2 Chapter 1 - The End of a World

I thought we could have survived. I thought we were strong enough to beat this. I thought I was strong enough to beat this. To live on….

But I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

Since the beginning of time, humanity has predicted various and colorful ways that the world would end. Everything from the religious predictions like Ragnarök and Armageddon to manmade end times like nuclear death and plagues, to cosmic accidents, black holes and asteroid collisions. These predictions were looked at as unquestionable facts and a common reality for humanity that should be feared and dreaded.

However, over the centuries, humanity began to change its view on the end times. Instead of fearing it, humanity started to glorify and romanticize the end of the world. Our culture started to look at doomsday as a fun experiment or a way to make money. They started to write novels and stories, movies and TV shows, and even guides and tips on how to survive the end of the world. People looked at it as a fun way to pass the time and hypothesize on how you would survive the end of the world.

But no one took them seriously. We all had that mindset that if it really did happen, it wouldn't be in our lifetime. We thought that, if it was really true, it would be in some far-off future, and we wouldn't have to worry about it.

But it did happen. With us. In our lifetime.

And we were completely, hopelessly, laughably, unprepared for it.

The romanticized and glorified images of doomsday could never have prepared us all for the horrors of a real apocalypse. There were no safe zones, no head starts nor predictions, no hero's or saviors, and no happy endings. At the end of the world, there is only death, pain, and suffering that waited for us all.

And now it's finally my turn to die.

All things considered, I survived for a rather long time in this dystopian world. Longer than I had thought I would at least. Longer than I should have.

As I sat on the top of a skyscraper in the remains of a long-abandoned city to rest, I reminisced.

I looked up to see the never-ending grey clouds covering the sky, a byproduct of our failed struggle against them. The clouds were like an unshakable cloak of darkness that weighed down the world for those that survived up till now. With no sunshine for so long, the air became colder, the wind, freezing.

I then looked down at myself and sighed. My body had become a pathetic horrifying shell of its former self.

I was a frail thing now, all skin and bones. My ribs protruded out from my body as my stomach unceasingly ached in pain. The cause, long stretches of time without a single morsel of food.

My hair and most of my teeth had fallen out due to the radiation as well. One of my eyes had clouded over due to infection and disease rendering it useless. Scars and rot littered my skin and body. My bones scrapped together every time I walked, causing me pain, and my lungs had grown weaker and smaller as my body literally ate itself from the inside out.

All in all, I looked and felt like shit.

While sighing again, I sat down on the ledge of the roof of the skyscraper. This dead city was a stark reminder to me of how much we lost. Once, cities were beacons of life and progress, but now they stood as warnings of despair and death, mass graves of a society long gone.

I wiped the tear from my eye as I reflected on my life, the choices I made, and the people I had to say goodbye to. The most recent goodbye was to my last companion just a few hours ago.

We were trying to outrun the hoard of the undead, whose only purpose in this god forsaken world was to kill and eat anything not dead. He was running with me, away from them, but suddenly, he shook his head, sighed, called out to me, and said good luck. He then turned around before I could say or do anything.

I knew why he had stopped, and with tears in my eyes, I continued running and didn't look back. After all this time, he had finally given up.

He had given up resisting. He had given up hope. He was tired, and he just wanted to rest, and I couldn't blame him nor admonish him.

This was the most painful part about the end of the world; losing hope, losing you reason to live, and just giving up. It's so much easier to die and be at peace than keep struggling to live on in this nightmare of a world.

Too many left this world that way; with peaceful and relaxed smiles on their faces, freed from the constant burden and struggle to survive in this world.

Some survivors call them cowards or weaklings for giving up. Wasted human beings who survived for so long when others that they cared for died instead, only to now give up and end their own lives. How raw the survivors felt to see that.

But after all this time, after seeing so much, after losing so much, I couldn't blame them. No. I understand why they made that decision to end it all, more than I ever thought I could. I mean, I thought about doing it myself every single day. To give up. To rest. But every time I thought about giving up, to just give in, I remembered why I kept fighting and struggling so hard to survive.

