Only Us.

I wake up with a start. “Wow, what a bad dream,” I think to myself. I’m groggy and my eyes feel like sandpaper when I try to open them. I blink rapidly until they begin to water, bringing instant relief. That’s when I finally get a good look around me. I am not in my bed. I am not in my house.

Where am I?

I get up and instantly regret it. My head starts to feel light and my vision begins to go black. I have to lean against the nearest wall in order to keep myself from passing out.

When was the last time I ate? My stomach is gurgling with hatred. It must have been days since I last saw food. But why? Where are my parents? Where’s my brother? Where the hell am I?

I take in my surroundings. A mattress, four walls, a closed door, filthy wooden flooring, and a curtained window. The window is the only thing that peaks my interest. There is a tiny sliver of green light that passes between the curtains. Once I’ve steadied myself, I walk over and pull one of the curtains back. What I see sends shivers down my spine.

Beyond the window is a world that I have never seen before. I am on top of a large hill overlooking what used to be a big city. Dallas, maybe? Fort Worth? I can’t tell.

Buildings are collapsed, cars crushed, there are giant holes in the street as if a bomb blew up. There are no people that I can see. The city looks completely deserted. The weird thing is, the sky is bright green. It reminds me of night-vision goggles.

I take out my cell phone and try to call 911. Of course, it doesn’t work. I can’t get ahold of anyone.

Against my better judgement, I open the door and begin to make my trek downtown. It’s not too far; maybe a couple miles at most, but it’s harder to navigate when you have to constantly hop over piles of rubble and find your way around giant craters in the ground.

Craters? Hmm…

I still see nobody. My body is starting to feel weird, like how it feels when you’ve had too much caffeine. My hands are shaking and nausea begins to take over. my heart starts pounding in my chest and my lungs feel like they’re being weighed down with bricks. It makes me wonder if there’s something in the air that I shouldn’t be breathing.

I’m beginning to have an internal debate with myself on whether I should go back to where I woke up, but then I see something. About 20 feet in front of me, there’s a girl who looks to be around my age. She’s cowering in what’s left of a Volkswagen Beetle. I slowly make my way over to her. She sees me and I can tell she’s scared. I tap on the window and she moves over to part of the window that was smashed in with a rock. There’s a hole just big enough to talk through.

“I’m Emily,” I say.

“Kate,” she replies.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kate. Do you know what’s going on?”

“All I remembered at first is waking up in a weird room. I came down here and felt too tired to keep going, so I’ve been sitting in here for a few hours. Do you know what happened?”

I cock my head to the side and say, “did you wake up in the little house just up the road about a mile?”

“Yeah, How did you…”

“That’s where I woke up too,” I say.

“Weird” she replies

“Yeah, that’s strange.”

She invites me to sit in the car with her, and I do so happily because I feel like my feet will give way if I stand for much longer. We talk a little about where we came from. I tel her I’m from Arlington, Texas. She tells me that she’s from Atlanta, Georgia.

“How the hell did you get here from Atlanta?”

“No idea.” She replies.

“I don’t get it. What are we doing here?” I begin. “What is with all the..”

I’m cut off by another flash of bright green light. We both look out the window and see what looks like a bioluminescent boulder falling from the sky. As it lands, the ground shakes like an earthquake. Pretty soon after, we see another flash of green light, then another, and another. The ground is being pummeled with giant green rocks and we have no way of stopping. There is nobody to call for help.

We wait for what seems like an eternity, and then the rocks stop falling. We decide to get out of the car and look around.

For the first time, I see other people, but none are living. We walk around and do a body count of how many people there are. At least 100 just around here. I can’t imagine how many more there are. I think about my family and begin to doubt that they made it out.

I’m an orphan.

Kate and I search for any sign of food, but none are apparent. We both decide to go back to the house that we woke up in so that we can have a little shelter and a bed to sleep in. We take turns sleeping as the other keeps watch.

….

I can see the sun rising in the distance, but the eerie green hue makes it look like we’re on an entirely different planet. I search the horizon for any sign of movement and see nothing.

Kate begins to stir. Once she’s awake, we decide to leave and see how far we can make it. There’s no point of staying here when we can’t find water or food. As we walk, we pass the car that I found Kate in. We pass many bodies and many buildings. Nobody is alive as far as we can see. We walk until we can’t walk any longer. Then we find a place to rest. This journey will take a long time, especially with all the stopping we have to make because of our lungs, but eventually we will figure out what’s going on. We will figure out why there are craters in the ground and why the sky is bright green. We will figure out why we are the only two people that seem to be alive.

It is now Kate and I against the world, and we will not let it win.