There are thirty days left until the world ends. That fact cannot be escaped, even for the briefest moment of forgetful bliss. Speakers throughout every city on the planet regularly chime a dull note to indicate another passed day; a message to the world that its time is short, though it needs no reminder. The sound plays down empty streets in abandoned towns, and echoes from within vacant bars and restaurants; throughout decimated battlefields, scarred from months of combat; within parts of nature untouched by that same fighting; it plays everywhere at once. Ubiquitous and regular, it’s branded into the daily schedule the same way that the sun’s rise and set are. An artificial introduction into the world’s flow. A whining, pulsing ring that could never be mistaken for any ambient noise. It rises over gunshots and birdcalls alike and leaves only silence in its wake.
The figurative clock is constantly, everywhere, counting downwards to the inescapable moment in which the entire human race will be annihilated. Time ticks and ticks and ticks away while the remaining people cling to their last month of life, biding their time until the impact— until the deadline comes.
A family, in the crater-pocked capital city, searches through abandoned offices and retailers for the rarest commodity; food. The trio; mother, daughter, son; dig through mounded dust and cement, scrape past bodily residue, quest between the associated decaying corpses, and eat what little nourishment the harsh environment supplies. This harsh existence is reality for most.
Shortly following the deadline’s official announcement— that on the 21st of December, a 75 mile wide asteroid would collide with the planet —things took a sharp turn; the nations did as nations often do, and used it as an excuse for conflict. Wars broke out worldwide, initially in the name of resource protection; these smaller conflicts popped up on most major borders, and only amplified in scope from there. Soon, everyone was fighting everyone, and there was no longer any pretext. They fought to fight; if the apocalypse was coming anyway, they might as well use the weapons that they’ve been stockpiling for decades.
Shipping was one of the first industries to collapse when the wars began, and when it did, it almost collapsed life on its own. Famine perpetuated an already devastating state of affairs for the average person, already feeling the suffering brought upon by global conflict. With food no longer leaving exporters, or even finding proper transportation within those exporters, people died in droves. It only took a month from the war’s first shot for 87% of metropolitan populations worldwide to die, mostly from starvation, but also from the constant fighting, both military, and domestic.
While their nations warred because they no longer had any reason not to; the people warred because there now was a pressing reason. Food. Those who had never fought henceforth in their lives, now slaughtered indiscriminately, hoping to provide one more meal, and with it, another stretch of life, to their families. More often than not, the ones performing the most gruesome acts of violence were these; family men and women, rather than the lone searchers forcing their own ways through the filth for individual survival’s sake; these found their food and moved on; the families needed more, and so, were forced into action to take more, from those who had already found success in their searches; whether they be individuals or other families.
The city in which this family walks is one already majorly picked clean by these initial desperate mothers, fathers, and individuals, so they search in the places where many wouldn’t; instead of the obviously looted restaurants and other food related shops.
The situation they find themselves in is moderately improved by the access they have to water. Streams and canals criss-cross the city, and though contaminated with death and debris, and a far cry from the purified water they once guzzled with impunity, the water is still water. It keeps the family alive. The issue always comes back to food; it is the one teeterous, unbalanced plank that always their lives sit upon. A flip of a coin— the decision to search building A, or to search building B —could be a gamble between life and death; every day is a race against time, and against other searchers to find these last remaining calories.
Twenty-nine days remain. The sun’s light glows orange, filtered through the atmosphere of caked dust hanging like a bubble over and around the city. In this citrine land, the hungered family creeps on one side of a rubble-strewn street. Keeping under awnings and in the shadows where possible, they hide out from any potential assailants, while continuing their search, and entering any building that seems potentially rewarding. Most aren’t.
Artillery fire echoes off in the distance, both incoming and outgoing, vibrating the ground on which they walk, like the footsteps of titans. A thumping that takes up a background slot in the regular existence of the people within the city, almost becoming inaudible the same way the wind does when ascending a mountain, or the engine does while maneuvering a motorbike. It’s as common as the sound of a bird’s chirp; maybe more so, in the largely gray, plantless hell that the city has become.
A few times the family passes others just like them; some searching as they do, some tending injuries, and some others lurkingly peering out from cracked window panes in the high rising buildings opposite of them. They walk on regardless of their stares.