Their faces would flash before me over and over again, with tears in their eyes, as they sacrificed themselves so that I could get away; to live on for a little longer than them and survive, to see the end, to see hope again.

My mother.

My father.

My sister.

My brother.

My friends.

My commander.

My brothers.

My love.

Every single one of them sacrificed themselves for me without hesitation for the future they could all see.

Anger started to bubble up within me as my mind again began to blame them for forcing me to keep suffering. For pushing me to live on in this hell. There sacrifices felt more like punishments in these moments, weights to stop me from ending it all.

Countless times I wished that our roles were switched. That I could've given my life for theirs instead. So I could finally find peace, to rest. But it was never meant to be.

I took a deep breath of the frigid air to calm down. Instead, I ended up coughing up blood again. Seeing the tainted blood, I shook my head and sighed.

'What was the point of getting mad at them now? They loved me and were willing to give their lives so that I could have a chance to live on. I shouldn't degrade the dead like this, especially now that I'm about to meet them all again.'

I shook my head in resignation.

'All this time, I had to keep going. I had to survive. To remember them, to make their sacrifices worth it, to see hope. No matter how hard it was. No matter how much I suffered, no matter how much I lost, no matter what I had to become, I had to keep living. For them.'

I say that, but I wasn't stupid. I wasn't a moron that believed that I could live until the very end and turn this horrible and hopeless situation around. No, I knew that one day my luck would run out and I would face an obstacle I couldn't overcome or run from. That would be the day that I died. But I was ok with that. Because I would have kept my promise. I would have fought to the very end to survive. To make my life worth theirs.

And I did that. I can hold my head up high when I met them all again. I tried my best. Until the very end.

I shivered as the cold, silent wind of this world blew through me again.

'haaaa...I hate the cold.'

As I shivered, I looked back out over the city. Memories and thoughts filled my head. I never knew what I would think about when I died. How I would feel.

I wish it was different. But looking at it now, all that comes to my mind is how lonely I feel.

Looking back, that's what I missed the most, people. Over time, the people I met in this world kept shrinking in number, and the time between seeing another living being kept increasing. First it was a few days between seeing a living person, then a few weeks, then a few months, and now it's been a few years. My most recent companion was the first person I had seen in over two years. And even though we never directly spoke to each other. We still felt that comradery of survivors, of human beings, of the remaining few.

But now, I'm alone again in this dead city, on this dead world.

Overall this time, I've noticed things people never talk about during the end times. I was honestly surprised with how much we really missed. Hell, I could have probably written my own novel on it now. It might have been a best seller.

'Heh…..'

Everything I learned during the end times can be summed up in one sentence. The aftermath of failure always, always, makes everything bleaker for whatever and whoever is left afterwards struggling to survive.

Afterall, everyone thinks that their ideas are all or nothing during the end times, and if we fail then we will just die. But life isn't like that. Life doesn't just roll over. And it turns out, no one truly prepares for the consequences of failure.

I could start with our biggest failure, dropping the bombs. I understood why they did it. I honestly hoped that it would work. But when it didn't. What were we left with?

The radiation from the nuclear explosions that we thought would kill the undead monsters had, unintentionally, blanketed the sky in a perpetual grey of clouds. The sun, now barely letting in any heat or light onto the ground, destroyed any crops or food that the survivors tried to grow to keep their strength up.

When nuclear bombs didn't work, we went back to face-to-face confrontation. It was all that was left. This meant then, that most of the new cities that survived the bombings were decimated or turned into battlefields to combat the countless undead, rendering all supplies that were left out of reach or destroyed. Further weakening humanity as a whole.

The second biggest failure we made was inadvertently losing our water supplies trying to chase after victory. No-one paid attention to it, but quite quickly almost all water sources had become tainted with death or dead animals due to no one bothering to clean up or burn the countless rotten corpses. The oceans and rivers filled with radiation and death unabated and no longer gave nurturing life to the world. It had become like a cancer poisoning everything it touched. Even the rain would burn you if you tried to drink it.

