The Quest for Fortune: A Interplanetary Journey

"I wish I was more like you, Josh."

"What?" I looked up from the fire. It was small, but it'd be enough to cook the rabbit we'd snared this morning. "Why?"

"Well, for one thing, you're always so fucking optimistic and positive about everything. I mean, I don't want to sound like a whiny bitch here or anything, but we are in the middle of the post apocalyptic wasteland here. The sun has blown up and we're all gonna die in a hundred years or so at best. We're fighting off aliens and mutants while trying to rebuild civilization with a population that's barely bigger than what it was before the Apocalypse. And you're just... always so..." Carl struggled to find a word to describe me.

"Fucking happy? I'm not happy, Carl. If anything, I'm miserable. I'm tired and hungry most of the time. Sometimes I'm scared. Sometimes I doubt myself. But if I don't keep an optimistic outlook on things then I'll just give up and die."

Carl shook his head as he stood up and stretched his back. "I think you're crazy," he said as he walked away toward the tent we'd set up nearby.

I watched him go before turning back to my task of skinning the rabbit. The meat would go into the stew pot; bones into the stockpot alongside some herbs and vegetables scavenged from our garden earlier today. Carl had been right when he said there wasn't much left in terms of food supplies or materials for growing food anymore. Millions upon millions died during the Apocalypse and even more died after it before order could be restored and society rebuilt in any semblance of normality again. There was still much work to be done before we could even begin to think about restoring Earth to its former glory again; let alone colonizing other worlds now that time travel had been rediscovered last year.

The rice cooked quickly once I added it to the stew pot along with some salt found in one of our crates of supplies brought from Earth by an early colony ship before the Apocalypse came about suddenly and without warning nearly fifty years ago now. While waiting for it to finish cooking, I made up a salad using some of the tomatoes grown by our makeshift hydroponic garden along with a few other vegetables which were starting to grow on their own now that they were no longer being tended by humans anymore after the colony had lost contact with Earth several months ago due to solar storms interfering with communications satellites far above us in space.

"Hey," Carl said as he walked over carrying two bowls full of rice stew with rabbit meat in it along with two mugs filled with beer on a tray he'd taken from one of our cases of supplies brought from Earth before the Apocalypse struck down on us years ago now long since lost among all the chaos which ensued afterward in those first few months after things went wrong back home near Sol System's star system where humanity was born so long ago now before its extinction came about somewhere out there in space among countless stars far beyond our reach forever now as new generations rose and fell upon distant worlds beyond our reach now as well through time's relentless march forward past all that is remembered for lives lived once upon a time gone forever now except for those who look forward instead of back, through futures yet to be lived rather than those already passed into history long forgotten by many living today across countless worlds scattered throughout this galaxy alone where few people remember those who died among their ancestors long ago across countless centuries past scattered across untold light-years once thought impassable until someone proved otherwise by traveling faster than light through an invention that humanity took for granted when used every day across vast distances within local star systems known only as warp drives until it proved otherwise one day when humanity rushed headlong into interstellar space thinking itself invulnerable until darkness came suddenly like thunder rolling out of nowhere without warning down upon us without mercy without end leaving devastation behind in its wake no less powerful than its birth sudden appearance bringing horror worse than any natural disaster ever seen since humanity first rose from primordial sludge on some dead rock beneath an ancient Sun long since gone cold where nothing lives anymore except for us alone standing alone aloft empty space like ghosts staring out into infinity looking back at ourselves wondering how many would live tomorrow when tomorrow never comes...