[ WP ] After a world-wide cataclysm you 're the only human left alive . In your extreme loneliness you 've created an imaginary friend who follows you around and keeps you company . However , the other day they did something which made you think maybe they 're not imaginary after all .

I found him some time after the collapse. He was trying feebly to create a fire in the parking lot of a half-ruined shopping center. It had been so long since I had seen anyone else, I was n't sure if he was real. In the end I decided it did n't matter. Good thing I did because the poor bastard never would have made it without me! It ’ s not that he ’ s been a bad companion, just not what you would call a survivor. He was a scrawny man whose hands had seen more time at a computer or on a guitar than anything. 
 
 All these years later and we ’ re closer than anyone ought to be. We've made a routine of survival, as much as it can be anyway. At night we swap stories by the fire while he plays some tune or another and I tend the cooking. It seems strange to keep the past alive in our minds when there is no hope of returning to it, but sometimes it ’ s all we have. 
 
 I ’ ve adjusted to this life better than my companion. He is prone to long bouts of depression and silence but I learned in time to coax him out of it. Turns out I ’ m the nurturing sort! In a way keeping his spirits up does the same for me I think. It has certainly strengthened our friendship. 
 
 It was during one of these periods that everything changed. My friend was slumped near the fire, staring intently into the flames. I had just begun telling him of a time I failed spectacularly at wooing a school crush when there was a call from the darkness. He sprang to his feet and strained to see the source of the noise behind me. Again it sounded, this time resolving itself into a feint “ Hello! ” 
 
 By the time the word registered he had already hurtled past me into the black of the night and it was a long time before I saw him again. When he returned the fire was low and he was with another. They approached arm in arm and the light from the coals showed cheeks wet with tears. He quickly set about stoking the flames as the newcomer offered up what food she had carried with her. They talked for hours as I sat and listened. It was the first of many such nights.