Not long after that, the forests and greenery of the world began to die. Either it withered from the lack of sunlight and water, was burned as humanity tried to perform controlled burnings of the forests to ward off and kill the undead, or was gathered in large parts to help build defenses and provide nourishment and heat for the survivors to stave off hunger.

Then, without water and plants to hold everything together, the ground quickly become dusty and dry. Dust storms became more normal. Even the clear air would eventually become heavy and thick with dust and ash. Each breath over time would become a chore and a conscious effort for those left to survive after humanity's countless failures.

Failures. Yes, sadly, we failed. Everything has either died or is slowly dying on this world of darkness and pain. It's moments like these that really put the end of the world into perspective.

I craned my neck to look up at the never-ending clouds again to smile.

I knew that my time was slowly coming to an end and there wasn't much I could do to stop it. Call it whatever it was, radiation poisoning, contaminated food, poisoned drinking water, infected wounds, etc, etc.

The fact was, I was dying.

That's why I came back to the city. I wanted to see out over the land and try to remember what once was as my time drew near.

There were billions of us in the beginning and only a few of the zombies. I remembered that at first, humanity was able to push them back with our advanced weapons and bombs, but no matter how many times we tried to kill them, more would take their place. They would just suddenly appear randomly around the world with no rhyme or reason. First it was a couple, 10's or so a week, then it grew to 1,000s appearing a week, then after a few months of sporadic appearances, 10,000 appeared in every major city in the world all at once. The zombies would turn any human, after they were done eating its body, into a zombie as well. This would substantially grow their numbers if they weren't contained.

This horrible event pushed humanity back and destroyed many cities and countries almost overnight. In the end, humanity was forced to make new cities in less populated areas to survive while they killed the undead hoards.

This worked for a few years. Continued killings of zombies that tried to scale the walls of safe zones dwindled the numbers of the zombies and allowed humanity an opportunity to breathe. This created a balance of sorts in the new world order.

Many believed that over time, the zombies would decay, and the world would be reconquered by humanity.

But after the third year of the standoff, things turned for the worst. All of the zombies that were still "alive" suddenly evolved and got stronger, faster, smarter, and had the ability to sense the living better. If that was all, then we could have still survived, it would have been hard, but we could have found a way to win, but no. That was not the case.

The evolved had become more. Bullets wouldn't pierce their undead skin. Fires didn't burn their bodies. Bombs couldn't rip them to pieces anymore. It was harrowing.

When evolved zombies joined into the fight against humanity, we realized, we were helplessly, laughably too weak. All of humanity's weapons were ineffective in stopping the evolved. We tried our hardest to fight back, dropped nuclear warheads even, to try and survive this, but it was all for naught. Humanity was just too weak to stop them. Millions of evolved zombies toppled safe zone after safe zone. They wiped out billions of people in months. The new zombies created from the evolved's constant feasting helped grow the never-ending tide of zombies exponentially.

Many tried to flee to the sea, but found that no matter where they went, undead sea creatures would find them and kill them. And if they came back ashore to find food and water, the evolved would be waiting for them. It was hopeless.

I looked out over the side of the roof at the broken streets below. What I saw made me sigh in helplessness. The zombies were so packed together now that the roads could barely be seen under the crowds of undead. They swarmed the building like ants. Zombies, evolved zombies, and whatever ungodly shits where mixed into the hoard were clamoring and moaning with excitement at finding their prey. Me.

I sighed again and looked up at the dark clouds covering the sky.

"It's going to rain soon."

My voice was cracked and soft, but it was still there. I had almost forgotten it after so long of silence.

I used to love the rain as it fell against my window when I was younger. How badly I wished I could go back to that time and live a peaceful, normal life.

