[IC] Apocalypse Memoirs

[God]

"The truth isn't pretty.
I had a dream last night about the cat I used to own as a child. A silver Persian. In the dream, Robbie was there, as he often is. At first I was glad to see him, but then he got annoying. Just like in real life. Sometimes I'm ashamed when I wake up from a dream, in which I dreamt something I used to feel. As if I still feel something I shouldn't still feel. It's disloyal to be annoyed with Robbie, even in a dream, because he's probably dead.
But in the dream he was harassing the cat. Well, not harassing, but the cat thought so. Robbie kept picking the cat up and carrying him around. I kept rescuing the cat from him. This is all pretty true to life. I was the only one who that cat liked, because I was the only one who understood it.
I am sorry to say that I have mourned the loss of that cat. Even though everything that's happened is so much worse than losing a pet. He maybe got infected or more likely got eaten by a wild animal, or even a human, although there wasn't much of a difference between the two when things got bad, so I heard on the radio.
When I'm awake, logically, I know, it was just a cat.
I miss Robbie. I miss my parents. I don't know how to miss people who I know are dead. I especially don't know how to miss someone when I don't know if they're dead or not.
But when I dream, my dreams are selfish and petty, egocentric and childish. They get boiled down to the most basic emotional need I have. Which apparently is my need for my old cat.
I am ashamed to say that I cried for it this morning. Like when I woke up I was still emotionally 12 years old and just wanted Fluffy to snuggle with. Maybe I'm more ashamed of feeling young than I am about the wish, because even a hankering for Girl Scout cookies can make me legitimately teary eyed nowadays.
I hope whoever is reading this appreciates a sense of humor. It isn't easy to keep one.
So there you have it. That's the truth. I cried about a cat during the apocalypse."

Shit. His last pencil broke. He really did not want that to be the last thing he wrote about his life, the fate of the human race, or his cat, for that matter. Alfred chucked the broken bits of wood and lead across the bunker. They scattered against the side of the metal wall. He felt the world closing in myopically around him, a panic attack threatening to crush him. Alfred closed his eyes and pushed it off. It was just a pencil. He still had food. He still had water. He had plenty of supplies, should Robbie come back as he was supposed to. He would come home if he was alive. Where else would he go?

If he was alive, if he was alive, if he was al-- Alfred broke off those thoughts.

Because he had everything he could possibly need, besides other humans, or hope, or a pencil, he decided to go out for another pencil.

He left the bunker often. The only reason he stayed there was because it was his home now (he couldn't stomach the house), and it was on the edge of his family's property, and it was where Robbie would come back to, if he could.

Their little wilderness town was empty. It had never been very full to begin with, but the illness had well and truly cleared it out. Those that hadn't cleared out (where were they going?) had holed up in their houses with shotguns. That plan hadn't worked out very well, because they still got sick, or else they had raided the neighbors they'd known all their lives, and gotten shot. Or they survived and ended up getting bitten by some plague-carrying damn mosquito. Alfred didn't know, except that everyone he'd known his whole life had expired around him while he sat in a metal box like it was a freezer and he was a frozen dinner.

He didn't take much care as he walked along the dusty forest road toward the convenience store. He didn't even bring a weapon. People here had been so self-sufficient and well-stocked (read here, paranoid) that the convenience store had remained full. It was so out of the way, passing scavengers hadn't found it. Or if they had, they hadn't taken enough for it to make much of a dent.

Alfred walking along a forest road was a sight that looked like it could have taken place in a distant time in history. He wore his father's elbow-patched tweed coat, pale pink collared shirt, and plaid bowtie. His mother's floral scarf was folded up and put in the breast pocket of his coat like a pocket square. The cargo-style pockets on the sides of the coat made it look like a war relic, while the elbow patches were pure professor. His shoes were his father's, too: suede oxfords that had taken a beating, with red leather where the laces tied. These things had been retro when his father owned them.

Funnily, his brilliant parents hadn't thought to stock the bunker with clothes to accommodate his growing body. His father had been skinny, but taller than him, so these things all fit loosely. As Alfred's appetite had been in decline as of late, he could no longer cinch in father's slacks enough. He wore a pair of his younger brother's trousers, which fit him in the waist, but were too tight in the thighs and calves. They were made out of a stretchy denim-canvas though, seamed with patches that were oddly comfortable. He rolled the cuffs of the sand-colored pants, because they were already too short, and it was better to make them look short on purpose, he thought. (The reading material his mother had left were fashion magazines.)

On his left wrist he wore his mother's silver chain link bracelet, and the watch he'd given his dad on the last father's day his dad had been alive for. Alfred wondered if it had been re-gifting to take it back. He also wondered if he was starting to go crazy. Why did he still bother to get dressed up every day? Why did he bother to get dressed at all? There was no one around to see his naked body. Except himself, and he felt repulsed by his knobby, exposed bones and weak muscles. The bowties, though? Probably the beginning of the end for his sanity.

