The Reluctant Doomsayer-12

New Year's Day came. I wrote in a journal how the loss of contact with the wider world had hit me hard, and despite expecting that to happen this still hammered me something fierce. Coping with it, while keeping track of the days, was difficult. Fortunately, all of my preparations paid off and I knew that--so long as I could keep it together between my ears--I would make it to Spring without a problem. Therefore I focused my efforts on keeping myself sane and stable, which meant keeping up a routine while awaiting expected external events.

Like my angel friend stopping by one more time.

"Job's done, monkey." he said, "How does it feel to successfully prophesize the end of the world?"

"I'm not sure. It's been less than a month. All I hear on the radio now, when I hear anything at all, is a horror show. Zombies, of all things, along with people going feral and collapsing into survivor groups. This new world makes real things previously considered fantasy, and I don't know what to make of it."

He chuckled. "Honest, to the last."

"A bit morbid, aren't we? You're now far more able than I am to see what's going on. The Internet is down, likely for good. Radio is spotty at best, and most able to broadcast aren't talking good news. For those of us that made it through, we're now confronting the fact that the world we knew is gone. Even if we rebuild what we can, it's not going to be the same. Even if we recover what we lose, it's not going to be the same. That time is done, gone, and can never return. That's a heavy thing to face, and it stands to destroy many of those who survived this cataclysm."

"Do you have a plan?"

"A grand strategy to rebuild civilization into something recognizable to those that remember what was before? No. A simple strategy to build up a foundation for an enduring community, from which others can build towards a new civilization in due time? Yeah. Not a town, not even a village or a hamlet, is what I have in mind. Much smaller, within my own capabilities, is to build this place up into a sustainable farmstead. That's my plan."

"Humble at heart. Even in the face of desolation. Yet faithful."

"So, why the visit?"

"He's got a message for you."

"Hit me."

He laid a hand upon my forehead. "He blesses you, removing you from the Book of Death and ensuring you to His bosom forevermore, and shielding you from the instruments of His wrath."

I didn't know it then, but this meant the zombies. I got to be immune to being turned, and invisible to them; this also meant that I was one of the sources for the Purified Seed of Mankind.

"Oh, and He's got a new task for you, since He figured that you'd be preparing for what to do next."

"Go forth and multiply?"

He laughed. "Exactly. Don't worry about how; He's got that sorted."

And that was that. Winter passed, and in the Spring a young lady--who turned out to have been a listener--found me. My life would change again, but that's for another story.