Epilogue
We made it.
It has been three months since we crossed the line. The Collapse came, just as I felt it would. From the safety of the high ground we watched the world behind us break apart and remake itself one last time. Then it stopped. All of it.
I remember the exact moment. I was helping raise the frame of our first real shelter when I realized something was different. The pressure I had carried inside me since the day the ground first split, the constant hum of shifting plates, the pull, the warnings, all of it had gone quiet. For the first time in my life there was silence in my blood. I sat down right there in the dirt and I cried. Not from grief. From relief. The planet had finished what it started. It had found its new shape and so, finally, had we.
The safe haven is becoming a home. We have shelters now, and a well, and a fire that never goes out at the center of it all. Every person I brought here found their place. The ones who were strangers to each other on the road are family now. New groups still arrive, led by other Pathfinders, and every time I see one walk in, exhausted, carrying their people's lives on their shoulders, I know exactly what it cost them.
We built a cairn at the edge of the settlement for everyone who did not make it this far. We each carried one stone for every person we lost. It is taller than I expected. We do not look away from it. We tend to it, because remembering them is part of rebuilding.
People still call me Pathfinder but I am not sure the title fits anymore. There are no more paths to find. There is just this place, these people, and the work of living. I used to wonder if I was strong enough to lead them. I know the answer now. I was strong enough because they made me strong enough. We saved each other the whole way here.
The world ended. We did not.
We are home.