Those people are just as starved, and just as desperate as they. As much as they ogle them, they too recognize the kinship they share. The downtrodden hold a sort of unspoken bond— when looking in the eyes of another, a supernatural sheen over the eyes, or a gauntness in the cheeks, announces to all who share those traits that they too have experienced the same or similar suffering; felt a taste of what they themselves have felt.
While this is the case, it does not stop all acts of violence between these groups. Those who are truly desperate, and on death’s door, care not for those flimsy bonds with strangers, and care not that the other party is just as famished and just as impoverished as themselves. Even if most will do no more than stare, some few do have the capability of action in their hearts. A morsel of bread can be worth a life.
Tired from an unsuccessful night of walking and searching, the family saunters down a tight, dim alley after some time; this is where they decide to spend the rest of the day. By night, when the city settles and the watchers retreat, they will search again.
Sandwiched betwixt two askew towers, they rest in shifts, one of the trio staying awake to watch, while the other two sleep. The mother takes the first shift, defending her two children during the most active hours remaining in the day. The son follows her and wakes as she resigns; his is the unluckiest watch, splitting his hours of rest; he needs them less than the others, though. The daughter, the youngest of the three, takes up the final watch. They stick to this formation ritualistically, deviating only when circumstance forces it. This has been their regular pattern ever since the day they were pushed from their home; around six months previous.
Then, there were many families, and many people; the sky wasn’t so obscured and the city not so ruined. Sights and sounds from that time were not so different from any other before in human history; the added anxiety of the brewing conflict and the coming destruction plagued everyone’s souls, but still, if one had no knowledge of those things, in most places, life would have seemed as normal.
Shortly following this brief intermediary period of calm, when the war stretched its span across most of the developed world and infrastructure globally collapsed; shipping, as before mentioned; internet, public electricity, transport, defense, and organized society as a whole eroded in a matter of weeks, as shells and missiles hit major ports and airports, military bases, government sites, dams and power plants; everything keeping us from the tumble back to anarchy and the ways of our ancient ancestors, the hunter-gatherer tribesmen. The cities, such as the capital, with high concentrations of those locations, received the most devastation; others were luckier in terms of preservation of infrastructure, but still ended up with similar percentages of casualties. Nowhere in the world was exempt from the destruction.
The mother watches down the alley. Stray rays shine against the mutilated walls and windows, bursting the corridor’s privacy with a sickening maroon light. The glare burns her eyes to the point of tears, but she doesn’t look away. Just blinking makes her feel guilty.
She regrets not waiting to find a more suitable spot; the alley, while only having one direct entrance; therefore, making watching for intruders a simple task; it also leaves them extremely susceptible to entrapment. Just as she watches for anyone who may enter the corridor, someone on the outside could just as easily be waiting for them to come out. The revolver in her hand is moist with sweat, from being fixed at the ready, down this hall, for such a time. Behind her, the children sleep, and before her, a world of death strikes out upon itself.
Off some ways in the distance a dog bays wildly, trapped beneath fresh rubble. Three blocks away the telltale shout and trampling of a theft. One block closer, a brawl makes itself known by the crunching of fists and the yells of combatants. Across the street, a small fire ignites a room and adds a red twinge to the already red light shining on her face. She is fine tuned to the sights and sounds of the city; a sonar that pulses out her senses into the pandemonium. Though the fury just surrounding their impromptu base is intense, she does not raise any alarm at the unceasing noise. If something was an imminent threat, she would know, and she would act.
This evolved parental instinct arose from necessity. Alone, she guards these kids against the onslaught of the world, and all that lies within it. She, the lone remaining adult figure in their lives, assumed the responsibility of not just caring for them in the same maternal sense she always had, but assuring, that by any cost, they should survive, and thrive, for whatever time remains in their lives.
That last segment of the sentence, maybe subconsciously, added some level of hesitation to her task. Given the circumstances, falling into a depressive, pessimistic outlook was all too easy. A little voice in the back of her head always sings out the allotted days whenever the tangible ringing isn’t, and it drills a hole deep into the pocket of anguish she keeps hidden behind her heart. The voice wails on and on about the same thing, day and night, even penetrating her dreams, and perverting that one existing haven into another place of sorrow. It questions, “If everyone, including the children, is going to die; hopelessly, without any chance of the continuation of their lives, why struggle? Why fight so hard, and for so long, if the end result is an immutable, predetermined outcome? Why try?”
