My name is Fiona.  I am a fabulous fairy.  Ten days ago, my life was perfect.   Everyone thought Belle the backstabber, and Alice the awful were insane.  They predicted the collapse of our sun, and thousands of major earthquakes. They stole all the vitamin D and holed up in their bunker. No one believed them. Then it happened, the sun exploded and earthquakes rocked the surface of the earth, creating a modern day Pangaea, a completely sunless planet. With the feeble magic I have left, my boyfriend (Harry the British Hollister model) and I are trekking across the newly made land of Blarf to a rumored safe house with artificial sun. I not only need the sun for food and vitamin D, but my magic and ability to fly also come from the sun. So there I was tromping across the dark wasteland that was once known as Earth sweeping a flashlight back and forth the narrow beam illuminating small patches of dead plants. I reached out my hand and grabbed Harry’s. Knowing he was there comforted me; we hadn’t seen another living soul in so long. I was just thinking this when the yellow beam of my flashlight flashed across some russet fur that flashed in the narrow beam of light. The eerie silence that had only been broken by the crunching of our footsteps now had another sound, something scampering along the dead vegetation. I swung my beam wildly looking for the creature that had made the noise. I stiffened not sure whether to fight or take flight; Harry squeezed my hand, and called out softly, “Hello?”
The sound of his voice shocked me, I hadn’t heard him speak in two days. A small ginger monkey slowly crept into the light looking at us suspiciously and mooed loudly, then clamped her hands over her mouth.
“Who are you?” I asked looking at the curious little thing,
“We aren’t going to hurt you.” The monkey drew a big breath and stood up to her full height before squeaking,
“I’m Mary, Mary the mooing monkey.” It was a strange name, but it also was obvious. Mary was a monkey and she occasionally let out moos, which were strange, though things didn’t shock me as much since the sun had exploded.
“Where are you heading?” I asked Mary. She shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. I looked at Harry pleading, shining the flashlight on my puppy dog eyes.
“Fine,” He grumbled.
I looked over at Mary and smiled, “We’re going to a safe house in what used to be Japan, they say it has artificial sun there, do you want to join us?”
Mary blinked “Yeah, sure thank you.” Just like that our group added a member. We trudged through the pressing darkness, our footsteps making crunching sounds on the deadened earth, while I swung the flashlight back and forth. I was not willing to waste any of my energy omitting a glow when we had a perfectly good source of light, admittedly the beam was going dim and we had no more batteries, we would have to find a town soon. Maybe Mary knew a nearby place. It was a risk, we had already made enough sound with our encounter, who knows what could be lurking in the lightless void just outside our sight, but if we were to be traveling with her, we had to get to know Mary better.
“So…” I began awkwardly, “How’d you end up in the middle of nowhere?”
“Before, you know, the sun exploded, I was working in a circus, there wasn’t much else I could do. I really wanted to go into modeling, but they wouldn’t take on a monkey.” She said looking a bit abashed.
“Modeling is a tough business.” Harry confirmed nodding.
Mary smiled, “I was doing my act, the crowds were cheering, than, well you know what happened. During the chaos I ran to my caravan, the ringmaster was trying to calm everyone down, he said, ‘Everything’s alright please go back to the show!’ He was an extremely greedy man. By then pieces of the sun were starting to fall like blazing comets, I knew I had to go. I grabbed whatever I thought would be helpful and stuffed it into a bag, and I set off. I hid in a cave during the earthquakes, that was possibly my stupidest decision, but I lived. Of course it was pure luck, but that doesn’t matter. Moo!” I raised my eyebrows, I had noticed this strange trait of Mary, and I was so incredibly curious.
“What’s the mooing about?” I asked.
“Oh that. I’ve been involuntarily mooing in my sentences ever since I got a heavy exposure to UV rays during the explosion.” I had heard about that, people getting awful deformities or impediments from the dangerous visible and invisible toxins coming from what used to be the star in the center of our solar system. But it looked like Mary had gotten off easily, there could have been a lot worse damage.  We spent what I guessed was a week trudging through what once must have been a lush meadow. We headed east by the direction of a compass that Harry had had the sense to bring as we rushed from our houses. We were parched and didn’t have a drop of water to drink, when we got a lucky break. The merry gurgle of a river could be heard very clearly, and dark blobs were somewhat discernable, though of course I had also heard that complete darkness would eventually drive one insane. But we were half mad from thirst anyways and stumbled blindly to the river’s edge. I scooped cool clean tasting water into my mouth and refilled my canteen, and it sounded as if Harry and Mary were doing the same. Though once again I was alerted to another presence just as I had a week ago, more soft rustling, though it sounded as if it were two bodies making their way to the river, I quickly grabbed my flashlight and flipped on the switch, we had decided to use it only in emergencies. I swung the light so that it shown on two figures. The light hurt my eyes, I had a bizarre flashback to when I was little, when I was just learning how to fly, and every morning after I had woken up I would smash into walls as I tried to adjust to the sunlight. A tattooed aardvark and a rainbow fish were standing in the harsh yellow light. I heard Mary make a little gasp, and was sure she was blushing tomato red under her fur.
“Please,” said the aardvark, “Whatever you do, please let me get my friend to the water.” And indeed the fish looked very dry, almost shriveled. The aardvark carried the fish over to the river and placed him in the water where he seemed to immediately revive. The aardvark sighed in relief and removed the rainbow trout from the water. The aardvark held out its paw and shook Harry’s, Mary’s, and my hand.
