I woke up at the crack of dawn as usual. Pops had made a setup with mirrors on the top of the house that made the light of the sun become a natural alarm clock. Or at least that’s what he called it. I had only seen alarm clocks in movies or shows. They were too noisy to be used in the village; more specifically, they were too artificial to be used.

At some point during the war, the Eaters learned to differentiate between natural sounds, like a waterfall or a tree falling, from the ones made by human-made machines. And, of course, they started chasing after the artificial sounds, knowing that it would lead them to a source of energy or a group of people.

Because of that, we were very careful with anything that could make what we called ‘unnatural noise.’ Then again, this was just what we believed. It’s not like we actually could tell what the Eaters were thinking. If they even were capable of something like that. After all, monsters don’t think.

I got out of bed and saw a note written with letter-shaped magnets on the wall.

‘Helping things for N8 C u at party L U P’

I smiled, for some reason, Pops still insisted on signing his messages. As if anyone else would be writing them. I got up and got dressed, remembering the time he went to a nearby city and found those magnets.

He was so excited and kept saying it was a way to write without paper or carving bark. Only to realize that writing things down with this took way too long, and he still had to go for something else if he wanted to remember what he wrote. In the end, aside from using these magnets for math, we only used them to leave messages to each other like this one. And we had to worry about not running out of letters.

After getting dressed in my workout gear and grabbing my yoga mat, I replied to the message before leaving.

‘C U L8R Love You C’

Somehow, I didn’t want to write our regular sign-off. Using just L and U to express the same thing he did in his message. It was an internal ‘joke’ if it could be called that, but there were times when both of us felt it wasn’t enough. Just as I was about to leave, I saw the message shift.

H reg 7 int Sp In twRk

I stared at that for a moment, but when I blinked, it went back to the message I had left Pops. Without even acknowledging what happened, I left our home. Walking towards the center of the village, familiar faces appeared going in the same direction. Around two years ago, Katalena found a book about yoga, and ever since she’s been practicing it almost daily.

Some of the people in the village also joined in, mostly women, but now, even some men were part of this group. They joined after seeing how nimble and flexible I was during one of the elk hunts, when I mentioned that this was the only thing I was doing differently.

Yoga was something I grew to enjoy. It was a moment I could focus only on my body and nothing else. All the constant fear and worry washed away, and it also was a surprisingly good warm-up before the rest of my morning routine.

“Hey Cass. Lovely day, isn’t it?” Francisco smiled as we both placed our mats made out of fur on the ground.

I looked up, seeing the thick, heavy clouds that threatened rain, “I don’t know if I would call this lovely.”

“Oh… I mean… Like it’s a good day no matter what. Even if it rains, it won’t be bad, right?”

I chuckled. Francisco seemed to have developed a thing for me ever since I saved him from a coyote a few weeks back. He always tried to be nice and cheer me up, even when I didn’t need it. He wasn’t an ugly man, but he also wasn’t my type. Too scrawny and weak-minded. Not to mention, he had just turned 18.

That seemed to be something that only bothered me. Other people didn’t care much about an age gap as long as both parties were adults. Just finding someone to be with was already hard enough in a world where your village had less than 50 people. Still, Francisco was just a kid. I remember when he was a bratty 15-year-old complaining about having to work after school.

“I don’t really care. In a way, rain might be nice. We could talk without having to worry so much about the sound of our voice,” this was one of the things I really hated about the world.

It didn’t take an Eater to recognize a voice in the middle of a forest. Because of that, we learned to speak softly all the time. Some adapted, but me? That didn’t seem to be in my DNA. I had to constantly watch myself not to be too loud or risk getting people hurt.

“That’s true. Nothing can bother you today, right birthday girl? I guess you are in a good mood,” Francisco opened a large smile.

I reached out to the necklace under my top, “You can say I am. Why? Were you waiting for me to be in a good mood to ask something?” I tried to push it. See if he finally decided to say he ‘Fancied me’, as Christine would say.

In all honesty, I wanted to skip these games of pretending not to know he had a crush on me and just reject the boy. That way, he could move on and find someone else. But Pops said that would hurt the kid even more. It was bothersome to keep pretending, but I didn’t want to be mean for no reason.

“Oh… I… Hum…” Francisco’s face got red, and he quickly shook his head, “No. No, nothing. Oh, there is Simon,” he rushed out like he had just seen a bear.

With a sigh, I just sat cross-legged on the ground, waiting for Katalena to start. The Yoga session lasted for around one hour, and then I did some cardio by running around the city together with the hunters and continued training with them. We worked on our muscles and then practiced some fighting.

William was the leader of the hunters, and he created a mixed martial art for hunting animals or the weaker monsters. Not the Eaters, but the wolves, bison, and coyote that mutated and became more aggressive. Humanity might have lost its place as the apex predator of the world, but we still were not at the bottom of the food chain. Even if getting there seemed just a matter of time.

With my training out of the way, I went home before going to the river for a quick wash. It wasn’t far from the village, just a ten-minute walk. Also, I brought along my spear, just in case. Most people would come in groups, but the hunters, or at least the good ones, felt confident enough to come here alone.

I was part of the latter.

The only things that could actually kill me here were the bears or an Eater. I could handle everything else, or they would just leave me be as long as I didn’t try anything stupid. Bears were also not a real problem. This wasn’t their territory and Eaters… well, if one showed up this close to home, it was hard to tell what would happen.

Pops said he had created a… barrier around the village. Using copper wire and some magnets, he made a large circle that made us invisible to the Eaters. The thing is, no Eater ever came close to this region. This wasn’t a place where they would come to. Not when there was a city, a proper city, at least to our standard, about a week’s travel away.

To us, that might seem far, but to an Eater, a monster that doesn’t stop to drink, to rest, to sleep. They can get there in just a couple of days. And having more than a thousand people to feast upon was much better than the meager 46 there were here.

Oh no, 47. Pietra is pregnant. Her belly is starting to show, so that should be, what… two months? Maybe three. I can’t understand why people insist on bringing more people into this world. It doesn’t seem fair to the newborn. Pushing those thoughts aside, I dunked my head into the cold water before finishing my bath and heading back to the village.