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RAY STANDS in the furnace room, looking around with the help of the light of dawn. Eleanor, Taron, and Robbie are all fast asleep against the wall, Eleanor's head laying on Robbie's shoulder and her hand entwined with Taron's, who's free hand is still wrapped around the handle of the baseball bat.
Ray wonders if in any other situation he would separate Taron and Eleanor, but given everything that is going on, he decides to leave it alone. Besides, he doesn't believe his daughter would ever have any feelings for him due to how long they have been friends; in his mind, they will always be the kids who constantly climbed trees, wrestled in the mud, and watched movies under a fort in Mary Ann's living room.
Ray quietly exits the room through the charred doors, finding most of the basement in complete ruins. The ground floor is now the top floor due to the fact that the second floor was completely torn off.
Walking through the wreckage of the house and finally into what could be considered the yard, Ray discovers that the commotion last night involved an airplane crashing a few hundred feet away. A burning engine is still attempting to wind down. Every house in the neighborhood is an absolute wreck; one would never believe that a perfect suburban neighborhood ever stood there at all.
An ominous noise resembling a monstrous vibration is heard from the distance. Realizing that one of the tripods are approaching, Ray promptly ends his moments of pondering and runs back to the basement to retrieve the teenagers.
☁
Taron has had a horrible nightmare.
In his fitful sleep, he dreamt that the modern apocalypse ended in him dying a very unheroic death — getting lung cancer, of all things — and Eleanor being whisked away by a dashing and daring Johnny Forester, complete with wind blowing in his curly, golden locks. He watched the sight from the perspective of his grave, looking up at the two of them as if the earth were transparent. He couldn't yell, he couldn't move; he couldn't even punch Johnny in the face.
Taron wakes with a start, his eyes wide as he stays still and looks around. He lets out a breath when he realizes that he most certainly is alive; after briefly considering the lung cancer bit, he decides he will deal with it later.
Taron looks down at Eleanor's fingers laced with his and a small smile spreads on his face. He turns his head to look at her face; she is sound asleep, her lips slightly parted and strands of her red hair falling over her eyes. He wishes she would have fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder, but he very much appreciates her hand in his.
His few seconds of pondering the uniqueness of her eyebrows is cut short by Ray bursting into the room; Taron barely even noticed that he was gone.