Though recurring, the thought is always fleeting. She pushes it out of her mind as soon as it appears every time, but those repeated blows to her mental fortitude wear it down. It’s hard sometimes to stir herself from the brief three to four-hour rests she gets each night. Each time they sweep another building, and find nothing but the same empty shelves as all the others, a little more of her will is drained. Even so, even though every day is a living nightmare— even though everything in the world fights full-force to impede her progress— even though all of her work will result in just a few more weeks of unbearable survival— she will not stop. As obvious as the need to eat is the necessity of keeping her children safe. The future is irrelevant, and their survival, by the second, is all that matters. Foresight into the coming event only serves to slow her down; and it is truly unimportant to the goal. She will do anything for those children, even if the action is ultimately pointless. She would mindlessly throw herself before the asteroid’s full brunt, if it meant keeping them safe for even a millisecond longer. But that resoluteness, so firm and unwavering, still creaked under the weight of the thought. They are going to die, and she with them. It’s only a matter of when; and that when is coming sooner, rather than later.
The hours pass by, and she lowers the gun, her arms immediately flushing with soreness. Nobody approached; nobody attacked. Her watch is done, and she must rest, no matter how brave she tries to be, for their sakes. She wakes the son, and dismissing the hammer, places the revolver in his hand, passing along the duty of protection to one she wishes to protect.
“How did you sleep?” she asks him.
“The same as yesterday.”
The sun is no longer above, and as it has fallen, the light, formerly obscuring the entrance, has moved on to other places. A thin strip of orange rests at the top of the opposite building, but it is the only memory of the glow’s presence. Otherwise, the alley is as dark as if night had already conquered the sky.
The son sits at the very end of the alleyway, back to the barricaded door of whatever building connects with its end. It’s barricaded; but that doesn’t make it immovable. He sits, and he waits, only eyeing the lifeless opening ahead, but he never forgets the door. The door that anyone could creep up to, and open. The door that could spell his doom.
The revolver rests off to his side, untouched since his mother gave it to him. He has no need for it, nor does he know how to use it if he did. While he sits there, vigilant; there is nothing in his mind, aside from the door grating against his stationary back. Thoughts still push through his mind, but he doesn’t let any of them sink in. In this state, he’s more like a security camera than a human being, only living to provide a simple ocular defense to those around him. He stopped living a long time ago; now, this is how he chooses to be.
His mother became a sentry for the benefit of others, but he did for nobody but himself. Fear made him transform; not fear of anything happening to those he loves, but selfish, instinctual fear of his own mortality. When the crisis first began, he still held some latent optimism after the initial wave of terror washed over. He understood what the governments’ message meant; but he was still breathing after hearing it. A message is only a concept, not something that can truly be felt.
He changed when his father was killed. Like a switch had been flipped, all of that remaining optimism drained, and it took his soul with it. It’s not that he thought his father had some way of saving them— he wasn’t that naïve —but when he was executed, that was the moment it all became real. No longer was the future rooted in some kind of vague prediction; there was death before his eyes and on his hands. The asteroid became tangible then; as the bullet passed through his father’s brain, so all the thoughts of the coming destruction passed through his. The percussion of the gun’s shots; the screams from his family as they watched helplessly; the feeling of the blood and gray matter splattering upon him from out of his father’s emptied skull; the following surreal flee from the pursuing murderers; these showed him the true state of things in a way that no ominous chime or government announcement could. The world was ending.
And so, he locked himself. He speaks only when his family talks, walks wherever his family walks; automatically going through the remainder of life, but not living. He exchanged his identity and his fear of armageddon for mental safety. Only practical fears; things that could conceivably endanger him at any given time; still peak through the veil he put up. If a lone man walks too close to the family; if an explosion sounds closer than usual; if some feature of their camp seems unsafe; then, the fear, as palpable as the day his father passed, attacks. His personal bargain was a costly one, and one that did not save him from fear; it only reapplied it and spread it about to different entities and locations. The sky is the apocalypse, the people around him, too; in his world, a door can be death. This fearful state of being leads to innate cautiousness, and is part of the reason why the family still lives.