His hair was tousled and wavy, a little too long on top even though he used his mother's best sewing scissors to cut it, frequently. He also remained clean-shaven, because he couldn't stand the feel of hair on his face. Was being OCD about one's appearance a normal way to behave when you were possibly the last person left on earth? Alfred was pretty sure it wasn't.

He walked along the road, hands in his pockets, head bent down because there was nothing new to see, and he knew this route well. He had used it his whole life. As a child to wait for the bus, as a teen to run to the convenience store, as a young adult to get gas for his classic car, as an apocalypse survivor, to get meaningless spur-of-the moment objects like a pencil, or a slinky. It was the little things in life, right? Especially now. The little things were the only things that were left.

"Through autumn leaves once..."

A line of poetry went through his head. He couldn't recall the rest of the poem, or what it had been about. Something lost. Something irretrievably lost. Not that it had anything to do with his situation or emotions. It was after all, autumn, and leaves were crunching underfoot. There was no bittersweet tang to the words, no ennui, Alfred lied to himself reassuringly. Through autumn leaves once...

Alfred wanted his brother. Did it make him a selfish bastard that he could do without everyone else? He could survive without the whole world, as long as Robbie was here beside him, catching falling leaves and scuffing through detritus like a damn faerie. Alfred didn't have any tears left, or he would have cried them. But he didn't pretend that his brother was beside him. He didn't have the strength for that.

He spent the majority of the walk with his hands in his pockets, watching his waterbird legs eating up pavement, enjoying the soothing reassurance of his bygone era footwear. When the road opened up beneath him toward the convenience store parking lot, he lifted his eyes. Soaring evergreen pines, deciduous trees, thick forest on every side. Kudzu creeping in malevolently, already having taken over the truck farthest back in the parking lot. Fine by him, as there was a corpse in that car. Alfred greeted this malevolence he detected from the kudzu like a trusted old friend. Death was a benevolent spirit.

He passed a couple of other cars, mercifully empty. There was gas still in the pumps, but what was the point? Where would he go? This was home. This was as close as he could get to his brother. If he had failed his one task in life, to keep his little brother safe, then he would wrap himself in the shadow of that failure and keep himself warm with his guilt. Tears, whenever they came, were a sweet taste on his lips.

He opened the cracked and fogged front door of the convenience store, peeling signs stuck to the glass that he had never bothered to read. Things about lottery tickets and ice sold by the bag, and which way the door opened, he thought. He couldn't make himself care enough to read the words. The bell overhead tinkled at his arrival. Of all the inane things.

Alfred felt, for a moment, a rush of familiarity. The shelves were still stocked, and the dim interior of the store gave off the impression that people stood in it. He half-expected to make uncomfortable eye contact with the worker behind the counter, who would hand him that ridiculously oversized wooden block attached to the bathroom key. He really wished he had asked the reason for that nonsense before all the people were dead and nobody worked here anymore.

As he stepped in deeper, he registered the foul smell of things rotting. The power had gone off in here awhile ago, none of the freezers worked. Ice cream had melted, and yes, shockingly, things packed with refined white sugar could go bad. Especially diary products. Alfred momentarily forgot why he was there as he considered checking to see if they had that cream soda that was his favorite. There was a certain horribly depressing feeling, however, to getting what you wanted, when you got it all by yourself.

He headed for the school supplies, and picked out a single package of number two pencils, with the righteous relief that comes from restraint and subsequent disappointment. He put it in his coat pocket; there was no paying for it, obviously.

"You hold my hand through colors of orange and yellow swill."

He had remembered the next line. The mind was truly a wonderful thing, even when it was in the process of being lost.

"If I'm worth it to you, you will."

What hidden treasures his brain had in store for him, even in what felt like the onset of amnesia. The outside of it might be rotting away like an onion, but it was peeling back to layers of subconscious memory he thought he'd lost forever.

To whom had his brother Robbie been writing these poems? Alfred might actually kill to get his hands on his brother's poetry book. The young boy had written about love, even though he had been too young for it, even though Alfred never saw him show interest in girls, despite the interest girls always seemed to show in him. (Girls didn't like Alfred much, to his eternal chagrin. They'd always loved his little brother, though. And what was not to love? Robbie was sad and sweet in that eternally perfect way, with pouty lips, dreamy sun-kissed curls, and a sweet way about him that marked him as utterly unconnected from the world.) Perhaps Robbie had just had an overactive imagination. Well, it was compelling stuff. It was keeping Alfred entertained even as he went mad from boredom. God bless poetry, even the emo juvenile kind, Alfred thought as he turned to go.

