Neredzams

‘Sveiki!’ The eerie voice rose again. I have been following this voice among the woods for sometime now. It sounded like ‘Save’ from a distance and panic stricken. But I could make out now that it is ‘Sveiki’. It was clearer now and louder but the origin still not visible.
Suddenly something moved ahead of me. An object rose distinctly from the ground, and traversed up a tree. I could see shades of back and red. As I walked the curved path and got directly under the tree, I could make out that it was a back pack. One that is large enough, typically used for long journeys.
The backpack - the one that hadn't been there a few moments ago - leaned against the tree trunk as if taking a rest. Funny thing was, I thought I'd been the last person alive on this earth for past three years.
“Hello” I said and glanced around.
‘Sveiki!’ The eerie voice again.
“Hello… who are you? Please come out in the open.” I called out. I realised that I have outgrown fear long since. It is the terrible loneliness that was hunting me down. Just that.
“Google!” It replied.
“What?” I asked. The voice appeared to have come from the backpack, but large as it was, it could not accommodate a person, I was sure.
“Google!” the voice came again.
Since the UFO landed in San Francisco three years ago and the sudden chemical attack, the human race had been wiped out. There were a few handfuls of survivors initially, but they gave in soon enough. In the few days following the attack, the survivors sought each other out and a social media group was formed to communicate. There were a few engineers and IT experts initially, who predicted that the media servers and search engines could continue to exist. These still existed, how or how long was beyond my comprehension.
“Google!” the exasperated voice rose again.
I googled ‘Sveiki!’ and selected the translate link.
It said Lithuanian detected and translation as Hello.
‘Lithuanian?’ I called out
‘Latvian’ came the reply.
I huge wave of relief washed over me.
“Where are you?” I translated and called out “kur tu esi”
“aiz mugursomas” came the reply.
Oh…. behind the backpack.
“Can you move?” I translated again and shouted back.
“Ja.“ No need to shout, I can hear you. It said.
“I can’t see you” I responded, this time my volume lower.
“Neredzams” it replied….ah….invisible.
“Are you from the earth?” I asked. Probably I am facing an attacker from another universe? But why Latvian?
“Zeme” … Yes. Slowly we got the hang of conversation.
“How did you become invisible?”
“This is what the attack did to me”
“Are there any other survivors that you know of?”
“No.“
“Can you walk? I am living at my home nearby. Let us go there”
“I am very tired. I have been travelling for years now, searching for someone.”
“Thanks for doing that. But you were not there in the social media group for survivors”
“I am invisible!”
“So?”
“I can’t use the touch pads”
“Oh…! So there could be other invisible survivors”
“Possible”
“This is such a big relief, knowing there are others alive”
“Yes…”
“Come, let us walk slowly”
The backpack tilted forward, and then started moving closer.
“Can I touch you?”
“I don’t know. You could try”
I extended my arm tentatively and felt closer to the backpack as it reached the arm’s length.
An icy sensation came from my fingertips.
“Ouch…you are poking into my ear!”
“Sorry, can you shake my hand?”
Again, that feeling of gripping ice.
“You are cold”
“Is it? Your hand feels good”
I was typing to convey that it feels so good to have company, then realized that my fingers are turning transparent, and I was no more able to type anything. Within seconds, the rest of my hand and then the entire body turned transparent.
“Oh…No! Oh…No!” I shouted in desperation, but there was no response from near the backpack.
I extended both my arms, but the backpack started moving backwards.
“Hey where are you going?” I shouted, but there was no response. The cell phone slipped from my fingers and I lost balance attempting to get hold of that, and woke up with a jolt.
I can vouch that I was never this happy to see my sleeping husband.