[color=seagreen][center][h2]Caleb ‘CC’ Carr[/h2]
[i]Woke up this mornin’… Got myself a gun.[/i][/center][/color]

The sun was beginning to creep over the horizon, which meant that it was time for Caleb to get up. They tossed their unravelled sleeping bag aside and eased themselves out of their cot, stretching a little and working the sleep out of their eyes as they adjusted to the dawning light. Having been with the Jonesgroup for years, they had a routine worked out by now: a risk according to every survival manual they’d read, but you couldn’t live life by how pre-collapse survivalists thought it’d go down. Lord knew that Caleb had broken plenty of old rules and mantras in the past seven years… and they’d be breaking another one this morning, as they did almost every morning at this point.

But first, getting themselves organised. They rekindled their little wooden stove, threw on their clothes and went to fetch water, setting a kettle to boil as they went through the usual morning ablutions to try to keep the grime from getting too bad. Once that was done, they could burp their mason jars, before taking a little of their cured product and carefully  breaking it up, sprinkling the green bud down into a multihued glass pipe. They had finished the process just as the kettle began whistling, pouring out boiling water into a metal camping mug and following it up with a spoonful of instant coffee.

Instant. Fucking. Coffee. 

There was something almost distinctly dystopian in CC’s mind when it came to the massive tin of instant coffee siting near their stove, still stamped with a faded Walmart symbol. It never went bad, they’d learnt. Tea, kept in cardboard boxes and with its rather fragile, degrading nature, had lost most of its flavour or simply been wasted ages ago. But vacuum-sealed tins of freeze-dried coffee? Consistently terrible, year after year after year after [i]year[/i].

Still. It was caffeine. They couldn’t complain, even if they really wanted to. With the granules dissolving in their mug they set a mess tin of leftover stew from under their cot and set it to reheat, adding a little of the boiling water to get it going a little quicker. With breakfast on the way, they took a home-made match and pressed it against the hot ashes at the bottom of their stove, the pine tar quickly sparking to life. They transferred the flame to their pipe, tossed the match into the flames, then took their mug and stepped out of their small, cramped annex, pressing the glass to their lips to draw in a deep, smoke-filled breath.

Hold it in. One second. Two seconds. Exhale deeply. Around them, the day was rapidly coming to life. Birds chirped, something rustled through the foliage not too far away from where they stood, and a few other early risers in the community could be seen moving about. They took a sip of the scalding instant coffee and swallowed before the taste could become clear over the burn.

Another long inhale. Another brief pause before smoke began to trickle out from their nose. Another sip of coffee. It was a meditative time. Good for contemplation. Good for thinking at what needed to be done, what could be done, and what had to be prioritised. You had to make a list before you could tick it off, after all.

And an excellent time to ruminate on the biggest threat to their little community. The Mounted Skulls. CC couldn’t help but pull a face at the idea of that particular confrontation. On the one hand, there really hadn’t been another option at this point. Their eyes lingered a little on the empty chicken coop, disused since the bikers had taken all the hens as ‘tribute’ during the winter… But they were still… Well… A heavily armed raider group with a methhead for a leader. They wouldn’t be taking ‘Mama’ Jones’ defiance lying down. 

Their musings came to an end as the green in their pipe turned brown and their coffee was nothing but dregs. They emptied both out onto the ground, put them back into their annex, scoffed down their breakfast stew and finally got the day’s work started, shutting their door firmly and grabbing their axe, walking away whistling a tune.

Check their traps. Reset their traps. Check for any signs of animals in the night. By the time they’d finished their little stroll the effects of their morning smoke had settled across their mind, a light yet pleasant fog that eased away the physical twinges and the mental niggles. It had been a quiet night – a single hare had found its neck trapped in a snare and another had been tripped but not caught its prey, but the bigger ones were untouched and the only tracks to be found was a slightly worrying rooting trail from a wild hog.

The hare could be dropped off at the main house’s kitchens, to be used as the cooks saw fit, and then it was to the fields. May was a busy time when it came to planting. The maize in the greenhouse needed to be transferred outside, they had to set fresh support for beans, and… Well, that was just the start. Tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and spinach was all in, and they weren’t one to waste time when this much work had to be done.

Their first bout of labour lasted from their walk until what their watch told them was some time around eleven. They were entering the hottest part of the day, and they needed something more than a bit of soup to keep themselves going. With hands covered in mud and endorphins replacing the THC in their system, they’d head for the plantation house, pausing to say their good mornings to ‘Mama’ Jones on their stoop before going inside and seeing who was about and what might be around to eat.