The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind whom I have created from the face of the earth.”

—Genesis 6:5, 7

When we first moved into Mandrodage Meadows, the grown-ups hardly mentioned the end of the world to us at all. I can’t remember ever sitting down with my parents, Pioneer, or anyone else and discussing just why we were way out in the middle of nowhere digging the largest hole in the earth that I had ever seen. What I do remember is roaming the prairie and the hills beyond them with Will and the others. I remember picking wildflowers in the summer and sledding in the winter. I remember feeling like New York was a million miles away and that all the darkness that came before we moved here was no more than a fading nightmare. If it weren’t for Karen’s shoes still sitting by our front door, I might’ve chosen to forget that before time altogether.

When I turned ten, that all changed. That was the year that Pioneer sat all of us down at school and showed us the taped newscasts our parents had seen but we hadn’t. He brought out charts and maps of space and taught us how to decipher them. I started to realize that the sky hid dangers far greater than I had ever imagined. Asteroids. Solar flares.

He read us the story of Noah. He said that we were just like Noah and his family. Their god had told them that something was coming, something most of humanity wouldn’t survive, and so Noah prepared his people. He braved the chiding and disbelief of the rest of his community, gathered those few who did believe to him, and built them an ark to ride out the coming storm, just as Pioneer had us build the Silo. When Noah’s flood finally came, the scoffers finally saw the hand of Noah’s god on him and fought to enter the ark, but by then it was too late and they were lost, just as the people beyond Mandrodage Meadows would be one day.

“You are all chosen, specially selected by the Brethren, the higher beings that have watched our planet’s progress since before humans occupied it. They chose me, gave me the visions of what’s coming, so that in return, according to their instructions, I could choose you, the people most worthy of surviving. My Community.”

I had lots of questions, we all did—about the mysterious Brethren, about what Pioneer saw in his visions, about how our families were picked. Pioneer laughed, his deep booming one that always made us want to laugh too—even when we weren’t sure why he was laughing. He laid one of his hands on my shoulder and the other one on Will’s. Then he told us stories about the aliens that waited for us across the universe. He showed us drawings he’d made of their slim bodies and large black eyes, pointed to the galaxy where they lived on a map, and described how wonderful their world is. He said that he’d seen it all in visions the Brethren gave him. He spent the better parts of weeks and months showing us how to search the Bible for the messages that they had embedded inside for those clever enough to recognize them.

We started walking around the development with a new lift to our shoulders and a secret smile playing on our lips. We were special. We were chosen. We would be the survivors.