“I’m so sorry you had to see Randy and I like that, my name is Adam.” Randy had obviously recovered he was happily walking around on his fins. He probably had it worse than me, the absence of sun only weakened me, for him the absence of water would mean certain death. For some reason I immediately trusted them, then I realized Adam was THE Adam the aardvark, pre-apocalypse he had been a famous singer. I couldn’t believe it. It would be so cool if they joined us. Mary stepped forward and giggled
“Are you real?” Adam gave an exasperated smile, as if he got this question a lot.
Mary made a little squeaking sound,
“I was- am a huge fan of yours.”  She was visibly flustered in the presence of a star. Harry and I exchanged looks, no matter what Mary would not let us leave them behind.
“So where are you guys heading?” I asked.
Randy who hadn’t spoken, what with his recuperation confided, 
“We’re trying to find a friend of ours, Edwardo the elephant. He was one of the few the took precautions, just in case, apparently he made a bunker out in Japan. We have no clue where it is, but we heard Edwardo was heading to it and a flamingo we met a while back told us he saw him in a nearby rest-stop.” He broke off to take a breath,
“Have you heard about it? Le Cateau, it used to be a small town, now, it’s well, smaller.” I was amazed, if we were really near Le Cateau that meant we were in what used to be France. Then a memory surfaced, Harry and I in a cave shortly after setting out. We were discussing our route and Harry had brought up Le Cateau as a place we could rest, but we had rejected the idea later when we changed our route because.... because it was near the border to Belgium! Japan was so close, yet so far. Which got me thinking about the Edwardo guy, I had a sneaking suspicion that we all were looking for the same bunker.
“We’re looking for the bunker too.” I confessed,
“How about we join together?” Somewhere behind me I heard Mary  start hyperventilating and letting out tiny, squeaky, moos, as Adam nodded approvingly. 

Le Cateau must have once been an incredibly charming town. Out in French countryside, with cute, classic, little-European-town architecture, and cobblestone streets. I tried to imagine how it must have looked two months ago, though the present state was hard to ignore. People sat hunched in the stoops of abandoned, graffiti buildings, either insane or almost insane. The lack of water, food, sun, and will to live had stolen their sanity. They reached out for the light issuing from my flashlight, babbling incoherently, one old woman who seemed to be wearing a blanket as a toga tried to eat it. Luckily they stayed out of our way. I heard the distant moans of radiation sickness victims dying and shivered. We walked through Le Cateau, not making a sound, there had been a reason Harry and I had avoided towns. I managed to find batteries in an already looted store, careful to step over piles of broken glass, wishing I had the energy to fly. When I was out of the store though, I froze. Echoing down the deserted street were the unmistakable sounds of trumpeting. We all took off toward the noise, I nearly twisted my ankle twice sprinting down the uneven cobblestones. And there he was, a massive elephant, towering above me, dressed in a… Was that a tux? He was dancing in the street, and was carrying a crate labeled peanuts.
“Edwardo!” Adam and Randy called waving their arms back and forth. The elephant stopped and looked down in confusion, I noticed he was also wearing a headlight, like the kind miners used, it wasn't necessary here though, street lamps flickered feebly. Edwardo’s face broke out into a huge smile,
“It’s so good to see you two again! I heard you were looking for me, and your friends?” Randy stepped forward and pointed at each of us in turn,
“That’s Fiona, Harry, and Mary.” We all gave a little wave.
Edwardo nodded his head,
“ I expect you all are are looking for my bunker, I can give you a ride if you want, much faster on my back.” I was shocked at his immediate show of friendship, but Adam just smiled and said,
“Yeah! That’d be great.”
Edwardo knelt down and cried,
“Come on up! Oh and can one of you put those peanuts on my back too, I had a marvelous stroke of luck finding those!” We clambered up, he turned on his head light and we stampeded out of Le Cateau.
After a few months (which were so incredibly boring i’m not even going to tell you about them, trust me I’m doing you a favor) Edwardo shuddered to a stop in the middle of a street in deserted Roppongi Hills, Minato, Tokyo. I looked around as Edwardo worked to pry  manhole, the deserted city freaked me out, it wasn’t supposed to be like that. It seemed Adam was thinking along the same lines,
“Hey Randy how ‘bout you scout around with me?” Randy swallowed nervously and nodded. They set off and turned a corner.
“I hope they can- MOO- find their way back.” Mary said anxiously.
“They’ll be fine.” I assured her, just as an explosion made the ground shudder.
Mary ran toward the explosion screaming,
“Randy! Adam! Where are you? Please! Come here now!” Randy stumbled out of a wall of smoke an angry expression on his face,
“Adam’s a traitor, he’s working for Alice and Belle he just tried to kill me.”
“What?” I gasped,
“No! That’s impossible!”
Randy sighed, “But it is true Fiona, they want the bunker, Edwardo made an artificial sun, an artificial paradise really, Noah’s ark and The Garden of Eden mashed into one place. And Adam’s a two-faced, lying, jerk. He told me all of this, minus the jerk part while he made a stereotypical villains gloating speech.” Mary was hysterical, crying and yelling, “No! No! I won’t believe it! He’s in there somewhere! He’s a good guy!” We had to drag her back kicking and screaming to the manhole, Edwardo didn’t ask questions, there would be time for that later. I was the last to descend, I shut the cover and sealed the lock. The smell of flowers and dirt hit my nose. I felt glowing heat surround me, the light filling me up. Birds and butterflies danced in the air. Our rag-tag, mixed up jumble of a group stood in shock. We had lost one, and we undoubtedly would be a target for Belle and Alice, but at the moment we didn’t care. We were finally home.