Sometimes, a spark of his past flickers through him, but those moments are rare. Just waking from slumber; feeling the rarity of a meal; seeing the sunset from atop a leaning skyscraper. These things remind him that he’s not dead; not yet. The feeling only lasts momentarily; a rubbing of the eyes after waking, the patting of a full stomach, the crack of a smile. Death inserts himself into these moments of bliss, and tears them away as soon as they arrive, bringing back all those restricted terrors. The reaper waits, always hiding in shadows around him, or possessing whatever object catches his eye.
His sister wakes and sits beside him, unnoticed until she speaks. “You can go sleep. I’ll take over early.”
He gives her no signal of agreement, but retreats to his sleep roll. Looking back as he does, what he sees is his opposite. Someone so far from his reality, yet living it every day. Her face is still full of life, her eyes still catch every errant particle of light that strays into the crevice where they sit; her posture is still unbent, and her will still unbroken. A little flicker runs through him, as much as he tries to hold it back. His former self takes over, and whispers in her direction, “How do you do it?”
But behind her, in that same direction, is the door, and the sound passes her by. Only death hears his plea.
The daughter overlooks from atop the ladder of a fire escape, taking in the whole of the scene, rather than the ground level image the other two observed. From up there, only one story above the concrete, a different shape takes form. Aside from the main opening to the street, and the barricaded door at the rear, there exists two other means of entering (or escaping) the alley. The very fire escape on which she stands, and the windows of the buildings, which, though elevated even above her by another story, are still accessible. Unnoticed by the others, these gaps in security became obvious to her, with her increased field of view. Her mother pointed the revolver towards the most obvious threat, while ignoring the others; her brother sat with the thing idle while inadvertently blocking another threat with his body; and she sits, observing every entrance simultaneously, with the revolver at rest on her thigh.
Her brother lost himself after their father died, but in her, the opposite happened. Rather than becoming a shell of a person, she broke out of the shell she already had. The youngest of the three in the family, the daughter never truly had time to discover who she aspired to be in life. She always searched; but nothing ever illuminated itself. So many times she tried and failed to apply herself to goals, that after a certain mark, she gave up, and went through her life before much as her brother goes through his life after. Socialization was a memory; jubilation, a fantasy. She just lived, without purpose. Fear of the future plagued her.
But, in this new world, with unspeakable agony at every turn; she found the thing she had always been searching for. Just doing her part to keep the machine of their group churning forward was enough to keep her happy. Maybe not truly happy, in the same way that she would have been in the former society, if she had more time to discover a path for herself; but happy enough, to where her personality woke itself from its rest, and she feels content— as content as someone faced with death can feel.
The oncoming asteroid never concerns her to the degree that it does the others, because in a sense, she is done. She achieves her life’s goal repetitively; every time she finds a bit of food, scares off a rabid hound, or takes up her segment of the watch, she concludes her purpose. That’s all it takes; that mindset of achieving what she set out to achieve, even on a day-to-day basis, is enough for her to live, and feel free, even in the most dire of situations. She doesn’t fear what her brother fears; she fears nothing. Danger is a chance for self application; tragedy means another opportunity.
Deep down, she knows that this view isn’t proper for someone of her age, but it’s what the world demands of her. To survive, she has to not care about survival. To thrive, she has to see neutrality within death. To be, she has to not be.
All three members of the family sacrifice every day in order to keep going; their health, safety, and wellbeing— but their greatest sacrifice, is themselves.
A moth perches on the ladder, inches away from her feet; it has sat there since the daughter began her watch. Its antennae twitch and flick in circular swings, and its dusky wings spread rigid down its length. She looks into the reflective compound eyes, and sees a miniaturized, distorted version of herself looking back at her. As if it felt startled by the discovery of its presence, it spreads its wings and flies off into the darkening sky.
The daylight is gone. Nightfall comes. The haze obscures the distinguishing point in which day becomes night; the sky is baked in rouge light, but just minutes later, all is black; an amplified black, because no stars and no moon can breach through the floating layers. The only true divider is the drumming billow from the thousands of speakers ringing in synchronicity to mark the passing of another day; bringing the world one step closer to its end. Twenty-eight days remain.
Planning the day’s route is another part of their ritual; every morning they outline a direction and a point of interest; although, most times where they will finally end up comes down to intuitive decision making, since no planning can account for the possibilities that the world offers. Some days they might plan to head south in the direction of some shopping malls, but by dusk, will inadvertently find themselves in a car dealership to the east. It’s a pointless process, but it still makes the group more confident in their travels.
