Greg stood with his arms crossed, staring down at the debris-strewn floor. He had heard the whispers—the quiet murmurs from the others, the tension that had started to coil tighter in the air since Xander disappeared. It was almost pathetic, really. They were all acting like the world had ended with him.
Xander's gone. So what?
He didn't care. He wasn't about to coddle anyone. He had been right from the start. It wasn't about hope. It was about survival, about doing what needed to be done, regardless of who was missing or who was left behind. Xander might've been their leader, but to Greg, he was just another person who was bound to crack under the pressure. Leadership didn't mean invincibility. It didn't mean everything fell apart if you lost a single person.
He shifted his weight and glanced over at Laura, who was staring out the cracked window, her shoulders tense as she watched the grim world outside. She didn't get it. She was too focused on what they didn't have instead of what they could do. Xander was gone, sure, but she wasn't thinking about the bigger picture.
Patience won't save us. Survival didn't wait for hope to run out. It didn't care about good intentions. It only cared about what you could do in the now. And right now? They were running out of time.
His frustration bubbled up, sharp and biting. "They're not going to wait forever, Laura," he said, his voice snapping through the room like a whip. The words felt more like a punch than a conversation, and he could see her stiffen at the impact. Good. Maybe she needed to feel it. "You can't keep hiding behind the hope that Xander's coming back. People are starting to break."
The moment the words left his mouth, he saw the flicker of hurt in her eyes. He knew it cut deeper than she'd show. But he couldn't afford to tiptoe around the truth anymore. They couldn't afford it.
She wasn't listening, though. Or maybe she just didn't want to hear him. "I'm not hiding behind hope," she said, her voice tight but defiant. "We wait. We stay together."
Stay together.
Greg's jaw clenched. He wanted to scream. What was she thinking? What did "staying together" even mean if they were just sitting here, starving and praying for the impossible? Every minute that passed was another minute closer to breaking—closer to watching the last of them crumble under the weight of their fear and desperation. He couldn't just stand by and watch them waste away, tied to some broken dream of Xander's return.
He took a step closer to her, his eyes hard, his voice low and biting. "And do what?" he demanded, his voice sharp. "Wait for Xander to come back, or wait until we all starve?" His throat was tight with barely contained anger. "You know it's just a matter of time before the rest of them turn on each other. If we don't make a move, we'll die here. Slowly. You're too focused on him to see that."
The words were out before he could stop them, and they hit their mark. He saw her flinch, the hurt and disbelief flashing across her face before she forced it away. But he didn't care. The truth needed to come out. They couldn't keep waiting for someone who wasn't going to come back.
She stood tall, defiant in the face of his words, but her eyes told a different story. She's scared too.
"I won't abandon them," she said, her voice quieter now, but there was steel in it. "Not now. Not like this."
Greg's lips curled into a bitter smile, the kind he hated to wear. He knew how it sounded, how it felt to be the one with no choice but to do what needed to be done. But she didn't understand. She couldn't. He was the one who had seen it, the one who knew what survival really meant.
"Then you'll lead them into a grave," he said, his voice colder than before. "A slow, painful death. And when that happens, you will have to live with that."
He saw her breath hitch, the flash of doubt crossing her face. Good. Let her doubt it. Let her feel it. The truth was harsh, but he didn't have time for anything else. His chest tightened as a part of him—just a part, a small one—wondered if he was pushing too hard. But then he shut it down. He couldn't afford to soften. Not when they were already this close to breaking.
Her eyes flickered away from his, and Greg's mind started to race. What if she's right? What if I'm wrong?
For a split second, doubt gnawed at him, a slow, insidious thing. Xander had been the one to hold them all together. He had kept them from falling apart when everything else had turned to ash. Without him, they were just... drifting. Greg couldn't let himself think like that. He couldn't afford it. He was the one with the answers now. Xander had failed them.
But that thought didn't sit right in his gut. What if she's right?
No. He shook it off. He couldn't afford to go down that road.
"We can't just give up on him," Laura said quietly, her voice resolute despite the doubt in her eyes. "You've seen those things. He's the only one of us who stands a chance."
Her words hit Greg harder than he expected.
He's the only one who stands a chance.
The weight of that statement pressed down on him like a boulder. Greg knew how it sounded, how it felt to believe in someone so completely, to trust that they were the one who could fix everything. It had been that way with Xander, hadn't it? He had kept them moving, kept them fighting.
But what if Xander never came back? What if all this hope was just a slow, painful way of prolonging the inevitable?
The tension in the room was suffocating now, thick with the sound of barely held breath. Jared shifted uncomfortably by the doorway, not saying anything, but his eyes flickered between Greg and Laura like he was waiting for something—waiting for the storm to pass.
Greg couldn't take it anymore. He needed to break it somehow. To stop the spiral of uncertainty.
Before he could speak, the sharp sound of movement outside broke through, the noise of hurried footsteps echoing down the hall. Mark's voice, strained and panicked, called out from the hallway.
"Something's coming," Mark shouted from the doorway, his face ashen, his eyes wide with fear.
Greg's stomach lurched, the weight of the moment pressing down harder than before. The rest of the room seemed to freeze, every survivor turning toward the door, their eyes wide with fear.
And in that moment, as the faint sound of something moving outside grew closer, Greg realized, with a cold, sinking clarity: Xander had been the one who held them all together. Without him, they were already starting to fall apart.