Apocalypse in my Mind

My head throbbed as I pulled myself out of my would-be grave. I collapsed onto the edge of the pit that should have been my maggot-filled resting place until the Earth reclaimed me. Sitting up, I looked over my body. I let out a groan at the sight of myself. Blood-stained rags for clothes, a rusty heart shaped locket around my neck, and rotting flesh all clung lifelessly to my stiff bones.

My body felt strange, broken, and cold. My skin was grey and hung open in many places, yet no blood poured from the wounds. I could feel the ground and the wind, but no pain. I was different. If this isn’t what I always was… then what was I before? I wondered.

I peered across the small cemetery, nestled against the tree line, and saw buildings touching the sky in the distance. It all looked morphed and wrong. The world had a green hue and never seemed to focus in my mind.

Unable to think of a better plan, I pushed off the ground ready to make the long trek towards civilization. As I stood, the decaying flesh clutching to my thigh lost determination and slid from my bones. It heaped on the ground, grotesque and lifeless.

“Unfortunate.” I mumbled out loud as I saw the mound at my feet. Stepping over it, I began my journey.

The sun steadily sank below the horizon, barely visible as I stumbled into the outer edges of the city. The last light of day illuminated the rubble before me. Everything was a broken memory in my mind of what it used to be. Buildings were half collapsed; the streets were more pothole than pavement. The air was thick and steamy, smelling of death, it caught in my lungs.

Shadows moved in the low light. What was left of my skin started to crawl. I could feel, rather than see, hidden figures. My dead heart started to flutter in my chest. They moved all around me, closing me in. Breathing hard I tried to run. My body was too broken to obey, and I collapsed onto the hard ground. Jagged pieces of pavement tore at my flesh.

Breaking from the shadows, my silent spectator finally came into view. He rushed at me, leaving me no time to try my escape again. He dug his knee into my chest and slid a knife under my throat. He asked, “Who are you?” His dirty face crumpled in disgusted at the sight of me.

“I don't…I don't know.” I said quietly. He pressed the knife harder. It did not hurt. Nothing hurts. He doesn’t know that, or he wouldn’t be threatening me to make me talk, I thought to myself.

“Why are you here?” His voice lowered, threatening me not to evade anymore questions. “Why’re you like this?” He moved his free hand up and down, gesturing towards my rotting body. He was asking questions I had not yet been able to answer for myself.

I thought about it for only a moment and whispered, “I don’t think I’m supposed to be alive.” The realization startled me. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, thinking.

“Up.” He moved the knife from my throat to the small of my back as he dragged me to my feet. “I think I know someone who might be interested in your...condition.” He pushed me forward, steering me down a twisting maze of unfamiliar ruins.

By the time he let the knife slip away the sky had darkened. The only light came from the half-moon lingering behind the crumbling skyscrapers. The air became colder and made mybody stiff We were in a courtyard of ivy-covered stone. A rusted water fountain sat in the middle. I thought about how beautiful this place must have been once.

My captor slipped away into the shadows. After a brief time, he returned. He was no longer alone. The person in front of him was dressing in black pants and a jacket. His hair was long and dirty and face unshaved. He was tall and thin. His bones stuck out of his skin so hard I worried they might break free.

“I hear you’re a dead-beat.” His voice was low and scratchy. “You have something that belongs to meRotter.” He walked closer. I could smell the stench coming from him; he smelled as bad as I did. He reached out a finger of putrid flesh and lightly touched the locket dangling from my neck.

“Why would I have something of yours?” I couldn’t remember anything specific before waking in the grave, but I had a feeling I had never seen him before. He smiled viciously at me, and I shrank back. His teeth were filed into points, hi slid his tongue over to tip of each of them and licked his lips.

“Because everyone does.” A low chuckle gurgled in his throat, and he continued, “Let me give you a little recap, Corpse. The world is dead. Radiated and cooked. Before they pushed start on the worldwide microwave, we each got a locket.” He reached inside his shirt collar and pulled out a locket that looked exactly like the one around her own neck.”

“They give us a second chance. A new identity when we wake from our graves.” He used both hands to gesture at his desiccating body and said, “at least that was the idea behind them. To recreate humanity, start over in the world.”

My head started to hurt, the first pain I felt since waking up. He was making no sense. Someone killed EVERYONE and necklaces Brought us back? What could I possibly give him? “What do you want from me then?”

“You’re fine jewelry, of course!” He threw his arms up and said loudly. “Some of us got lucky and walked away better than before. Others never woke up. You and I? We got faulty lockets.” He smiled again as he said, “I want to know what happens when you no longer wear it.”

“Those who left their graves whole, don’t need one. The dead ones don’t either obviously. But, what about you and I?” he reached out and grabbed my locked in his fist. His manic laugh echoed through the courtyard, “If you die...at least you won't take long to decompose!”

He ripped the chain from my neck, snapping it in half. I watched, terrified. I didn’t want to die...again. I could feel it in my empty chest, this was supposed to be my redemption. My second chance. This was my way to create a better life for us all.

I shut my eyes tight and waited for my body to go numb, to collapse lifelessly. I waited and waited. Finally, I opened my eyes. I gasped and sat up from the floor of my lab where I had fallen. My face was covered in sweat, and my hand shook around the locket clamped in my fist. I walked to the table littered in heart shaped trinkets. They were all assembled, and I was ready to start the rebirth of humanity

I snapped the necklace around my neck and dropped it in the front of my shirt. Walking to the vault prepared for myself, my heart pounded. I thought of every outcome and hoped this worked out. I took a deep breath and pushed start. I watched through the glass as each of my subjects collapsed. Hundreds of lives ended. Injected with a lethal substance, they would wake again but only in my mind. We would live on in a better place. Somewhere of my creation.

I looked over the countless whiteboards of numbers and calculations. Something did not add up. Did I make a mistake? My mind raced as my injection started to take effect. My vision faded and I woke in wooden box. My head filled with the nauseous smell of rotting flesh. I pounded at the box until it started to splinter. I wrenched off a board and began my dig through the damp dirt smothering me.