They Live

The day the world ended was like all others, if you exclude the fact that it was the last day ever.

People laid on their horns during their typical commute. Children bemoaned the fact school awaited them. The sun shone. Dogs pissed in your favourite slippers. Life was normal. It was the same monotony I'd endured for nineteen years and thirty seven days.

There wasn't a single clue or warning.

One minute you're sitting in the middle of a lecture; the next, people are screaming outside your window as their limbs are torn from their bodies. The cerulean sky rotted, turning black, and building windows were tinted with red and orange as fires ate buildings from the inside out.

I guess I was lucky that my college had an emergency plan that included more than hiding under the desks. They had an actual bunker, but it was only so large.

I wasn't lucky enough to fit.

Me and about half the student body were left outside to fend for ourselves. Reactions ranged from fury to panic to hysterical sobbing but no one was in their right minds. Students banged futilely against the doors to the bunker and pleaded to be let in; they ranted at the heavens; they curled into balls and sobbed uncontrollably when faced with their near certain doom. That wasn't me. I ran through the streets in search of shelter, even as asphalt cracked, fires roared and skyscrapers toppled.

Smoke descended like fog. Except unlike fog you couldn't breathe it and when you ran through it, oil instead of refreshing mist stuck to your skin and clothes. The unctuous deposit came from the fat of hundreds of charred corpses.

Tears stung my eyes and there was a constant ringing in my ears as I ran. Five times I tripped over a dead body, but I never stopped long enough to figure out the age, gender or identity of the corpse.

It's funny and horribly depressing how the brain works. I was tripping over bodies left and right, and my only thoughts were "I need to leave and get somewhere safe"; not "oh no, whose loved one have I kicked?"

I was only four when the twin towers fell, and I lived far enough away that all I heard about the matter was: "some bad people hurt and killed a lot of New Yorkers because they hate America". I never saw any great tragedy; even 9/11 was only an abstract thought to me.

Destruction on such a massive scale was an alien concept. Now I was fleeing it.

There this shrill, piercing noise babies make when they're hurt. It's nothing like the wails or cries of a hungry or tired infant. The noise is like liquid fire along your spine. It's unlike anything you could ever hear. Pray to God you never have to experience it.

It's horrible.

The whole thing was horrible. The dead and the dying littered the streets; blood flowed like water, collecting in potholes. Here and there, there would be a body torn in two by some falling metal. The intestines poured out of the open end of the torso like a poorly wrapped burrito.

That was the apocalypse.

It was death and gore and vomiting and horrified tears.

It was not my death though. I managed to duck under a slab of concrete that had fallen at a slant into an alley. It served as a rudimentary shelter and protected me from the rest of the falling debris.

There I stayed. I waited out the end of the world, awaiting Death on his pale horse.

And I waited. And waited. And waited. My legs went numb, and a crick formed in my neck. My shelter protected me, until a cage of steel, what remained of an apartment's fire escape, came crashing down and cut off my only exit; then it became a death sentence.

Unthinkingly, I grabbed it, but the metal was as hot as a stove and burnt my hand immediately. Panic grew slowly, a seed in my gut that twisted its way into my throat.

That was when I finally let loose.

I screamed, tearing up that fear. I screamed until my voice was hoarse, and even then I didn't stop. The pain was breathtaking, like a bullet ripping through my throat in slow motion, but I kept screaming.

There were no words.

Only a rough, animalistic howl.

I don't know how long I yelled. Eventually my vocal cords succumbed to the stress and I lapsed into silence. Eventually the world stopped exploding.

The world is quiet now, and I'm trapped.

I am trapped. Oh God, I don't want to die. Don't let me die. I came this far, I can't die now, this can't be the end it can't be it can't it can't it can't it can't it--

I won't die here.

I refuse to die here.

Gritting my teeth and ignoring the sharp pain that lances through my palms, I grab hold of the fallen fire-escape and throw my weight against it.

The metal scrapes unforgivingly against concrete, emitting a shrill cry as it protests the movement.

I slam against it again, and again it lets out that ear-piercing screech. My shoulder throbs in pain, and my head splits more every time I throw myself against my confines, but I can't give up. I won't give up.

Not when the gap between the grate and the alley wall is widening with every attempt.

But, panting raggedly, I pause, unable to keep up my frantic pace any longer, and collapse against the metal. Slowly I regain control over my breathing but now that I've stopped, I find it impossible to continue; the adrenaline's worn off and now the pain in my shoulder is full-blown agony. Sucking in a pained hiss, I study my progress.

The gap is almost twelve centimetres. It'll have to do.

Saddling up against the wall, I suck in my stomach and do my best to fit through the gap. Sharp metal stabs into my flesh where I'm not thin enough but I keep moving, even when it tears open my skin and blood drips down. Fibres of my shirt get tangled in the mess and soon I'm stuck standing, pinned between a wall and a fallen fire escape, and struggling to breathe because there's no room for my chest to expand and bring in precious oxygen.

Darkness starts to creep along the edges of my vision, blackening my peripherals. I jerk to my left, into the open air of the alley, ignoring how excruciating the pain is as more gashes split open. My legs give out underneath me and send me to the ground.

I lie there for a while.

I lie there and breathe because oh yeah, breathing is good.

Slowly coherent thought returns to me. I can think beyond primal instinct, finally, and everything hits me like a load of bricks. The world has ended, civilisation has collapsed, or at least will in due time, and I am still alive. Why?

Who else survived? The people in the college probably. My thoughts wander to my earlier predicament. They may be alive, sure, but they may be trapped. Swallowing thickly, I pick myself up and start walking.

I want to see if my house still stands. Maybe it's salvageable, and I can use it as shelter. While the world has ended, I live on, for whatever reason, and thus I need food, water and shelter.

I could use some company, someone to distract me from thoughts of people dying, trapped in the very structure meant to protect them, or from the probable reality that everyone I know and love is dead.

The world is quiet. Of course it is, seeing as everything is dead, but the only sounds are my footsteps and a distant crash when weakened roofs collapse. It's eerie.

I open my mouth and try to talk but the action produces only a fiery ache so I stop trying. Instead, I focus my attention on watching where I'm going. I don't want to trip over another corpse. Never again.

And maybe if I keep an eye out, I'll see someone else wandering. Hopefully.