"Him"

Whoever you are.

Dia was scavenging in a dumpster when I found her. It had been years since I had seen a child her age. At first, I didn't know if she was real. The Blight had wiped out the reproductive organs of virtually every man on earth. Oddly, she looked at me the same way. As if to say "what are you?"

She reminded me of a girl…Chelsea. I hadn't thought of that name in so long. So long that I was embarrassed by the smile on my face from that moment of nostalgia.

It took some coaxing, but I was able to get her to take a ration from my hand. She snatched it from my grasp with animal-like ferocity. Watching her, huddled in the corner of that dark alley, I remember feeling…hope.

It had been so long since I had felt that, I wasn't even sure if that’s what it was, at the time. Now I know, in that moment, I had hope. She's been by my side for…I don’t know how long. We stopped keeping time so long ago…I don't know what year it is... What is a year?

After The Blight, time, as we knew it, stopped.

2025 was when we started to notice the birth rates declining. By 2030, there were only a handful of pregnant women, worldwide. It wasn't until around that time we figured out why. It was the food.

Most of it was dismissed as boogeyman stuff, the people didn't really care as long as they could buy what they wanted when they wanted. Eating natural was an option, but the cost difference was not justifiable for most. The irony was that it affected poorer people last.

The "GMO's " as they were called had a side effect. No one knows exactly what modification caused it specifically, but whatever it was, unmodified plants mutated to combat cross-pollination. They became asexual. I'm not a farmer, but the way it was explained to me was that plants could be boy, girl, or kinda like both. When the mutation happened they all changed to male until the end of their life cycles. Then they would change, reproduce on their own and die.

The phenomenon was recognized early, but it was seen as a good thing. The crops yielded faster. Not to mention, since they were now immune to cross-pollination, they were much more marketable. Buying natural food became a status symbol. What they didn't realize was that the mutations were leaching into the bloodstream. Killing us.

Little by little, people just stopped having kids. If you ate fresh or not, by the time we realized what had happened the upper and middle classes had taken so many losses, were in such disarray that the lower classes were in chaos... everything fell apart.

By the time I was 15 years old I already killed two men. I'd eaten rats and roaches to stay alive. By the time I was a man, I had become a savage more so.

Dia didn't see me that way though. To her, I was a teddy bear that talked and hunted. She never said much, I was always referred to as "Him." I don’t even know if her real name is Dia. That’s what is on the little heart-shaped locket around her neck. Her words were broken when she spoke, but it wasn’t uncommon for her to spend several days without saying anything. She carried a picture with her, her father I think. She couldn't or wouldn’t tell me any more about him. I don’t know how long she'd been alone, I can guess it was a very long time.

We scavenged together and baited traps together. She was the closest I would ever come to having a child of my own and I took a certain pride in being able to teach her how to survive. I was old enough to remember things. I still sit and daydream about movies I'd seen, music I loved…things that didn’t even seem real anymore.

Dia would sit and listen while I rambled on about my youth before The Blight. We looked like some kind of prehistoric relics. 1st world cave people. Sitting around a campfire, wearing rags. Me, telling stories to keep history alive. There were no more books, I hadn't read anything aside from scrap paper or tattered street signs since I left the camp. It was just us.

I told her stories of trains and microwaves. The light in her smile when I told her water was available at the twist of a knob, it could blind a man.

Sometimes I would tell scary stories. I told her about how we had met our demise. I told her about the day we all found out the big lie. How my father broke down, he didn’t speak for 4 days. I was only a wee child at the time, but I remember his face...Every rule he had lived by was an illusion.

I tell her the story of the day the lights went away. I tell her how no one knew how to support themselves. How people had lost the ability to survive. I tell her about the sickness in our blood that took our children. And the reason she'd likely never meet anyone her age. I told her that was why she was so sought after, and why she must learn to defend herself. I told her everything, except for how I lost my right eye. She asked once and I...I shut down. I had forgotten. I didn’t want to remember. She never asked again.

The stories I told were true stories, I had been raised in the dawn of Hell on earth.

Here at my death, I find myself writing. I thought I had forgotten how. I wish I had taught her how to read… she will never know my thoughts. Not in the way I would want. I would never have thought I would live this long. I'm old now and Dia is a beautiful woman. She will never understand, really, how much she has meant to me.

It seems so ridiculous to write my last words, to leave a testament. Who will ever read this? Does it even make sense? Or just the ramblings of an old man in the wilderness...

To whoever finds this. Know that these words were given with the last strength in my body. Understand, I was a good man and tried my best to pass on something…worthwhile.

My name is…I don’t remember my name.