Light in the Darkness

Alone, distraught, and anxious. These emotions spun inside me like a carousel, spinning in numerous circles, in a dizzying round and round and round and round… I face the roof with little hope and wonder. Questions invaded and crowded my head to create mass commotion internally. What is happening up there? Why am I down here? What is my purpose here? The answers were not present, not alive. I paced back and forth in the bunker from one wall to the other, 200 times, contemplating my life presently. Thousands of days ago, I entered this bunker with zero memory. I never knew when it was a bright, shining day, nor did I know when it was a cold, harsh night. With me having no memory of the past and no idea of the future, my presence was questionable. I felt tired, my eyes starting to gain weight and my brain slowly starting to crawl through the thoughts. I have been alone for one thousand, five-hundred thirty-eight days and twenty hours. I have had enough food to last me forever, though I had to start growing whatever was provided to me thousands of days ago. At one point, I gave up on growing food and just wanted to starve to death. The world is probably dead anyways. My bunker was pretty damp and dead too. With a traditional styled kitchenette in the far right corner including a dining table and two chairs adjacent to the room. A small couch filled the corner of the left side of the room with nothing accompanying itself. On the wall I sat on, to my right, I had shelves upon shelves of nothingness where food once sat and stayed, ready to be consumed. ON the left of me, was a rusty, old, metallic ladder. I still had no clue why they would place me in this chamber to cripple a slow death.

With the energy that I had left, I crawled up the ladder. I was finished, I gave up. I didn’t care if I died when I opened that vault or if I would be in unspeakable torture, I had enough. I took my right arm and stretched it up, shooting agony towards my core, for that I have not exercised in a very long time. The lock on the vault had appeared on a digital touchscreen, with six numbers for me to dial. I completed five different codes and nothing worked. I slump my arm against my torso. I shall die here. My hopes dropped from very little to none. My eyes started to fill with tears and my mental state started to increasingly drop. I stepped down, rung by rung, away from my freedom, every rung representing my decrease from reality. I stepped down to the last rung, and then swiveled my head back around behind me. At the back of the room, there were six different numbers scattered in an odd zig zag pattern. I read, 202021. I sucked up a tear and stood there in shock. I swiftly climbed every rung and extended my arm towards the passkey again. I pressed, 2 0 2 0 2 1. I watch the vault as it takes in the passkey. It shows a bright, neon green light, but does absolutely nothing. I climb down a rung, smelling the rust on the ladder, a foul, metallic scent. I look at my hopes and dreams right in front of my very eyes, not opening. Before I gave up all hope, the vault creaked. It vibrated like a massage machine, and started to open the door into freedom, life, reality. 

I dragged my slumped right leg out of the hatch and pulled it close to me. I was set free, free. I bring my legs to me, push my arms off the ground, and stand to my full extent. It was night, but there was no sky. It was a Vantablack color. A black so rich it sucked all the light possible from the world. I walked from the alley that I stood in, trash was lying around everywhere, and there was not a single sound from the wind, the earth, or any human. The world around me seemed as if it were in a massive warzone. Every building was destroyed, holes were scattered on every building, and not a single human was in sight. 

I walked around on the street where cars once used to zoom past the pedestrians, where tires skid and people yelled, where cars crashed and people were murdered, I stepped over the overgrown weeds peaking through the crevices in the forbidden road. Looking forward, I saw the deteriorated bank that once used to be the most elegant and state-of-the-art in the country. Standing in my tracks, my eyes spectated the multiple floors and windows plastered on that building. Holes infested the building caused by the mysterious event I was hidden away from. Never was I informed of what this massive event was. All I know is that I am the last human in this city, or the country, or the world. I walked into the bank, pushing with all my strength on the turning doors that were once automated. 

Inside, my brain imagined great big holograms, massive telescreens, and ginormous levitating platforms, lifting people to their well-desired vaults full of riches. The bank today is what every building is now, a corrupted, destroyed, and ugly building. Instead of holograms, there’s plumes of dust, lit by the rays of sun peaking through the holes in the building. Instead of massive telescreens, there are walls full of stains of crimson red paint and oily black pigments. I wonder every single day for someone to tell me what has happened. Why is everyone dead? Why am I the only one alive? What is my purpose here? I questioned my existence and survival in this world. 

I walked over some rubble that covered about seventy five percent of the main floor. The crunching and creaking below my feet gave my anxiety attacks every time I took a step. I step again, but this time, I don’t hear a crunch, but a howl. I quickly spring off the ground and lunge forward trying to avoid whatever created the awful sound. I crawl to the floor, begging for myself to live another hour. In the rubble I previously stepped on, something started to emerge from the ground. I was urged to cover my eyes to avoid something terrorizing. I have had nightmares every night since I was alone, some were hallucinations of the past, some were dreams of the future, one dream was me laying on the ground in a pool of warm, crimson red liquid that oozes from my stomach, leaking the life out of me. From the rubble pecked out a triangular, fuzzy ear-looking creature, and then, another one of those emerged. My body started feverishly shivering and my stomach started to develop a groan. The fluids started to churn and wrench vigorously, while my consciousness was at the beginning of fading itself away. 

There, right there, emerged a creature I thought I’d never see again. It was a dog, a husky. Its fur coated with a heavy crimson and brown dye. It slowly hobbled over to me and stuck its nose into my face. It started sniffing and meticulously checking me if I were a trusted being. I raised my weak, shaky hand, and placed it on its cheek. It started to whimper and cry, with its eyes holding so much pain in them, for what it had to go through. I wanted to mourn over its past. 

