Event Horizon

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. They must have heard us, though. Screaming and killing each other in the name of our gods. For thousands of years, our collective cry must have reached them. They must have heard our song of death as we slowly killed our planet and each other. Or maybe it was Earth’s cry for help as we suffocated her.

One way or another, they heard, and they came.

I always watched from behind the fence. I was never brave enough to leave what little security I felt behind me. Not until being brave was my only option. It’s safer out of the cities. “The larger the population is, the more of them you should expect.” My father had once said. I wish he had listened to himself. Surely, we could have figured out the rest.

Within the first day, the government began setting up crisis centers. Most of which were in the middle of the larger cities, filling to capacity in just hours. Those left to fend for themselves became savage, robbing and killing strangers. Gunning them down in the street for things that used to be easy to come by.

That first day parents were pulling their children from school and running for the crisis centers. No one really knew who they were or what it was that they wanted. They were just there, not making any move to come in contact or communicate with us. My town had become nearly vacant. People grabbed what they could and abandoned their homes. And by nearly vacant, I refer to the minority of people who decide to tough it out or were turned away from sanctuary. My family being among the few who never fled for the governments protection. Although, I gladly would have followed the crowd, I'm mostly grateful. The people who were crazy enough to stay in their homes are a large percentage of the remaining survivors. Most of the crisis centers were burned to the ground within the first forty-eight hours with millions of military and civilian casualties. It was hard to decipher bodies from debris, or so I’ve been told.

My dad and mom didn't have much of a choice but to venture off into the city. Our food and water supply were becoming scarce and we only had enough to get us through the weekend. So, as I watched Mom and Dad hop the fence, they yelled for me to go back inside and barricade the door.

“We'll be home soon, Piper. We love you.”

They left me the only gun, that was probably their first mistake. I imagine they needed it more than I did.

“Just in case.” My mom said. “You probably won’t even need to use it. Just stay quiet and stay away from the windows.”

I watched them go until both their heads disappeared under the hilltops. I settled on the couch with the gun resting on my thigh. I kept my finger on the trigger and my eye on the front door. I tried to calm my nerves by imagining they were only at work. My mom behind the counter working the register and my dad in the back making the espressos. Just ten minutes down the road, they'd be home any minute. They're just working late today. Maybe they got caught up with one of the customers.

I waited until the sun climbed to the top of the sky the next day, when they said they'd be back. Then I waited some more, even until the next night. I sat in the same place, the gun resting on my thigh, eyes fixed on the door.

Maybe this is good, I told myself. Maybe they found a large supply of food. It’s just taking longer to get it here because there was too much for a day's trip.

I continued waiting. I waited right up until the rest of the food was gone and there was no hope left in my mind that they would ever return. After that, I mindlessly waited. I waited to wait. I wasn’t prepared for what to do next. A part of me was waiting for them to come home and tell me what to do, even though logically I knew for certain after that sixth day passed that they wouldn’t be coming home. I didn’t know where to go, but if I stayed, eventually I would die. And I was so hungry.

I looked down at the ring on my left hand that symbolized a person I once knew. A promise we had made, but he had no choice but to break. He was dragged off along with his family to refuge. I couldn’t blame him for that. As he gave me a rushed departing kiss, he made no further promises to find me. Although, if he had, that would have been the second promise he’d broken. I’ve hoped sometimes that his family was turned away from the crisis center to save him from such a final ending. But I know if he hadn’t been dead already, he would have come for me.

I slid the ring off and walked into my room, leaving it on my night stand atop a picture of the two of us. Then I turned away from it and promised never to come back. A promise I’d kept; because everyone who knew me was dead, and for me to survive, the girl they knew had to die too.

It took me a while to scale the fence. Mostly because I was so weak from hunger and thirst, but also because I was scared of what I would find on the other side. I wondered if I’d find my parent’s decaying bodies just a few feet from where I’d been hiding out the entire time. Once I was on the other side, I found no such thing. I even took my time strolling down the hill and nothing happened like I’d expected it to. I wasn't shot halfway to the bottom or welcomed by a super galactic SWAT team. It was just quiet and still. No movement but swaying trees and the slow crawl of clouds. For a moment I stared in awe at San Francisco completely still. Everyone gone, probably dead. A complete ghost town.

It's been a little bit over a year now. A little bit over a year that I've been alone. There have been people, but I’ve learned that I’m quicker and quieter by myself. Plus, I’ve been having a hard time trusting just anyone. People now a days will do anything to get what they need. Even if they were perfectly good people before this, it doesn't matter. It's just the way it is now. I'm pretty sure it's the way it will always be from now on.

I’ve adapted, as well. Not that I'm a bad person. It’s just that survival seems to be the only thing left for me to live for. There's no more family or friends to keep me going like in the beginning. I'm practically running on fumes. The fumes being the absolute will to live. I've been running a bit low on that as well, to be honest. What's an eighteen-year-old girl to live for in a world like this.

I move from one place to another. I've really got nowhere to go, but it’s necessary that I keep moving. I got comfortable once. Too comfortable. I could go home for a night, but I haven't been there since the day I left. Sometimes nostalgia calls to me, but it doesn’t feel much like a home to me anymore. Not without them. But still, I fear if I went back, I'd never leave the comfort of the four walls. And that feels too much like giving up.

In a way, I feel cowardly; because the thought of dying, even when I have nothing to live for, scares me. Occasionally, I think I hear them. My mom, my dad, and sometimes him. He who I cannot name. They tell me to give up. To give into our inevitable reunion. I know in my heart this would never be something they’d want for me. They'd tell me to get up and brush myself off.

