Word Count: 760
Title: Untitled
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
It pressed on my ears, consumed my thoughts. After the sound that had roared about me only a moment before, the silence was foreign.
I took in a deep breath, hoping the sound would wake the world.
There weren’t even the normal sounds: birds, cars, even the wind was hushed.
I started at the sound of the gravel settling beneath my feet.
The road that had been full of people escaping was now rocks and wreckage. No bodies, though.
“I’m still here?”
The question sat heavy in the air, the silence refusing to answer. Nothing moved. Even the grass was still without a wind to coax it.
I dropped to my knees with my fists clenched. “Why am I alone?”
The rocks cut into my knees through my pants.
I picked one of them up, examining the fragmented asphalt between my fingers. I couldn’t tell how the road had reached this state. I stood and began walking amongst the frames that had once been cars.
Even these seemed whole, if rusted to mere skeletons. It was as if they had all been parked by their owners and abandoned where they stood and let time ravage them to its fullest.
“Why couldn’t I go with them?” I ran my hand along the closest frame, appreciating the sensation as it grabbed at my fingers.
Gravel shifted in the distance. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Footsteps!
I’m not alone! I looked around, tried to find the source of the sound. “Who’s there?”
The footfalls stopped.
I lifted my head higher, trying to see through and over the metal corpses.
Her face appeared. Her eyes brightened when our gazes met. “You know, you’re damn loud.”
I raced to embrace her, barely pulling my hand aside in time to avoid a long gash as I dodged a frame.
She hugged back. “So, how about that light show?” She seemed almost chipper in spite of what had happened.
My stomach knotted as soon as I understood what she meant. What had we done?
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “It had to happen.” She shoved me to arm’s length. “You know that, right?”
I shook her arms off and marched away. What was I thinking? I collapsed against one of the cars as my vision swam before me. “What have we done?”
“Oh, don’t go all wimpy on me!” She had closed the distance and dragged me to my feet. “You did what you were told.”
My knees wouldn’t hold. I sank down as she released her grip. “We should be with them.”
“Hun, we don’t even know where they are.”
“So we murdered them all.” I grabbed her wrist, examining the marks that hadn’t been there before. Links of chain wrapped all the way around.
She smiled as I rotated both wrists and looked at my own. “We’re free,” she said as she tried to pull me up again.
Releasing her arms, I fell over. My stomach clenched again and I forgot everything I was worried about as it emptied. After a few moments, the act came back to me and I vomited again.
“It’s not that bad, we can’t be the only people left.”
I turned to find her leaning against a car. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Think about it. If we’re all that’s left, there’s no way humanity can survive.”
I nodded slowly, my mind considering the full meaning of what she said.
She pulled a bottle of water out of the pocket of the jacket she wore tied around her waist and tossed it to me. Then she revealed a toothbrush wrapped in plastic and threw it to me as well. “Brush your ******** teeth. I’m definitely not kissing you after that.”
I laughed and obeyed, thinking all the while. After rinsing my mouth I lifted a stone and held it up. “You know, in Greek mythology, after the gods flooded the world, they had the last man and woman throw stones over their shoulder to make new people. How about we do it while we find some place to stay tonight?”
She skipped to me and grabbed the stone from my hand, turning me to the city in the distance. “You got it, but me first!” She tossed it over her shoulder. “Let’s go, Adam.”
So we went, stooping now and then to toss a piece of road over our shoulders, the sound of the stones skittering behind us accompanying our footsteps in the quiet world.
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