“What’s your name bud?” I calmly spoke to the dog. I have been so far removed from humanity I forgot that certain animals can’t speak. I raised my other arm and wrapped it around the dogs’ scruffy back. In the back corner of the room, I saw a metallic and heavy table that we could take shelter in for the night. I have never spent the night outside. I dragged the husky close to me and scooted across the rough floor to take shelter under the table. My fingers sprawled over the rough, krinkled fur, smothered with hardened blood and dirt. 

As we hid under that table, little did I know that the poor canine was not in a good condition, for it had been injured and started bleeding internally without me knowing. In the night, as the stars faintly faded into the sky, my new friend, or once used to be my friend, was drifting away, in a long and deep sleep.

+++++++++

I peered down at the small rock that sat still on the ground. This rock was no other rock that laid around. This rock is one that will show that all hope is lost. It represents where an old friend of mine now lays and decomposes into the dead, unfertile Earth. I hold back a hoard of tears ready to drip from my eyes, mourning over someone I cared deeply for, one that meant the world to me, when the world was dead. Misha, my precious friend, laid and didn’t come running to me any more. I walked from the rock, never to see it again, and poured out my thoughts and feelings to the ground for Misha to enjoy, when ascending into the Perfect World.

I hold out my hand and rub it along the crusty, golden grass that spread for thousands and thousands of acres. The soft feel of the buds on the top of the stem, oozed a sensation I haven’t felt in a very long time. The feelings of comfort, and assurance rose through my spine and through all of my capillaries, spreading throughout my body. I looked up at the dusty brown sky, one so polluted that the sun had a hard time peering at me. The wind was absent as for the life in this pasture. Nothing has been alive as it seems, for a very long time. My feet keep walking, forward and forward, off to somewhere I would never know.

BRRRRRRRRRR… 

My feet come to a halt immediately, my back gives out, and I fall to the ground. My hands feel the dry, dead ground as I make an attempt to cover myself from the atrocious noise filling the atmosphere. My curious soul urged my eyes to open, and look up. There in the sky, is a massive rectangular prism, flying with no propellers, no jet, nothing. It hovered in a complex way and started to slow down. My eyes started cracking in the lack of blinking, but I couldn’t stop. The sight was too spectacular and marvelous for me to take my sight off of. It started to move horizontally to the left in the sky. It moved about 100 feet to the left, and then started to descend.

My heart started pumping and my arms started vibrating, I was terrified. My legs kicked the ground and I started to crawl away, propelling my legs and rotating my arms to make an attempt to crawl very far away. My hands started to gather scabs, scars, and splinters. My knees were tripping every so often on little mounds of dirt in the imperfect, dry ground. My breath started to weaken and coughs started erupting from my mouth. My body came to a halt and collapsed onto the ground. The rectangular ship had officially landed and the horrific noise was over. I lie on the ground, looking at the beautiful maroon-orange sky, filled with dust clouds. The sun was not present in the sky, nor the moon. I don’t know what time it is, but I know, something is following me. I sit up, and look around me. I hear the rustling of the weeds and grass around me, dancing with the non-present wind. My head perks up and I look back at the ship that landed about a mile away. Lying on the ground, I tuck my knees to my chest and sit as a curled up ball on the ground.

Those very moments, my life stuck still for the longest time. Life before this great ordeal, must have been better. For me to go through all of these events had broken my heart and soul to a point of no point in life. I had simply given up on all my dreams and desires becoming what I once wanted so dearly in life. Inspiration and values, all washed away in the great river with swift rapids, the ideas, positivity, and life was being washed away clean from my brain. The river that would lead these thoughts, emotions, and ideas down to a perilous waterfall of the abyss. All my hopes and desires, falling millions of miles per hour, down into an endless trench of the void.

An uncertain picture appeared before my eyes. A creature of full metallic armor, as shiny as a mirror, approached my body in confusion. I myself was in an oblivion, unconscious of what surrounded me. It grabbed my hip very tight and pulled me up to my feet. My hazy eyes were full of a fog that consisted of no water vapor, almost like a haze of disbelief and surrender. I saw glowing red eyes that seemed to be strobing. The hands felt very cold and slippery, like the heavy, metallic table Misha and I snuck under. It looked at me, adjusting it’s lenses on my face, looking at the ugliness and horrid events I had to endure.

“Subject IB13777 has underlying major external disorders. Testing for internal health.”

It pricked something into my right hip and a mysterious tingle started to spread throughout my body like a pandemic spreading among many humans...

“Subject IB13777 is diagnosed with depression and Stage 1 Cancer.”

My eyes shot open. Stage 1 Cancer!? Since when did I get infected with that?

“Subject IB13777 is deprived. Termination process proceeds within 5 seconds.”

Termination process. This was it, I was going to die. My life is now coming to an end that should have happened many hours ago. The creature dropped me on the ground, and stood very confidently. It pulled out a needle, the size of a twig, full of liquid that was translucent red. It bent down on its knees, and was ready to prick the death serum into me. The arm extended out with the needle ready to penetrate my skin and insert the fluid that would blow my life away.

The creature pauses, and extends its legs out to a standing position. I blink for a total of 1.5 seconds and the metal creature was laying right next to me, eye to eye, with a hole spewing with smoke and cinders. I swivel my head to the left, 90 degrees, and see a creature, one that looked like me, extending a hand towards my body…

“Hey kid, you okay?”

(To be continued....)

-Daniel Kim