the time I passed by the workshop, she'd already shocked herself three times and was muttering a mix of curse words and science terms that made my brain short-circuit in sympathy.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
She had a whiteboard with something like:
“INVERTER PLAN v.9 – now with fewer electrical fires!”
The Fortress was on limited generator power, and Alex was on a mission. Solar panels, car batteries, hand-cranked alternators—if it had a wire and potential to zap, she was sticking a voltmeter in it.
I asked her once if this counted as relaxation. She grinned and held up a fried screwdriver. “Best day off ever.”
---
Me?
I unwound by lying completely still and hoping no one asked me to do anything.
And surprisingly, Jules joined me.
No fighting. No banter. No kissing, even. Just two exhausted people in the same bed, staring at the ceiling like it owed us rent.
I couldn’t say we were normal yet. After everything that happened—her betrayal, my near-death sprint, her “I love you” dropped like a live grenade—it still felt weird. Like we were two puzzle pieces that sort of fit but had some water damage.
Then, out of nowhere, she muttered, “You think Barbie sleeps in a giant pink coffin?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Like... she’s undead, right? And Barbie. So maybe she’s got a glam casket. Rhinestones. Mood lighting. Couple of variant zombies doing her nails.”
I snorted. “You're thinking of Vampires. Although, I think she uses the corpses of her enemies as a memory foam mattress.”
“She would be the type to need lumbar support.”
We both cracked up. And just like that, it felt like before.
Not perfectly. Not completely. But it was a start.
We joked about everything. Gail’s training montages. Harun’s mop diplomacy. Alex’s “how many volts until I become a god” experiments. Ourselves. Our past.
I remembered the way we used to trade one-liners during scouting missions, laughing even as we snuck past death.
It didn’t erase what happened. But it felt like a thread was being tied again—however thin, however frayed.
We didn’t need a movie night or ice cream or even power. We just needed that moment.
A stupid, tired, post-apocalyptic giggle fit under a crummy blanket in a cold room.
Honestly? Might’ve been the best night we’d had in weeks.
---
Jules was the first to break the silence again.
“Do you think Gail has ever laughed? Like, ever? Or do you think he was born with a six-pack and a death stare?”
I smirked. “He probably popped out of the womb bench pressing the doctor.”
Jules snorted. “Bet his first words were ‘discipline is freedom.’”
“And his second was ‘push-ups.’”
We devolved into soft laughter again—half out of humor, half from sheer exhaustion. It was one of those rare times where the world didn't feel like it was caving in. Just two idiots making fun of their emotionally unavailable team leader like old times.
There was a knock on the door. A slow, deliberate knock.
Before I could respond, it opened an inch.
“Are you two resting?” Harun’s voice was quiet.
“Define resting,” Jules said.
There was a pause. “...Not fighting. Not crying. Not bleeding.”
“Then yeah,” I answered. “We're resting.”
Harun peeked in, hoodie hood up like he was trying to be inconspicuous and failing. “I made goulash. Kind of. It's got beans.”
“Harun, my man,” I said, sitting up, “you just spoke poetry.”
He beamed. “We still have one can of the good paprika. I used it. For morale.”
We joined him in the common room. Alex had set up a string of half-busted solar-powered lights she was testing. They flickered like dollar-store fireflies. Gail stood nearby, arms crossed, overseeing a pan of food like it was a security checkpoint.
Jules and I grabbed bowls, took our seats, and soaked in the moment.
Harun sat between us, proud as hell.
Alex, with singed eyebrows and a satisfied look, raised her spoon. “To surviving Barbie’s wake-up tantrum.”
“To not dying,” I added.
“To poor electrical decisions,” Alex said.
“To functional plumbing,” Harun said.
“To Gail,” Jules added, “who’s probably a Terminator but we haven’t confirmed it yet.”
He didn’t respond. Just blinked slowly like a man calculating if a joke required a rebuttal.
We ate. Talked. Laughed. Gail even gave Harun a very Gail-ish nod that, in his language, might've meant "good job existing."
For one hour, no one was planning anything.
No one was scouting or fixing or fighting.
No one was watching their six or double-checking the perimeter or hoarding bandages.
Just a team—no, friends—having a meal and making fun of each other like the world wasn’t ending.
And for a moment, I believed it wasn’t.
