Gray let out a heavy sigh as he rested his forehead against the massive log he was kneeling behind, his ski goggles pressing painfully into the area between his eyebrows. He had been scanning the forest for hours, and his eyes were met with just what he expected to see when he had left base to come out here.

Nothing.

Nothing other than dead or dying trees and layers of snow. Though he supposed that it may not all be snow. There was so much ash in the atmosphere that it often fell from the sky along with the snow, the white flakes blending together as they blanketed the ground.

There was no sign of any animal life, and there hadn't been for months. They had hunted the forest dry, but he still got sent out here at least once a week, forced to scrounge up whatever remained of his vestige of hope that maybe, just maybe, there would be a miracle and he would find some game.

He lifted his head only to slam it down onto the log again, letting his bow slip from his grasp to sink into the snow. He was sick of spending his days like this. There was just no point.

As a child, his parents had told him stories of how the world was before everything went to hell. He didn't see the point in that either. Hearing about how warm and bright and vivid the world used to be only strengthened his sense of inevitable doom. He supposed that maybe they were trying to spark his imagination or give him hope that he would live long enough for things to return to the way they once were.

But he knew better than to believe in that bullshit. Humanity had screwed themselves a thousand times over. The damage they had done was irreversible by anything humankind was capable of attempting at the moment.

Nuclear war. That had been the cause. Humanity had been so caught up in their hatred and mindless conflicts with one another that they didn't realize they were bringing about their own doom. The atmosphere had been completely decimated by the weapons of mass destruction. The ash from the widespread firestorms that followed the war shot soot into the stratosphere, where it blocked sunlight from reaching the surface of the Earth. With its primary source of light and heat obstructed, the planet was thrown into a nuclear winter.

Humanity itself had also been decimated. Those that weren't killed by the nuclear blasts or the radiation that they left behind had to fend for themselves in a world that was suddenly launched into a seemingly never-ending winter. Growing food was almost impossible in the new climate, and areas that depended wholly on agriculture quickly died off. And as if there hadn't been enough bloodshed already, in places where food was commonly processed, canned, and made storable for an extended periods of time, people killed one another for their sustenance.

Gray guessed he was lucky for being born into the group that he was instead of into a group of people that killed others to survive. But he supposed there weren't many people left to kill anymore anyways. No one from their base had seen another group of survivors since this entire ordeal had started. They used to find a few lone survivors every now and then, but they hadn't encountered anyone since they found Juvia eight years ago, and she was almost twenty-one now.

Gray himself had only ever seen the faces of forty-five people. Some of their faces he would never see again. They were buried under layers and layers of dirt. And others had been introduced into his life sporadically as more survivors were found and people had children.

He was drawn out of his thoughts as something wet and cold hit the side of his head, the ball of snow breaking apart as soon as it smashed against his temple. Following the impact, boisterous laughter rung through the air.

His head whipped to the side, his gaze zeroing in on the culprit.

His hunting partner was leaning back against the thick trunk of a tree a few feet away from him, her knees pulled into her chest and arms wrapped over her swollen stomach, clutching at her sides while she laughed. The bump was barely distinguishable from the rest of her torso beneath the many layers that she had bundled herself in.

Ever since she had begun to show a little over a month ago, Gray couldn't help the rush of excitement that poured over him every time he caught sight of her. The number of faces that he had seen would soon go up to forty-six.

He was lucky that his scarf hid the bottom half of his face, concealing his smile from her view. He forced his voice to sound cold like it normally did, "What the hell, Lucy?"

"I saw how determined you were to bash your own brains in against that log. I was just trying to lighten the mood," the blonde managed to get out between laughs. Her boisterous chuckling sounded too similar to Natsu's for Gray's liking. Maybe her husband had finally started wearing off on her. That, or the human growing inside of her was making her go insane.

So she wanted to lighten the mood? Gray decided that he could use a bit of fun himself, so he would play into the game she had just started.

But he needed to get revenge first.

"You know that we're supposed to be hunting. Maybe pay attention to the forest like you're supposed to instead of focusing on me."

Her laughter quickly died out as she heard the anger in his voice and she scoffed, "Bullshit, Gray. We both know that there hasn't been any game in this forest for months. Makarov's just too optimistic to give it up and accept the fact that there's nothing left to be gained from this hunting ground."

"Yeah, well there's definitely nothing to be gained from it when you're out here acting like a child."

She let out a short, incredulous laugh, "God, did someone shove a stick up your ass? I was just trying to have some fun." She turned her focus back to the side of the forest that she was supposed to be watching, her lips set in a sour pout.

Gray smirked beneath his scarf. Her attention was off of him, just like he had wanted.

The blonde was like his little sister, and he couldn't help but mess with her sometimes. And just like he knew how to tick her off, he knew exactly what to do to cheer her up.

