After the Before

Still, matte black sky encompassed the dome. The air was so thick it was tangible. Uncomfortable, almost suffocating; like an intrusive embrace from your parents’ acquaintance they call friend, who remembers when you were a baby. A baby. What a strange thought. When was the last time anyone saw a baby? My mind begins to creep to the place I have locked and sealed away for sanity and survival’s sake. And then I feel it. The air is not so still anymore. A faint humming can be picked up if you’re very quiet. You can almost feel the buzz. It was getting close. My fingers automatically begin to twist and turn the heart-shaped locket around my neck. The one keepsake I have from the time before. My penance; a blessing and a burden. Tethering me to a past that no longer makes sense for the world, grounding me to the present I cannot escape. Time to move.

The buzzing was swarming nearer as the electric charge increased in the atmosphere. Ever since that day, everything anyone knew about Earth changed. This rock was barely habitable. The skies now competed with Jupiter’s as electric storms erupted out of nowhere. Like angry gods ripping the horizon, throwing bolts and fire and acid with pure malice for our misdeeds. My fingers gripped the locket tighter as I climbed down the sloping terrain. I’ve learned by now not to investigate too closely what I was stepping on and over. The locket was getting hot. I need to move faster. I’m not sure why, but the locket always warned me. I think maybe the type of metal it was made from reacted to the charge in the sky, I’m not sure. My father gave this to me when I was young, right when everything was starting but before it all went to shit. I know nothing about its origins, only that he told me to never take it off.

A deafening crack ripped through the air. It’s here. I jump over some ambiguous mass and slide down the remaining slope of useless garbage, skidding to a halt before almost impaling myself on some perilous-looking sharp heaps. Quiet. I hear movement and quickly duck down, using my previous inanimate enemy as a blockade. Rustling movement grows louder accompanied by the strange clicking noises. Damnit. I lingered too long thinking about the before. I know they come with the storm, I know better than to be out now, but I stayed past the signs. And now I huddle against the coagulated materials that once purposed the happiness and ease of a first-world society. This protruding spike looks like it was once the leg of an office chair, and these strange tiny purple tendrils…a child’s brush? No. Stop. Not now. Pressing matters at hand. I snap back to now; an imminent storm of death and decay overhead, mutated scavengers just a trash pile away. I’m not positive what they are exactly. Did they cross over from the other side when the government had their mishap underground or were they once people who got the worst of the environmental effects? Either way they were dangerous, and not people anymore. I hold my breath as I try to shrink myself inward. They’re right on the other side. The locket was glowing so hot I have to put my shirt between it and my skin. Shit shit shit. I’m screwed. A prominent sizzle erupts the monotonous buzzing. The rain is coming. The creatures click louder and the sizzling picks up. I can’t stay out here or I’ll erode like the plastic garbage I’m cowering behind. The creatures on the other hand can withstand the weather much longer. I scan my perimeter frantically as my eyes fall upon some scrap metal sheets placed uniformly in a huddle. Someone definitely made this metal fort and it was my only chance. I hope they don’t mind. Safety was about twenty leaps away, but I have no other choice. I grab a sturdy piece of trash and huck it as far as I can in the opposite direction, praying the bait works. It does. The creatures aren’t very intelligent and go straight towards the sound and I bound towards my shiny metal goal. Low and fast like a leopard I charge with unblinking eyes locked on my target. I dive headfirst, hands stretched out into the makeshift fort, tumbling forward over my lithe speed. The feline is safely in the den. I wonder if any of the wild made it…innocent, unassuming life just trying to survive before we mucked it all up. I hope so. Sigh. Do I hope anymore? I don’t know, I don’t know anything anymore. Just keep living, because.

It sounds like I made it just in time. The torrential downpour blares against my metal encasing, lulling me to a false sense of security. It’s like summer rains from before. No dancing with your tongue out in this storm, unless you like the idea of your flesh sloughing off your bones. I shudder silently against my imagination and lay back. This could last for hours if I’m lucky, or a day if I’m not. Best get comfortable now. My fingers absentmindedly fumble with the locket, its glowing body casting faint light in my fortress. I can almost see my reflection as I tilt my head back and close my eyes, waiting for the storm to pass.