Gone Days

She stared through the dark hole. Whenever the clouds cleared overhead, she spied the littered sky with tiny... Tiny—what’s the word? She squinted in the dark as she lay on a half charred, spring-barred mattress upon a broken bed; bathed in little moonlight.

“Tiny…” her ill-used voice raspy as anything. Tiny what?

Yet another word she couldn’t recall describing what she saw. As she lay there, her view was almost beautiful—if it wasn’t for the broken ceiling and roof framing the night sky. Something had torn through that roof. Something sinister.

She’d seen many such holes in homes as she’d traversed the land. Where too? She didn’t know. Something told her to head south-east. Call it stomach-instinct—though she knew that wasn’t the right expression either. There were many things she didn’t know. Many things she couldn’t remember.

Her stomach cried out loud, breaking the silence that lay over the land. She tried to ignore the pangs of pain and popped a handful of stale popcorn she’d found a day earlier, in one such house already ransacked. It will have to be enough for the next few hours till she found more food. Somewhere.

But where? Everywhere she went, nothing survived. Food, medicine, water were scarce. All three things she’d run out of already, bar a handful of popcorn in a paper bag and a swig or two left of the water she’d scored three days ago from a slimy tank.

When she’d come to, under a pile of rubble more than a year ago, she had been the lone survivor of what looked like an air strike. How? Only the—she blinked—the thing knew.

“What’s it called? The thing you pray to?” she asked out loud, trying out her voice again.

It sounded odd to her, like it didn’t belong. Not in her throat. For a moment she wondered, do they all sound like me?

Don’t be ridiculous! Her thought tutted. There is no one left but us, or we would have seen them by now.

The stars overhead drowned behind new clouds, dark and heavy as the night. The house plunged into an unnerving darkness she had never gotten used to.

She closed her eyes and touched the heart-shaped pendant around her neck. Whenever she was alone—or scared—she reached for the jewelry. Someone had given it to her. Someone she might have once known.

In her hand, she clutched the pendant hard and closed her eyes tight, trying to ignore the darkness. She could almost hear a song of days gone—something familiar she couldn’t remember the words to, only the tune. She hummed it like it was prayers and pretended, as she often did, that she was not alone. People welcomed her.

It had been almost a year since she’d come across one who wasn’t dying. Everyone died around her, everyone she ever came across. She could count them on her small fingers. Everyone except her.

She wasn’t dying. How come? Something she’d wondered these days.

The pendant in her hand curiously click and she eyed it. Its whitish surface glinted dull in the dark. A surface that lay broken in half on her palm.

No, it’s not broken. It’s open. We opened it.

She pushed the opening wider and brought her flashlight up to see what was inside.

Couple of faces peered up at her. A woman and a man.

She blinked at the images, surprised at what the locket held. She had it all this time. Woken with it around her neck, but she had not known it opened, or what was inside.

Maybe that’s our family, Myra.

“We have no family.” She closed the locket and turned her flashlight off just as something skittered to her left, knocking into what sounded like an empty can. She jostled from her thoughts and peered through the veil of darkness.

A moment later, she did a quick sweep of the floor. Her flashlight roving left to right like she was taught. By whom? Yet another thing she couldn’t remember.

The flashlight caught a giant rat the size of a rabbit. Its red eyes glaring at her.

Perhaps the man in the image taught you?

“Shut up.” She steadied the torch in one hand and reached for the air-rifle fastened to her side. At this distance, she could do some damage. The thing was only a few meters away.

“How are you alive?” her voice broke out in a hush under her breath.

The rat ignored her and scurried to a corner where it chewed at the already half eaten wall.

She brought her BB gun forward and fixed the rat in sight. She pulled the trigger.

An odd spectacle played out in front of her as the rat dropped dead.

She scuttled to her feet and rushed to grab her prey. It was the first time in months she’d be having fresh meat. It mattered not that it was a rat the size of a rabbit.

How is it so big? She prodded it with her gun. Her stomach grumbled noisely—feed me.

“Yeah, but how do we cook it?” she asked. Not entirely expecting one to answer.

“We could turn it into a stew?” a voice suggested as a figure emerged from the dark. His haggard eyes and gaunt face ghastly pale in the dull light. He couldn’t have been any older than Myra herself.

Myra blinked. Surprised that the boy stood before her, walking, talking. “How are you alive?” she asked of him the same way she’d asked of the rat.

“I was wondering the same thing. How are you alive?” The young boy gave her a gap-tooth smile, offering her a gangly hand. “I’m Nishan.”

Myra eyed his skeletal limb curiously. Why was he giving her his arm? Her eyes flicked up over his face again. “I’m Myra... I think.”

“Well, Myra-I-think, would you like a hand with the rat? My ma taught me how to cook when she was around.”

She eyed the rat dangling from her arm, and she heard the desperate grumble of her tummy. “You ever cooked a rat before?”

Nishan shook his head. “Have you?”

“No.”

Nishan’s eye flicked nervously to her gun, still clutched in her one hand. “I saw a kitchen that was intact in one house on this road when I followed you. Wanna go there and see what we can do?”

“A whole kitchen?”

“A whole kitchen.

Myra stepped forward, eyeing the weaponless boy. “Fine. Lead the way. But you try anything funny, and I’ll take my rat and run.”

“I won’t try anything funny. Promise,” said the boy. “So how are you alive? I came to in my bedroom, five months ago, and no one around. Ever since then, I’ve just been wandering around, trying to find help. You? How long have you been awake? And have you seen anyone yet? You’re the first person I’ve come across since I woke.”

Myra, who had been alone all this time, watched the boy curiously. His voice somewhat soothing, and his rambling somewhat calming. For the first time in over a year, she didn’t feel lonely.

“Are we now friends?” she asked.

“We can be if that’s what you want.”

Myra stepped out into the dawn, past rubble, and nodded. Yes, she’d like friends. “So how do we do this?”

“The rat? Well, we gotta find lots of herbs and flavours. Those things taste nasty by themselves.” Nishan pulled a face.

“No, I mean, the friend thing.”

“Oh, well, that’s easy. All you have to do is talk.”

“I can do that. Talk.” But she would not tell him this was the first time she’d ever done that. Talk. A year ago, she was mute. It’s the only thing she was sure of.

A year ago, before she woke to a torn world, she had been mute.

(Photo curtosey of ArtCoreStudios on Pixabay)