Down Bellow

Day 1 – What the hell? What is this place? I can’t open my eyes, my legs feels like they are on fire. I am not bound; I am trapped under something heavy. How long have I been here? The earthquake… When did that happen?

Year 2 Since waking up – No one is coming to rescue me. I can’t hear anything out there, only the occasional pitter-patter of tiny feet rustling the ruble. No sirens, no voices.

It is hot like an oven, the smell of fire and smoke consumed everything. I think of the woods by the apartment building. It was a park where kids played baseball on the weekends and older kids drank later on in the day. I can see them burning.

The feeling in my fingers is back, I can curl them around the locket in my palm. Maya, I can see her smiling face inside the locket. My heart beats faster, the rushing blood hurts still.

Year 6 Since waking up - Most of the pain has settled, but some spots still hurt. The bones are probably broken and set completely bent in directions unbeknownst to me.

After the heat wave, I heard strong winds for… weeks maybe. The wind whipped sand against my skin so hard that in a few days, it was raw, and the taste in my mouth morphed from iron to salt.

It is cold now, freezing, and wet, but I could not tell where the water was coming from. I realized I could not open my eyes, not because they were swollen, but there was something over them. Layers of ash, sand and concrete under, that is where I am, perfectly still.

Year 17 Since waking up - It has been silent for months. By what I have gathered from my exclusive point of view, the end of days came, annihilated, and went.

Took me a long time to remember what I was doing when the apocalypse hit, but I got it. I had my back to the front door of my apartment; about to put the locket Maya gave me in a box and never look at it again. I had just spent the whole night pumping myself up to go to her house and pour my heart out. I was going to. I had my hand on the doorknob. And I gave up.

Maybe it was good timing, maybe it was the absolute worst. Maybe we would have made a day of it and ended up in another hole. I wonder where she ended up, and if she is awake like I am. I can’t help but wonder how long I have been here or how have I survived. But the world above continued.

The ground is trembling rhythmically. Thumps that vary in speed shaking the ground under and over me. There’s life out there, maybe it’s the biggest sort of life there has even been. Maybe it’s a whole civilization of humans the size of ants. I just can’t help but wonder…

Year 43 Since waking up – Something touched me, a root wrapped around my wrist. I had not felt that hand in ages, there is something broken inside the closed fist.

This root is my periscope. The ground trembled, yes, but this root absorbs everything. When it first made contact with my skin, it was spring time. I felt the serpentine around my wrist thin and shrivel during the winter, and plump back up in the summer. I felt a big being brush up against the leaves. Something climb the branches and eat the pea-sized fruit by the bunch. The trunk has been scratched at and peeled off the bark a few times. It feels torturous.

There is a small being that comes up the tree every day and eats the first berries on the very top branches. I think it prefers the tart flavour of the unripe pea-fruit. I know it is always the same little fella; it takes the same path up the trunk everyday. There are others like it, but they haven’t figured out the path. I’ll name it Maya, that’s a pretty name. I remember it from somewhere…

Year 89 Since waking up – The world above is absolutely fascinating. There is a structure build around the tree, it’s made of thick brick and acclimatized so it feels like spring all the time.

Little Maya hasn’t been around in a while. Something plucks the leaves and berries very methodically. Some days before the fruit is ripe and others when it’s just past the point of sweetness when it starts turning sour.

The tree has never felt healthier. I just miss the breeze, the animals, and the bugs that only came out at night. I miss the rain.

Year 100+ Since waking up – The tree has been chopped down. The root had made it’s way up my arm throughout the years, almost to my shoulder. When it let go of my wrist, where it first made contact, I could feel the bones finally detach where they had broken with a crumbly “snap”. I finally died after the end of the world.