The mother, “So, we’ll head northeast down Lang until we reach the elementary school; there could be some food left in the freezers. Stores haven’t been going our way lately, and to tell the truth… we have to find something within the next few days. Time is running low, so I’m thinking outside the box a little. Sound good?”
The two children nod, but the daughter speaks up, “Isn’t that the direction those explosions came from last week?”
“Yes, it was. That’s why I think it’s a good bet; it should be clear of searchers for that reason. It’s risky, but that’s what we’re looking for.” The conversation is brief, but it contains all that it needs to contain.
Early in the pitch-black night, they exit the partial sanctity of their alleyway, leaving only the relocation of dust and garbage to mark their stay.
Just a mile down the road, the family sights a flaming roadblock that, while navigable, sends a good enough message for them to hang south-east instead, and their plan changes accordingly. They switch from a destination-based mindset to the one they most-times fall back upon; investigating whatever seems the most fruitful along their way.
That night, the gunshots and explosions reach a fever pitch. Just like daylight’s transition, this one is also vague. It starts with just the pop of a rifle; then the sounds fill the background; move to the foreground; and gradually become more defined as they go. Pops become bangs; bangs become booms. All three take notice, but none say a word, keeping whatever thoughts they may have inside. It’s the most intense combat in months.
They pass by picked through markets and grocers; homes, ransacked and burned; and the dried corpses of many other searchers. It’s in times like these, while looking at mirror images of their own group decomposing along their very path, with a score of destruction playing about their setting, that their morale sinks to its absolute depths. Their stomachs burn from the sights and from starvation; their bodies reel from exhaustion and from the impression of the sounds. It’s hard not to turn back for the familiar sights whence they came; but those familiar sights, while providing a glimpse of safety, provide nothing in terms of potential nourishment. The hunger drives them on; it is undoubtedly their worst enemy, but too, it is a motivator; maybe the only one remaining for a group so continuously downtrodden by the world itself. Without the hunger, there would be no fight. Without the hunger, they would not move onward. Without the hunger, likely, they would have died early on, just as the father did. Such a simple sensation is hunger; but it still breeds such strong violence and gumption into the hearts of man— even, or maybe especially, in hearts as desperate as the ones that remain. They would walk the same as they do now towards the barrel of a gun, if behind it sat a meal.
Another night spent without finding anything. Again, they opt to rest in a relatively secure alley, stomachs as empty as when they last slept. To a thunderous lullaby, they sleep; but upon the siren’s call come morning, all is quiet from the war zone. Nobody noticed it during their watches, but the sounds faded away to nothingness. Whether one side was defeated, or a treaty was signed; the fighting was over, at least for the time being.
Twenty-Seven Days remain; but for them, if they fail to find a proper meal today, they won’t last another week. The world’s ultimate deadline is immovable, but their personal one can shift to whatever time fits their fate’s projection.
They stir, plan, then walk. Obstacles are sighted, plans change, horrors are beheld, and they just walk. Stores sit abandoned, roads shattered and cluttered; towers blaze on the skyline, and the city is crowded with silence. They just walk.
They are drums, clapping in the gloom. They are an orchestra, blaring out a finale. They are a mighty army, but their feet drag. They are the asteroid itself, but they fall on nobody. They make the only sounds in a world otherwise devoid of it.
Light from the infernal lighthouses guides their way; twin suns baking the skyline. The river, so satiated with death, rolls silent to their right; they don’t even think of thirst. Buildings repeat to their left; all identical, with no defining features save for the unique patterns of destruction sprayed about their surfaces. There are no more searchers about them; it is only the three of them, and only the emptiness around. The road is their lifeline, and they walk it to completion.
At its end, they come across a building hardly differing from those just passed. Its farthest corner borders two separate rivers; the one that they were walking upon, and a new one intersecting the old. One flows from within the city, carrying the filth therein, the other heads inwards, coming from a plain of rolling hills or fertile farmland. It is fresh, and shines where the other is dark.
