“Good GOD! Cassidy?” I cry, clutching the phone to my face for dear life. How have I not known for all this time, that Cassidy Reeve, a contact I only had saved in my phone from one group project in undergrad, was alive, and out there all along.

“Hello?” The voice answers back, seeking likewise surprised.

“This — this is D-Daniel!“ I sputter, feeing the world tilt around me. At last. A lifeline.

The connection sounds weak. “Who is this?” She says, and I clutch the phone even tighter.

“Daniel H,” I say, slowing down and enunciating every syllable. “From Biology class in college— are you— is this really you?”

Then my world stops spinning as relief washes over me. Her reply is full of recognition. “Oh! It’s great to hear from you!”

I can’t waste any time. This is my chance. If there’s a voice on the other end of this line, then that means… there’s hope.

“Cassidy, listen. I’m somewhere in the Canadian Volcano Pits,” I say, looking around me. All lava and smoke as far as the eye can see. “Where are you? How did you survive? Are there others?”

“I’m doing well!” She says with the slightest hint of a laugh.

“You’re alive? And well?”

I’m baffled. The word was a wasteland, how has she managed to survive this long and in such good spirits.

“How about you?” She asks me.

“I’m in hell. Listen,” I say, “if you and I are alive, then maybe there’s others. If you know where you are—“

“Aw that’s great!” She says sweetly.

I pause. Great? The volcano pits are GREAT to her? I hold my breath, unsure how to respond.

But before I can speak, she cuts in, saying, “Oh wow!”

I look from my phone straight out ahead of me. I purse my lips, and wait a moment more. Sure enough, she speaks again.

“No way, dude!”

I bring my hand to my temple to stem the sudden headache. “Cassidy if this is a fucking voicemail—“

She cuts me off with a gleeful, “ANYWAYS, I gotcha! Leave a message after the beep!”

Then it beeps.

I sigh. The world crumbles around me once more, hollowing out into the great, wide, oppressively empty chasm it was just moments before. My utter solitude slams back into me like a knife. I’m going to die out here. Alone in the wasteland, unknown, unloved, unmourned.

“Fuck you, Cass,” I say into the phone, before throwing it into the nearest volcano pit.

That Cassidy always was one for practical jokes.