the end of the world

A Story by sarah f

The streets are grim.

That is not surprising, there is hardly any other word that could be used to describe a landscape of bombed out asphalt coated in dust. The dust is most likely from the crumbling buildings that loom over him like crooked teeth, but it could also be ashes.

Fires are more commonplace than not.

It could be bodies. The ash, that it.

This thought disturbs him more than he wants to admit and he curls away from the floating specks, internally pacing his steps to match the thrumming in his ears. He supposes that is his heartbeat. Bodies shouldn't bother him anymore but they still do. He tells himself that it is the last vestige of his humanity-- that he should be worried when they stop bothering him.

He considers this as he walks around a gutted car, skirting the edges and keeping his eyes up. It is not safe to walk alone. He pauses barely inside the city lines and stares down under what used to be train tracks, funneling thousands of people where they wanted to go. He wonders what it looked like on the last day it ran. He wonders what when it stopped running. People kept trying to run away even though there had been no where to go.

The overgrown tracks are disturbing, a monument to what was. The grass rustles slightly. It is most likely the breeze. He tells himself this again and stares hard, crouching down slowly, just in case.

It is disturbing that something so sunlight can be so terrifying. The world had ended with the same boom that everyone had always predicted, but it has fizzled to a slow steady burn now.

Everything can kill you and everything tries. The people who have somehow struggled through and continue to exist seem to be poised to die but unable to actually take the step. So they wait for something else to kill them and everything seems willing to take on that challenge. A paper cut is a death sentence. Finding a loaded gun is a death sentence. So many people hadn't been able to bear the weight of the entire crumbling world. So many people hadn't been able to bear the fact that no one floated down from the sky to take them to eternal paradise.

He is not sure if it is actually courage to continue to live or if courage lies in letting go. He knows it is supposed to be the ability to live. The ability to struggle on. But the fact of the matter is that there is nothing worth struggling on for, not really. Nothing except for that one simple fact that he is still alive. He feels if he has made it this far he should keep trying.

But now the world is ending. He revises that as he takes another step. Now the world is ended. There are not many people left. Sometimes there is food. Mostly there is not and food at all. There is no gas for cars, no roads clear enough to ride them on even if there were. Bandaids, water bottles, batteries, sun screen, people-- These are things of the past.

The people that are left are dangerous-- possessive and cultish. They bond strongly and fearfully.

Some of them eat people.

This is a rumor that he had heard from Adam. He had been travelling with Adam until recently. Adam was dead now. He had gotten a cough. Everything could kill you nowadays.

Hunger pierces through his mind but he tries not to think on it. He doesn't know why he had come to the city. It just seemed like the thing to do but now, on the outskirts and heading in, he thinks he made a mistake. It is terrifying here. Too many ghosts of people that were and lurking in the shadows there must be what is left of humanity. Ghoulish and bitter, struggling to survive no matter who they have to kill. Clinging to the thin bit of life like it means something.

There hadn't been any zombies when the world ended.

To be honest, he had expected zombies.

It was almost a letdown.

He straightens his backpack and takes a breath. He needs to find food.