In lieu of turning back towards the known, they proceed. The approach is one of lamentation, a walk to the grave; only walking because there is nowhere else to walk. It seems the last stop on their trip, barred from behind by the differing waters, and from the front by the fully explored city. Their hunger, once their driver, will not allow any subsequent searches. But, for once, luck seems to be on their side; the mother’s keen eyes notice a detail obscured by the dark.
Its foremost wall is askew. Slowly, as evinced by the new scrapings along the exposed supports beneath, it is gliding down towards its eventual collapse at the end of its overhang, where it will tumble two stories to the wharf below, where the family now stands.
The perilous nature of this scene makes it an intriguing one; what were the others that saw this before them willing to risk to fill their stomachs? This perceived risk of a site noticeable at first glance oftentimes decries what contents remain inside. Risk is relative. Those who have enough will not endanger themselves without reason. So, this sheet of leaning concrete just might have defended the building’s innards from the ones who ransacked its neighbors. For this family, their hunger is a weight. They see the danger, but they do not take heed. The stomach, for people experiencing starvation, above the brain, takes control of the decision making centers in the body. A building hours away from certain destruction can seem weeks away to someone who has gone the same length of time without a proper meal.
Stepping ahead of the kids, the mother peers through the foggy glass of the doors, scanning the interior; though the danger all but guarantees its emptiness, she is always the cautious type, even when taking such a gamble. After confirming, she turns to the children, only just now reaching the stairs’ peak.
“I’m going in here, but before I do, I just want to be perfectly clear; I could die. I say ‘I’, because if you both don’t want to come, I understand. I won’t force you to. But, at the same time, this could well be our last chance.”
“We’re coming. Of course we’re coming,” the daughter says, speaking for both her brother and herself; although the former seemed a bit hesitant in adding his nod.
An exchanging of warm smiles, an occasion rarely seen in the wasteland, shines a figurative light upon the area, peeling away the heavy grief that had torn into them, and pushing back the perceived date of the building’s collapse further and further in their minds. It looks like a sterile, shining tower, instead of the stubby, perilous office complex that it is in reality. Although death is bearing down on them in several forms, together, the family enters, walking stride in stride.
A gray covered lobby, with tables still holding forgotten bags and coffee cups; stairs with shattered steps, rickety escalators; desks with skeletal receptionists, empty elevator shafts. Coats and hats strewn across the floor; doors left ajar from hasty escapes. The place is a photograph of the day the explosions began. Layers of stacked catwalks circle overhead; curled bony hands still cling to the rails, and their scattered ribs and femurs crowd the floor below. Determining when that scattering happened— whether at the times of their deaths, or afterwards —isn’t possible.
Only empty air fills the space between the ground and the ceiling, the catwalks being the only intermediaries. The walkways grapple all the walls except for the front; if it were to complete its fall, the place would take on an amphitheatrical quality, completely open on two of its planes. Survivors could perch on the rails alongside the bones and watch the eastward setting sun drop below the haze as twilight comes. Its scorching light would shine into the building and bleach away any traces of color that still remained inside; bloodstains, and wall-decor would eventually come to match the dusty monochromatism of the rest of the office.
Up the stairs behind the reception desk, they find cubicles; row after row, all empty. Pods of them are segregated by glass partitions.
“This is what my old office looked like,” the mother says. “Each section would have been for a differently tasked employee. This place was probably some kind of sales center. It must have been a big one.”
The son, interested by this glimpse into the past, asks, “When was this?”
“Before your father and I met. Sixteen years ago, maybe.”
They’re silent for a moment after, investigating the dead computers and still-open logbooks. The daughter breaks the tension and asks, “Do you know where the food could be?”
“Well, each office is slightly different, but in my building, on one of the central floors, there was a break room. I figured we’d check this floor first, and then move up.”
The congruent cubicles entirely consumed the first floor, with other larger offices sitting against the windows. Nothing of note. The second floor is the same. The third is where things change.
Walking single-file up a cramped stairwell, as soon as they reach the landing of the third floor, an uproar of sound and motion takes over the entire building, like an explosive had detonated at some higher altitude. The floor vibrates, the walls quiver, and the family grabs on to the rails of the stairs, fearing the worst. But the motion stops, and no debris falls atop their heads; their insignificant bodies shifted the building’s weight just enough to cause the rumbling, but not enough to convince the structure to fully collapse.