I had so many regrets. So many things I wanted to do in my life, but instead I had to struggle and survive in this new horrible world for 9 years.

I was only 18 when the apocalypse started. I remember applying to colleges and trying to get scholarships. I remember trying to ask the girl that I liked out on a date. I remember my mother and father's smiling faces as I made my decision to go to college. I remember annoying my little brother and little sister. I remember working part time jobs to save up for a car. I had so many things that I thought were important to me and goals that I strived for, but when the apocalypse started, none of those mattered. All of those things that were a part of my normal life were taken from me in an instant.

Over the years in this new world, I experienced the dark side of humanity. I saw what mankind was truly like, what we were truly capable of. In this new dark world, I lost each and every one of my family members, not to the zombies, but to humans. The greed and fear of humanity was terrifying and deadly.

But I was no different. I was not spared from this darkness and became a killer and a monster myself, slaughtering people just to stay alive a little longer. My fear of death controlled me in the beginning, warping my rational thought until it was too late. Or maybe my original thought process was warped, and I had only then just returned to rational thought.

I shook my head and smiled.

'No. She wouldn't want me to think like that.'

My love. A woman I met three years after the apocalypse started. A woman so strong, faithful, and brave. Braver than I would ever be. She pulled me up out of the horrors of this world that tried to consume me. She gave me purpose, hope, and the courage to fight. No matter how bleak it was, no matter how much pain and death we saw or faced, she always had hope that one day, one day, we would win, that there would be hope for a better tomorrow.

I could never see it, but she always said with a smile that she could. How I miss her.

I could never have persisted as long as I did if not for her. I always wanted to see it too. Hope. At least a little of it before I died. So that I could meet her again and smile and say that she was right. That there was hope. She would then laugh and with a grin say of course there's hope! How could you not believe me? Then we would laugh and just hold each other in our arms again.

Tears began to fall from my eyes as my voice whispered into the void of the world.

"I..I-I'm sorry…I couldn't see the hope that you always knew was out there. I tried my best….I really did. I always believed in you. In the hope you had in your eyes….and that was enough for me...."

The shuffling of feet and scratching of nails on walls was getting closer now. They were maybe only a few floors below me.

I sighed again and wiped the tears from my eyes. I knew I would die soon, but I wasn't afraid of it. I was ready to die, to be with her again, to be with my family again, to not have to live in this failed world, to finally have peace. To rest. I had done my best to live on and no one can say I didn't.

A unique calmness came over me as I smiled down at the undead and then back up towards the clouds. I smiled at the city and then I smiled to whatever gods were watching me.

I was ready.

"I'll meet them with a smile."

The door to the roof burst open. I lazily looked back and saw zombies pouring out of the door hole, desperately trying to get to me. Their snarls and moans of delight made me shudder in fear for a moment before a content smile covered my face again. I even started to giggle and laugh when I saw them. The fear I used to have for them disappearing like smoke.

"hehehehahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Come! You have been hungry for too long. Sadly, you won't find much food on this body. But maybe that can be my last 'Fuck you' to this world and all of you in it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

The zombies clawed over each other to get to me, pushing each other down to get closer. As they got closer and closer, I looked up at the clouds and smiled, awaiting the end that was sure to come.

But it didn't.

When nothing happened after a few minutes, I looked back down in front of me. What I saw made me tilt my head in confusion.

There, mere centimeters from my face, were the claws of a zombie. Its sharp teeth and disgusting body reaching out to get me. Its eyes filled with delight at being the first. The others were crowded around him and under him, all inches from my body.

But they were all frozen. It felt like time had stopped and we were all statues, frozen in our eternal struggle of life and death.

I was not afraid. I had accepted death, but I was intrigued. Why had they stopped?

After a few seconds of pondering, a semi-transparent box appeared about a foot in front of my face. I would have been shocked and jumped back when it appeared, but I found in that moment even I couldn't move.

So, I looked at the screen and read what was on it.

[Congratulations Survivor! You are the last human alive in this world!]