“It's always darkest before dawn.” Dad would say. I think it's more like event horizon, a term I learned in my freshman astronomy class. I was always interested in space and other planets, but now I hate the thought of it. My teacher said something about black holes and how there's a point where no light or radiation can reach. A point of no return. This is where the earth is in terms of getting back to the way it was before the invasion. I give the human race a year tops. It's been so long since I've seen another human being, sometimes I wonder if I'm the last human on earth. I know it’s unlikely, but I get so lonely sometimes that it really feels like I might as well be.

For now, I sit and I stargaze. I found a spot I like to frequent. A private bench that I’ve carved my name into with my hunting knife. My bench. The only thing in this world I’ve claimed as my own. I sit here often when I have nowhere to go. There’s not much left for me to do at night. I used to read, but my flashlight ran out of batteries months ago and I haven’t stumbled across any since. I remember stargazing before I was scared of the night sky. But I still find some comfort in it. The sky is the same every night, just like before.

The real fun was in the cloud watching. I used to look up and try to explain a cloud to him and he would have to guess which one it was I was talking about. Now it seems stupid and childish, especially with no one left to do it with. It doesn't stop me from looking up at the sky now and tracing the constellations. I don't do it as a pass time anymore, though. I look up and hope my parents are looking down at me from above. Sometimes I talk to them; it’s the only time I swear I can feel them with me.

Now I play a game called pretend. I listen to the silence and imagine the sounds of a busy city. I look up at a building that used to be swamped by business men in pressed suits, always in a rush to get somewhere. As I look at the vacant streets, it's almost impossible to remember what rush hour looked like. The pavement is cracked and split, large mounds of asphalt are in piles, cars are flipped and mangled.

It’s like I'm walking on ancient remains such as Pompeii. But we aren’t buried under volcanic ash, the death of my world is for everyone to see. No need to dig up the fossils of a lost civilization. This funeral has an open casket.

Still, I close my eyes and I imagine a world that feels as though it never existed. For a moment, I can see it, and it's beautiful. People walk past but don't say hello, they just move along with their lives. I'm just a face out of the hundreds they see daily, not at all like how it is now. Footsteps reach my ears and my body reacts, because they’re real, not imaginary.

I duck into an alleyway as a trio of men walk past. I imagine them to be city kids, dribbling a basketball. I smile as one boy pushes another. I shake my head free of my childish daydreams and wishes. There is a moment of silence and I hold my breath; afraid they might hear my shallow breathing.

One man starts to talk again. "We can head east, that way we-" The man is cut off midsentence with a sharp exhale of air from a larger, burlier man's teeth. All the men's eyes squint, sweeping over the darkness. I creep deeper into the alley and shake my head at how careless I was. I could have been caught and they could have taken everything from me. Three men against one little girl. The odds wouldn't have been on my side.

I try to sink deeper into the shadows, but cringe as my foot hits a can. It rolls a good foot and a half before stopping it with my foot, but not soon enough. My breath catches in my throat as a metallic rattle bounces from wall to wall of the alley like a game of racquetball. My movements still and I pray I was too far down the alleyway for them to hear. I hold my breath and grip onto the rips of my jeans.

One man says, “Maybe it was a cat or a racoon.”

“Well, we should catch it. That’s dinner.” Another responds. The crunch of slow heels echo in the alley and my heart beat speeds up. My body tells me to stay still, but my instincts get the best of me and I run. Either way they will find out I'm there, a head start will do me good.

"Hey!" Someone calls out from behind me. His foots steps are a loud clap against the pavement and a much faster rhythm than mine. I run until I can't because of large arms dragging me to the ground. I reach for the revolver strapped to my hip, but his large hands are painfully gripping my forearms. I kick at their legs and his arms fly off me. In a quick motion I’ve practiced a million times in the mirror, my hand flies to my revolver and I have it aimed at his forehead. The other two men lift their rifles and aim them at me. One man yells at me to lower my weapon, but I don't listen.

"I will shoot!" He adds.

"So will I." I say, much calmer. The man aiming the gun is much younger than the man on his knees in front of me. One is maybe twenty or so. I look over to the other, his gun is no longer raised or pointed at me. The tip of the rifle is resting on the ground. At first, I'm confused, but as my eyes raise to his, it feels like a dream. I become so light headed that for a second, I let down my guard and let my revolver fall by my side. This was something I hadn’t practiced in the mirror. I’d imagined seeing him again, but I never thought I would. Not in this lifetime, anyway. It only takes a blink of an eye for the man with the pistol to react, because the second my gun was no longer aimed at the man's head, a shot was fired and there was a ringing in my ears.

For a moment I was stunned and confused, but then I was hot. At my feet there was blood. Lots of it. I didn't remember shooting the man. But there it was, dripping all over me.

Where was it all coming from? How did it get all over me like this? It doesn't make sense. I look down and I try to make sense of everything. I'm bleeding? Why?

I touch it and my whole body erupts in sheering pain. Pain that sprouts from my torso. Someone shot me. I look up at the man who had aimed his pistol at me just moments ago. He shot me. I look to the boy next to him. I feel myself falling as I say his name for the first time in a year. I never feel myself hit the ground and I feel like the pain is no longer there; everything is numb. Colors around me seem to fade into nothing but into the dullest shades of black and white. All I feel are fingers as they carefully comb through my hair and I relax into the familiar touch.