Gaping eyes meet the mother’s, and she says, “We knew that this would be risky. We’re going to take it slow here, and if we don’t find anything on this floor, we’re leaving. We’ll take our chances somewhere else. Step lightly, like the floor is made of thin ice.”
“I’m ready,” says the daughter. The son nods without dropping his eyes.
“Let’s go.” The mother swings open the door.
The cubicles are gone, and long, warped meeting tables take their place. Chairs still roll from the shake; leftover vibrations punctuate every step. The private offices are more numerable, and scattered around the floor asymmetrically. Huge chandeliers wave within their bounds, making an art exhibit of the place. The chandeliers reflect the rooms’ minimal light, and the glass walls around them refract it like a prism; everywhere, this strange bouncing glow rides up and down. One beam— so transformed by all that it has passed through, that it has gone from a colorless white, to a single-shaded yellow, to a split variegation, and back again to the crisp white that it began as —shines straight back through the otherwise dim room, and lands as a perfect, quivering rectangle, bordering a door in its recesses.
“That’s it,” the mother whispers, as if her words too could shake the building. Just as tentatively as she speaks, she walks.
Slaloming between the tables, zigzagging their way towards the door across what might as well have been a minefield, their motions are rigid. Any wrong step could shift the subtle balance; the sight of the wall, which shifted greatly during the shake, is a constant reminder of that. Back and forth they flow, winding their bodies continually tighter, but uncoiling their minds. Behind the sense of danger and the fear associated, the group feels genuine hope. The light engulfs them from behind, now spotlighting them instead of the door, and they reach the room. Their fates unfold and weave around through the air, slipping through the gaps in the door, and escaping out of cracks in the ceiling and into the sky.
Barred from the inside, the door presents itself to them at the end of the maze. In the heat of the moment, they forget the wall and its slide, and the unstable foundations on which they stand. The food could be right there before them; nothing can stop them from reaching it. The mother throws herself upon the door, and with a thunk, it pounds to the floor, removed from its hinges and frame. The final obstacle falls.
Inside, corpses lay behind simple barricades; the stench that comes with them is great, but the other smell, one less intense, is the most noticeable. Rot; not the rot of flesh, but of food.
Some moldy; some stale; some completely black; old lunches of all kinds stock the shelves and refrigerator. Though the quality of the food borders on inedible, the room is still an unimaginable trove of goods. What food remains fit for consumption is enough to last the rest of their lives.
Soup made gelatinous; sandwiches fluffy with growth; rice that pains the teeth to bite; they eat it all. Browned and slimy meats, shriveled and spotty fruits, melted frozen goods and candies. Consuming like they have never eaten before, they gorge themselves. Ignoring the detriment it likely poses to their health, it is food. Its taste isn’t important; what matters is that it’s not a diseased, decomposing pest, or an abandoned bone. In the past, someone intended to eat it. They didn’t scavenge for it through dumpsters and sewers; they didn’t find it decaying in the sun; they prepared it to eat it.
It’s a humanizing feeling; finally giving your body what it has been begging for. Feeling that immediate surge of energy whip through them is better than any other sensation. The endorphins and adrenaline fuel them to eat more, and so they do, and so the feeling continues.
All of them, in this moment, feel woe lift from them, and their untangling is complete. The world is immortal and them with it, as long as they’re in this room, and eating this food. A full stomach’s weight is like a comforting embrace; it reconnects what parts of them were before separate. The mother weeps for her husband for the first time; the son becomes lucid, looking at his family with caring eyes, once glazed; the daughter’s mental age relapses to one of a child, not yet in their teenage years; all of this, only as they eat. The chewing is their speech; the swallowing their song; the tearing of packaging their call. All are the sounds of life, replacing breath and motion during the short, euphoric dive into desire.
The feast is just a moment, and it passes. After a certain point, their stomachs can fit little more, and the hunger fades. Without it, they have no reason to continue, and no reason to elate. After their repast, they know they must leave.
Bag after bag, they fill with cans and boxes to the point where closing them becomes difficult, and carrying them even more so. But they sling them over their shoulders, nevertheless. The time to move on has come. Still drunken from their consumption rooted high, no thought of the instability, nor the coming doom comes to any of their minds; they think of each other, and of the life beating within their packs. With their search finally and ultimately complete, after one more look of mutual happiness, they run. It wasn’t to flee from danger or to escape the building; they run because they can. They have the excess energy to budget to such a frivolity with their newfound calories; so, they spend that extra energy. Usually, the act is reserved only for the most dire situations; it’s a direct transaction between energy and speed, and so, in most situations, they deem food to be the more valuable of the two. Running for the sake of running; because it’s fast, because it’s healthy, because it’s fun; long ago stopped being viable. But now, though time is short, they have the required allocation to run.