He slowly reached down to cup some snow in his hands, carefully compressing it into a decent sized ball. He tried to be quiet, though his puffy coat was making that quite difficult.

It appeared that he had genuinely ticked Lucy off though. She didn't even glance his way as he moved about.

He aimed his arm to throw the snowball, calling out, "Hey, Lucy!"

His timing was perfect.

Just as she turned her head, the snowball hit her square in the face. She sat in shocked silence for a moment before bursting out in laughter.

Gray chuckled too, though his laughter quickly turned into wordless, panicked shouting as he scrambled to his feet when he caught sight of the mischievous smirk on Lucy's face, her hands quickly moving to form another snowball.

"Oh, you're in for it now, you jerk!"

The blonde was soon on her feet as well, though the process was a bit awkward given her swollen stomach.

Gray started to run through the forest, a bright smile on his face despite the slight terror that he felt as he glanced over to see her begin chasing him.

Lucy could be scarier than Erza when she truly committed herself to something. Despite her small stature, the blonde had never been one to go down without a fight, and being pregnant had only intensified her will to claim victory by tenfold.

He slid to a stop, bending down to scoop up a handful of snow as he did.

They launched their snowballs at the same time, the projectiles flying true and hitting their intended targets.

The forest was filled with laughter as the two continued to bombard one another with snowballs, neither caring about the fact that they were supposed to be hunting.

After a few minutes of their play, Lucy's laughter suddenly cut off, the snow in her hands slipping from her now limp grasp.

Gray went silent too when he caught sight of the blonde's expression as he straightened himself out after bending down to replenish his ammunition. Her eyes were wide and focused on something behind him, her entire frame tense.

There was suddenly a blinding pain in his calf, right above where his boot ended. As his vision momentarily went white, he fell to the ground with a pained cry, his hand instinctively moving to clutch at the area.

The raven haired boy heard Lucy shout his name, but his focus was on whatever the hell had just embedded itself in his leg.

He screamed through clenched teeth as his hand pressed against his calf, his stomach starting to whirl at the thick wetness that coated his fingers, far too warm to be snow. He tightened his fingers around the object that protruded from his flesh, quickly identifying it as the shaft of an arrow.

Lucy cried his name again, and his head numbly shifted in the snow as he looked in her direction. He did his best to focus on her through his fuzzy vision, and he saw her blurry figure running towards him in a panic.

Another figure was suddenly flying into his line of sight, lunging to tackle the blonde to the ground.

Gray's angered shout chorused with Lucy's shriek as the figure pinned her in the snow.

He desperately struggled to push himself up as the blonde's screams continued to echo through the forest, his jaw clenched as his calf sent jolts of pain up his body. His foot slid out from under him as his leg refused to support his weight, and he collapsed to the ground again and again. But he wouldn't give up.

He couldn't see Lucy's face from his perspective, but he could hear her desperate screams and he could see her legs desperately kicking through the air and snow as she struggled against the figure that straddled her.

If Lucy was going to keep fighting, then he wouldn't give up.

Natsu had trusted him to take care of her when they got sent out here. He wouldn't let his best friend down, no matter what.

And he wouldn't let Lucy down either. She was like his little sister, and there was no way that he was letting anything happen to her.

So he brought his hands underneath himself once again, clenching his jaw to restrain a pained shout as tried to push himself up.

"You bastard! Let her g-"

A boot was suddenly pressing against his back, his hands sliding out from under him as he was shoved back down into the snow face first.

Lucy's screams suddenly stopped, and Gray let out an angry shout as he watched her legs fall limp in the snow.

A boot landed right in front of his face, blocking the blonde from his line of sight.

The stock of a rifle suddenly slammed against his temple, and his consciousness faded into black.

AN

Yay! A new story! This story will only be a few chapters, I'm not sure exactly how many at this point. I also don't know when I'll update this next, but I just wanted to get this first chapter out here to see if people are actually interested!

I've been wanting to write an apocalypse-driven story for a while now, but I felt like making this story take place during the Zombie apocalypse without actually having any zombies in it would be pretty unfair to you guys. Plus I may or may not have plans for another zombie apocalypse fic ;) Nuclear winter is just a theory (obviously, since it hasn't happened yet) but I found the idea pretty intriguing and decided that it would be the drive for the post-apocalyptic world in this story :)

Also, just a few clarifications:

-This story is NOT a Graylu. I love the sibling-like relationship between those two, so that will be the focus of the story, but I absolutely do not ship them together. They'll never be in a romantic relationship in one of my stories. I love Nalu and Gruvia wwaaaayyy too much for that to happen. Both of those ships will be a part of this story :)

-Lucy is married to Natsu in this fic, and she's about four months pregnant in this chapter.

-All of the characters will be a bit older in this story than they are in Fairy Tail. Gray is 21 and Lucy is 20. I'll tell you the ages of the other characters as they are introduced.