Rated PG-13 for Language and Graphic Violence.
We should have listened.
Those were the words that danced across everyone’s lips as they crawled out of collapsed homes or crushed cars. The phrase was repeated, rising and twisting with the screams that also echoed, until it sounded as though one large person sobbed the sentence to the heavens. Children who were too young to even realize what was going on rocked on the sidewalks, cheeks stained from tears as they too whispered the phrase that they didn‘t even comprehend. Most adults were crying harder then the children, choking out the words as if doing so could reset the clock and give humanity another chance.
I had murmured the words myself, as I scrambled to shove my way out from under my bed. The ceiling had collapsed in on it, pinning me under the crumpled frame. It had taken me fifteen minutes just to stop whimpering. Once I did, I realized that, though my body ached all over, nothing was seriously injured. I could still move all my limbs at least.
My apartment was still mostly intact. The floors above ours had been ripped off by God-knows-what. I had almost collapsed with relief then, tears of thanks seeping out, as well as horror for those who had been trapped in the condemned rooms. Shakily, I’d made my way across the rubble, hardly able to recognize my home any more. My brothers guitar lay strangled, the shaft dangling off and not one string still attached. He would be heartbroken.
If he was still alive.
For the longest time I had just stood there, staring at the guitar and allowing my mind to buzz. The silence was complete. Nothing could be heard, not in all of Seattle. Even the breeze that fluttered through the hole that had once been a wall filled with our family photos seemed muted. It was as if someone had pressed giant pillows against the speakers of the world.
Moments after I thought this, the first scream came. From then on that was all that anyone could hear. The screams. Peoples names rose above the screeches of horror especially, wavering with desperation as loved ones searched for loved ones. I didn’t scream or call out. My only loved one was not here.
An hour later, when I had managed to navigate down through the labyrinth that had once been my home, the screams were still going. Those who’d had no more strength to cry out had only been replaced by more delirious victims. As I stood in the door, the smell of sweat and dust unfurled in my face, causing me to cough harshly. I stumbled into the street, pushed several times by racing men who had turned into animals in their complete and utter terror.
‘So this is what humanity truly is’ I had thought with an eerie calm. Take away the schedules and orderly lives. Put people in a situation where the only emotion they can feel is tribal fear. This is when true character will emerge. This is when we see that we are nothing more then animals. Though we have placed ourselves on the top of the stack, as the King of the Hill, the truth is all we have done is taken away the fear. The fear of being hunted. Once that fear is gone, those who had once been prey, now became predators.
“We have become prey again.”
My voice had been terribly cracked, as rough as when I had been sick for a week with strep throat. No one noticed that I had spoken. Those who had not been running merely drifted around, stunned, or lay sprawled on the pavement if they were injured. Now the scent of blood had joined that of dust and sweat. I realized then that I had fallen to my knees, sinking into the rubble at my feet.
“You fools! You damned fools!” A screech echoed across the street, piercing and sharp, almost like a raptor. Surprisingly, the nearby screams came to an abrupt halt, and heads turned to gaze wide eyed at the speaker. It was an old women, crooked and bleeding from the head. She shook terribly, the whites of her eyes vivid against her almost black irises as she inched forward. Her long, twisted fingers reached out as if to gash out the eyes of any who would come near.
“He tried to warn us all!”
I wanted to raise my hands to my ears, block out her voice forever. I had not known how long that voice would haunt me in my dreams. Had I, perhaps I would have not been so hungry for information, and drawn even closer to hear her words.
“The boy! He tried to warn us and you all turned a damned deaf ear. Now you shall pay for your sins!”
She cackled then, a hand digging into her the crevice of her breasts and producing a cross, which she gripped tightly. I had been close enough to see how hard she was squeezing it; so hard, scarlet blood seeped from her palm to slither down her pale, almost translucent, wrist.
“He’d said the world would fall! He’d warned us, yes! Yes, he did! You all called him insane! May God have mercy on your poor, damned souls!”
The last words were whispered, yet all seemed to hear.
“He’d told us the end out arrive. And now it has.”
The wails started up again, this time even worse then before. As the women hobbled past me, I could hear the remnants of what had most likely been a prayer scrambling from her dry, cracked and bleeding lips. It had sent chills down my spine. I’d never been very religious, but now I wish that I had. It would have been nice, to hope that someone would save you. At that moment, I only had myself.
Presently, I’m curled up in a grocery store with around fifty other people. No one has touched the food, although everyone must be starving. Everyone knows it will run out eventually, I think. That may be why.
Tomorrow, I’m leaving to find my brother. He was flying to Los Angeles to hold a press conference of some sort. I hope that what has happened here has not there. That hope is feeble, however. What little we got out of the news report, before the power shut down, was that similar attacks have broken out all across the world. We only heard eight major cities, then the TV blinked off. Ours was not one of them. Neither was L.A.
The linoleum is freezing, the chill even seeping through the blanket I’m laying on. It was once white and green checkered, but now the white has turned a sort of mottled gray, and I can trace pictures in the scuff marks and dirt that tarnish it. A woman still sobs over in the freezer department, but other then her, it is silent. As I gaze around quietly, I can see that most are staring vacantly at the floors or the walls. Shell Shocked was the military term, I think. Anger suddenly wells in my throat, making my palms sweat and breath jerk with hatred for the human race and it‘s desire to believe that it‘s invincible. The old woman was right - everyone should have listened. My brother had told them. He’d told them the world was going to end.
And it had.
