After The End

Chapter 1 - Wake up

I open my eyes and see only gray.

The sky is full of dark clouds. No sunlight. The air is cold. I look down at my clothes. I’m wearing a white short-sleeve t-shirt, blue jeans and black shoes. I blink a few times before slighlty tilting my head to try and find out where I am. Pain. I bring my arm up and feel someting wet. I look at my hand. Blood. I try to sit up but it hurts too much. Then it hits me; who am I? what is this place? I don’t remember anything, not even my name.

After a few minutes, or hours, I finally gather enough strength to get up into a sitting position. Now I have a better view of my surroundings. I’m in a city. It seems so familiar but at the same time, it seems like i’ve never been here in my life. If I ever had one. The city is destroyed. Buildings collapsed. Cars and buses lay on their side as if a giant had tipped them over for fun. And everything is burnt. Ashes cover the ground like black icing on a cake, except for a few spots. My eyesight is still pretty blurry because of my injury but i can still see that the spots aren’t random. They’re placed at regular intervals and have a particular shape. I wait a bit for my sight to return and I understand. They’re footsteps. I‘m not alone.

I turn around and see that there’s a big space without ashes right behind me. The space starts at a rock with blood splatters on it... and finishes where i’m standing. Whoever was with me before the accident must’ve tried to drag my unconsious body. But I had probably been too heavy to bring along so they had to leave me here. Now I have to fend for myself. Oh joy.

I have to get up. I slowly get onto my knees then rise up onto my feet. I stagger a bit before being able to stand up straight. I feel liquid running down my face. My injury! It’s still bleeding! I look around for something to stop the hemorrhage. Nothing. I search my pockets and find something: a white, square shaped piece of cloth. Embroidered on one of the corners are two letters, A and L. Are those my intials? I don’t have the time to think about that, i have to stop the blood rushing out of my wound. I press the cloth on my head. It stings. After half an hour or so the blood stops rushing. I still want to keep the cloth there just in case so I tear the short sleeves off of my t-shirt and tie them together to make a loop. I place the loop around my head and start asking myself;
“Now what?”


Chapter 2 - Lost

Where do I go? This place is destroyed, I doubt there are any survivors inside the collapsed buildings. I look down at the footprints, they go far off into the distance.
I guess that’s my only option I think to myself.
So I start walking.

After about an hour of following the trail of footsteps, my stomach growls.
Food! I haven’t thought of that! How will i survive without food? I forget about the footprints for a bit and look around for something edible.
Suddenly, I see something move on a fallen street lamp on my right. I get closer.
What was that? I ask myself.
I’m about to walk away when I see it again. It’s a little black insect with long curved antennae. A cockroach.


So they survived too? How can something so small survive a blow that destroyed a whole city?
I launch my hand towards the cockroach to catch it but I’m too slow and I smash my hand on the street lamp’s rusty metal behind it.
Great, now my fingers are bleeding.
I turn my head and see another one scurrying by on the remains of a stop sign. I bolt towards it and try to catch it. I reach with my right hand and miss. The cockroach starts running away but I catch him at the last second with my left.
Ha! Gotcha!
I put my hands together to be able to carry it and make a little opening so i can see it.
“Sorry little guy, it’s either you or me.” I tell the cockroach as if he could understand me.
I tilt my head back, lift my hands over my face and open them.
I almost gag when I feel its antennas wiggling around in panic in my mouth.
Crunch.
As soon as I heard that sound, it stopped moving. Now I really feel sick. But this is probably the only edible thing in the city. So I chew a bit more and swallow. It doesn’t really taste like anything but I feel slightly less hungry.

After chasing and eating a few more, I walk back towards the footsteps and start following them again.

Chapter 3 - Shelter

The sky’s getting dark.
I have to find a place to rest. The building on my left looks less destroyed than the others. I go inside and look around. All the windows are gone, melted by whatever happened before I woke up. I’m guessing it was some sort of massive heat wave or a nuclear explosion. At the far end of the room is a flight of stairs. Or what’s left of them. I go up, trying not to trip on the cracks that cover the stairs. I’m paying so much attention on keeping my balance that I wasn’t looking in front of me. I bump into something.
Smells like burnt meat.
I look up and almost fall down the stairs. Lying in front of me is an incinerated body.

It’s too much. I feel like i’m going to puke.
No I told myself Puking will only empty my stomach and make me hungry again.
I try looking back at the corpse. It’s black and shriveled up. I turn myself away from the dead body and look at the rest of the second floor. Two more bodies.

It takes all my willpower to keep my mouth shut and calm my stomach. I run back down the stairs, trip and fall flat on the floor.
“What did I do to deserve this?” I yell.
My voice sounds like a nuclear explosion compared to the silence of the city. It echoes through the streets and slowly fades away. I feel so alone. Then a frightening thought crosses my mind; The people who made the footprints, what if they’re dead? What if one of those bodies was theirs? No. The footprints don’t even come near this building.

I look outside, the sky is getting darker by the minute. I close my eyes and try to sleep. It isn’t easy. The few memories I have keep replaying themselves in my head. I can’t sleep.

Chapter 4 - Insanity

The sky lightens. I only slept for about two hours. With difficulty, I open my eyes and rise up onto my feet. I’m cold, sore, my throat is dry and i’m hungry again.

I walk out of the building and see that nothing has changed. This city is dead. There’s no wind. I look at the footsteps.
There better be other survivors. I thought I don’t think I’ll be able to survive for very long on my own.
I start walking.

A few hours later, I see a shadowy figure run by in an alley.
“Hello?” I call out.
No answer.
“Who are you?”
Still nothing.
I look around, frightened. I look up, and see it again, jumping between buildings a bit further down the street.
How did he get there so fast?
“Hey!” I yell “Why are you running? I need help!”
This time I hear whispering. Or is it my imagination?
I decide to ignore him and keep walking.

At some point I think I saw two shadows. Now four! They keep multiplying, jumping around in the corners of my vision. Their whispering is gettin louder. I think about the incinerated bodies. Could they have come back to life and are now stalking me? No. That’s not possible. Maybe they’re the ones whose footprints i’m following? Why wouldn’t they answer me? My thoughts are blurring together and I can’t think.

I concentrate on the footsteps and start walking a bit faster. Or am I running? I don’t know anymore. I feel pain. I focus and find myself lying on the floor in the foetal position. I get back up and start running. The buildings are falling into pieces, stones and huge metal bars come crashing down in the ashes, creating a thick, black smoke. I keep my hands in front of me and look down towards the footsteps. They seem to move, to be beating like a heart. I can’t feel my body. It’s as if I was possessed. Maybe I am. WHAT’S GOING ON?

Chapter 6 - Memories

How much longer is this nightmare going to last? Am I still sleeping? Am I just having some wild dream lying on the floor of that building I fell asleep in? The shadows were now running around me. Street lamps and signs stabbed into the ground with a huge booming noise all around me creating a prison. I covered my eyes with my arms and screamed.

Suddenly, the noise stopped. I slowly bring my arms down and look around. The ashes haven’t moved. There are only the footsteps I was following and my own footprints. The nightmare was an illusion. I was going crazy. Question is, why did it stop so suddenly? I turn around and see something amazing. I’m standing right at the edge of the city. It’s surrounded by black fields. A few hundred meters away is a little shelter made out of rocks and scraps of metal. And people. A woman and a man come out of the shelter.

Then I feel something weird, a tingle in my head.

I remember.

I quickly take the loop off of my head and take the cloth. The blood covered the initals on it. I fall onto my knees, and cry.

Amber...