“No. Get away from me.”

“Please, Taibith, please!”

“No means no! I can manage on my own, and so can you!”

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT! Taibith… please! There’s no one else left. You hear me? No one. We have to help each other out… you don’t know what’s going to happen!”

“DAMN IT LYLE! I hate you! I hated you yesterday, I hated you today, and if one happens to manage to magically occur, I WILL HATE YOU TOMMOROW, okay?”

Lyle stares me down with a cold vision, his blonde hair sloping angrily over his eyes, pulling down tightly at on his torn Death Cab for Cutie t-shirt. I sigh as I stare at that t-shirt flatten out its wrinkles, and it registers with me that I may never hear a single Death Cab for Cutie song again. I may never see a single CD again. And even though I hate to admit it, it scares me. Lyle is right. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

“Fine,” I murmur in response, looking away from him quietly. “You’re right. I don’t know what’s out there. Come on. Let’s go.” Lyle nods his approval of my sudden change of mind, although I admit there is a bit of shock on his features. We turn simultaneously and look about the small shack we are standing in with a bit of regret.

He glances back at me, with a look that I know all too well. It is the look of despair, the one that seems to say, what are we doing here? There is a reason I can place this expression so easily, a reason why I know just what he’s feeling. And that’s because it’s what I’m feeling, too, and the thing is, I don’t have an answer. So I shake my head. And he sighs.

I walk over to his side, and together we stumble out of the shack. He looks up at the sky, and his eyes narrow, perplexed. “The sky. It’s red,” he says. “And it smells like blood.” I close my eyes, and will my tears to evaporate internally. I fight back the dread, but I cannot cage it completely.

“This is the end, isn’t it?” I whisper finally, opening my eyes that are thankfully dry, and looking around. We stand on black soil, as far as the eye can see, and Lyle is right—the sky is a deep scarlet hue, and the air reeks of blood; I gag. There are bodies everywhere that lay strewn in awkward positions, most seeming to have taken their own lives. I cannot help but feel envious of them, free of this hell, and on to the next. The few buildings that are left are in ruins, mere debris and cracked foundations. Those that are still of the living wander about with panic, some approaching others with pictures, looking for lost kin, others preaching to the public, shouting words of repentance and sin. And still others wander like I and Lyle, some lucky enough to have a person to spend their last moments with, but most, alone, and weeping openly. There is no sun.

“We’re Atheists,” replies Lyle dully, interrupting my observations to answer my question at long last. “Of course this is the end.” Although I do not fully understand his meaning, the words are true enough, and I almost yearn for some sort of religion to cling to at this given moment in time. I am once more envious, but this time of the Catholics and the Christians and the Buddhists and the Jews and the Muslims... all of them. They have hope.

This all seems so unreal—as if the voice of a suicidal poet has strung this all together out of whim, and out of spite. “Damn poets,” I mutter angrily, ignoring Lyle’s confusion.

Suddenly, I look up, and hear a familiar voice. “Lyle!” Before I can even piece together what is happening, there is a girl in his arms, sobbing tears of relief, her face buried in his shoulder. “Oh, Lyle,” she cries.

“Mel?” he asks in disbelief. “But I thought you were…” Suddenly I cry out angrily, and turn away. Mel. Great—the weepy girlfriend has returned from the dead. I know what you’re thinking, ‘it’s not like it’s the end of the world.’ Well, wise up buddy. Because I’m afraid that you’re mistaken.

“No, Lyle,” she says happily. “I’m alive. We’re both alive.” She laughs wretchedly.

‘And what am I? A hallucination or something?’ I think angrily on the sidelines. Mel wipes away the tears from her face, pushing tangled brown locks away in the process, and I cross my arms against my chest protectively, the scratchy polyester of my too-small brown sweater rubbing against my wrists. So much for “there’s no one else left.”