The door slams behind them, and the ground flutters, but they don’t take notice. Sprinting the slalom, descending like anchors, and racing past a gray blur of cubicles, the three rush as if fire naps at their heels. Objects shutter by in their peripherals, a slideshow of unfocused light breaking into their vision, before vanishing into the unknown behind. The sleeping bones in their occupational seats are the spectators to this race, though they don’t see, and they don’t watch, and they certainly don’t cheer. Those dried bones only feel, in the same way that a rock feels the running of a stream; they feel the vibrations on the tiles, and the delight of those who cause them. Those familial feet could have been the clasping of thunder or the rumbling plates of the earth to those fragile bones, but to the family, they are only footsteps. And those footsteps increase in rapidity as their destination nears. The wall is invisible, their hearts are molten, the outside is bright red; the color fills their vision, their legs swing like swift pendulums, and they explode outwards, free. Inside, the bones still wait for the collapse, unsatiated after the brief performance. They know what is to come.
Outside, the sun is peeking over the planet’s edge. The family says nothing to each other for the moment, but they rarely chatter even in the most calm of times; their faces communicate their emotions, and in this triumphant repose, that is more true than ever. Their actions connect one another in ways that words would not suffice; when such daily strife is suffered by all in a group, the need for idle talk becomes minimal, and humanity’s subtler forms of innate communication; the warmth of touch, the power of a look, the speed of breath —all become increasingly effective as time goes on, and glimpses into the inner workings of another’s mind become regular. Not in the form of unpleasant penetration, but of welcome coexistence.
On a bench by the water, in a row ordered by their ages; mother on the left, son in the middle, daughter on the right; their hands interlink. Nobody made the conscious decision to reach out, but it seemed like the natural response after all they went through on this journey together. A blazing forge and its accompanying smith could form no closer bond between three pieces of slag. Together, they are more capable than any lone individual, and that is why they sit with great bounties bagged at their feet, even if risk and chance found them their prize, rather than their own capabilities directly. But, not anybody could front what they have fronted to get to this point; and so, most die long before. What seems to be chance is truthfully the coalescence of struggle and perseverence. They, what forms remain of these altered people, are ones that are stronger than anything that the world throws in their direction.
As they sit, one in everything but body, a beautiful sensation creeps over them. Every point on their bodies prickles simultaneously; an embrace spreads across their skin and into their bones, down to the marrow. This instant feels like forever, and a long forgotten peace enters them wholly. From the sky, holy light joins the energy on the skin and the embrace of the nerves and the peace in the soul; this light shines on them, more tender than any flame, and it is all the glory of mankind and its love. Familial ties, the strength of kinship, and the matrimony of lovers; the love takes in everything, and hugs the three as if it was the fourth. This light, too, is hate and pain; all that felt by the survivors and the dead alike. These two contrasting concepts do battle, swirling and pulsating, and the family sits at the center. Harmony and discord, peace and war, life and death. It is the will that builds castles, and the strength that breaks them. The minds who innovate, and the greater ones that weaponize. The ones who struggle, and those who give in. In that moment, seeping into every pore and orifice, the light joins them closer than atoms allow. In a shining unification, they merge to their surroundings, to the twisting light, and to each other. The three are together, and the love, and the hate, and the passion is with them. They touch each other’s minds and flitter about with their fates; and then, the moment ends, as they always do. The light and the love were brilliant in their brief shine, but that shine dissipates. Where it burst forth, only sullen air remains, and the wind blows desolate through the city once more, passing over where the family once sat.
More lights appear in the distance, bursting with the same energy that rained down on the family, and illuminating the haze and the water with a golden, splendorous sheen. The sun completes its rise alongside them, the most brilliant glow of all; it takes over the sky, and the other glows become dwarfed by its presence. At its apex, it looks over a sphere of incandescent radiance, one mimicking its own brightness; but by the time it falls, all is dark aside from its own waning light. It sets upon a world made barren.