“Is there anyone…” But Lyle does not need to finish his sentence, because he sees it in Mel’s eyes. We both do.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to them… we lost touch at the explosion near Fox Chase,” she says, looking away, and biting her lip, as a tear trembles down her cheek. I taste blood, and realize I’ve done the same. All of my family was with Mel, before I lost contact with them. Not my real family, that is. I haven’t seen them in days. But no—the family that counts for more was with her: my friends.

“Damn it,” I say loudly, but neither member of the weepy couple seems to have heard me.

“Come on,” says Lyle gently. “Let’s see if we can find the others.” She smiles through her tears and laces her fingers with his, as the pair hurry away into the crowd. I start to shout after them something along the lines of ‘wait up!’ but stop. Why should I spend my last days with the two people I hate most in life?

This question seems intelligent enough for me, and I turn away, accidentally bumping into an old woman. “Excuse me,” I mutter, but she grabs me by the arm, and smiles.

“Did you hear?” she shrieks loudly. “Did you hear about the woman? The one who’s granting life?” The woman is ecstatic and before I can resist, she proceeds to grab me by my arm and drag me away, through the crowd, past the bodies, and past the debris of fallen buildings. We walk for decades, far out into the uninhabited parts of what used to be the state.

I look about, but all I see is black soil, and red sky. I look behind me, expecting to catch a glimpse of the faded crowd of people, and yet, I see nothing. The noise has died down. It is silent. So deathly silent, in fact, that the quiet almost strikes me as a sound. For after all, even though white is lack of color, it is still a color. Why should silence and sound be any different?

Tentatively she lets go off my arm, and for some reason, I do not run off. After all, what do I have to fear now? “Where are we?” I ask boldly.

The old woman cackles, and points her gnarled hands at the horizon. “Just look!” I look, but see nothing for a very long time. However, time has no meaning anymore, and as I have no other agenda to keep up with, I oblige to stare dimwittedly at the line where black meets red, until finally, I see. It is a white dot, a smudge in the illogical canvas before me; I blink and squint, but the dot seems to have vanished.

“What am I looking for?” I whisper to the old woman, for now seems to be a time to whisper. I hear no response, and do a total 360, looking for my kidnapper. But she is gone. In her place is a beautiful young woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties. Her features are very pale, and her long hair is shockingly white, and completely straight

“Do you wish to live?” she murmurs quietly, reaching out and touching my face gently. I immediately experience the strangely familiar sensation of cool water running down my cheeks, and my eyes widen.

“Who are you?” I ask, taking a step back in surprise. Her hand falls, and the wetness ceases. “Please—you must tell me who you are!”

The woman neither smiles nor frowns, but I see in the paleness of her eyes a look of one who accepts what she has with no complaints. “Do you wish to live?” she repeats softly.

I nod. “Of course… But—”

“Then take my hand,” she murmurs quietly, stretching her colorless arm forward, fingers splayed in welcome. I hesitate a moment longer. There is something about her face… Some memory of a life long ago… But, no. No vision comes. There is nothing, for she means nothing to me, just as softness of the wind in my hair or the sun against my skin has long since faded, any memory of her, too, crumbles to dust…

I lean forward, and our fingertips meet—

Oceans…

Water, enveloping every inch of my body…

Waves, rocking back and forth, back and forth…

Forcing moisture into every crevice…

Everything…

falling away into—

pleasure.

Soft.

Gentle waves…

Washing me ashore…

I wake, the feeling of dampness fading away into the clean sheets of my bed and soft fibers of my mattress. I stare, shaking, at the white expanse of ceiling above, and I am shocked to discover the calmness of the air and the cleanliness of the world.

To my feet I leap, striding the short distance of my bedroom to the large window in the opposite wall. I open and close my hands repeatedly, trying to force the warmth back into them; my palms are like ice.

I open the curtains and presently, the window, slipping one leg outside. The other follows suit. My eyes lift.

There is the sky—pale red in color. My heart pounds.

I look to the East, where the first sliver of light begins to shine, hinting at the soon-to-come sunrise.

…Or does it?