[Blackfridayrule]

(still playing around with where exactly she's from...I'll find out as I go, I think)

Ridahne did not spend a lot of time around a television growing up. She was more of an outside girl, more of a sand and water and trees and brush kind of a girl. Her older brother Hadian was that way too, though he tended to be more reserved and less inclined to chase seals off of their basking rocks, or to charge at birds pecking around on the beach. Still, the two of them loved mischief and the sun, and all that lay beyond the confining walls of their small home. Ridahne would pick fights with other kids and Hadian would be the one to set her sprained wrist or clean up her split lip so their father wouldn't have to know what she was up to. Usually, he found out anyway. Hadian always took care of her after their mother's cancer made their family of four turn into a pack of 3, and when their father was away at work for long stretches of time. Thick as thieves, they were. Literally. Hadian tried to discourage it, but Ridahne often had sticky fingers in school, particularly around people that were not so kind. They had a dog too--a sleek mutt with as much a nose for mischief as his curly haired owner.

It was a memorable occasion, then, when she spent five hours staring at a grainy television in a thrift store somewhere in...where was she, back then? Florida? Ridahne vaguely remembered going through customs in someplace warm and sticky. Could have been anywhere. She hardly knew even then, and it didn't matter now. It was one of those cheap, old machines in a Goodwill that was hardly likely to ever be purchased, but there it was on display anyway. Plugged in and usually tuned to Antiques Roadshow or some equally insipid program like that. But not that day. Or rather, it was, until a tired, put-upon employee came over in a frightened stumble, numb and apprehensive, to flip the channel to the news. Ridahne had been shopping for shoes then. She wouldn't have even bothered to pass through the electronics section at all--she lived out of an Osprey hiking pack and stayed in a string of hostels, AirBNB's, couches, and occasionally, small motels. Thus, she had no room for the luxury of...cheap alarm clocks, remote controls, and VHS players. But she'd seen a few onlookers turn into a full on crowd, leaning in close to stare at the old screen with their hands over their open mouths.

A disease. A manufactured disease was spreading like wildfire because people were desperate enough to volunteer for some sick human experimentation. Ridahne had been thinking smugly to herself that she would just go back home, despite the consequences. Her visa was expiring in a couple months anyway... But then she learned that it was not just the states that were being affected. Not just Canada, or Mexico. The UK. Russia. Australia.

It was spreading.

Ridahne never expected it to happen so fast. She thought it would take weeks. Months. Instead it was hours. And in weeks, the world descended into chaos. In months, it began to quiet like the fading moans of a man about to die. Ridahne had no friends, none of importance. Her parents had both been dead several years prior to the infection's beginning. All she had left besides herself was her older brother Hadian, of whom she knew nothing of now. Was he alive? If he died, was it at least quick? Or was it painful, slow? Did he have anyone looking out for him? Ridahne would have killed a man to gain passage across the Atlantic to get home, just to see if he was still alive. But unless she rowed there in some pathetic dinghy herself, or was lucky enough to find a functioning boat with gas in it (HA. Right.), she would never see home again. Or Hadian.

Ridahne lost track of time since then. Months, weeks, seasons hardly mattered. Just sunrise. Sunset. Light. Dark. Moving, surviving, always searching for shelter and safety and food. She didn't even know where she was anymore--somewhere cool and spacious with lots of trees. It was quiet, lacking the sound of birds chattering and small animals rustling in the underbrush. Such things were rare these days. All she really heard for some time was the rhythmic crunching of her worn in hiking boots (she'd always worn them before this catastrophe and was now thankful for her odd choices in style), the subtle protests of the straps on her blue pack, and the very soft whisper of wind overhead. That and--

A metallic click, and then, "Drop the pack, girl."
Ridahne froze, bristled, and looked to her left, where a greasy man stood with a pistol trained on her. She did not look on in fear with her amber eyes, but with defiant fire. "I'm gonna guess that gun's not even loaded. That, or it has one left. One, and you don't want to waste it on me. But you're hoping I won't argue. You picked the wrong girl."
A flicker of hesitation flashed in his blue eyes as she said that. It was spoken so surely and darkly that somehow he felt she meant it. Not just that, but she was not what he expected her to be. Instead of a wide eyed, lost woman, he found cold, sharp eyes set in a dark olive face marked with intricate black tattoos. Black and blue. They made her look almost otherwordly, fierce, like a warrior. And she might have been scraggly, but she was not delicate looking. Thin, but muscular and self-assured. She had multiple silver piercings--one in her nose and a multitude in her ears, not to mention some horn gauges. And most of all, she had the look of experience about her.

"You wanna take your chances, honey? Drop it." Ridahne did not take her eyes from him. She simply tucked her dark curls behind her silver-heavy ear and slowly slid her pack off her narrow shoulder, lowering it to the ground as carefully as if it were a bomb. "Good choice sweetheart. Now, just--"

There was a soft sound, a gentle whisper of a swip! and a tiny, sharp whoosh as something silver flashed in the green-filtered sunlight from her right hand and Ridahne lunged at him, her long knife catching his forearm before the man had any idea what had happened to him. As blood burbled from the new crisp wound, he growled and came at her with a counter attack. Ridahne's hunch was right; either he was out of bullets or was not about to spare one on her. Her knife caught his chest, and then the sheer weight of him bowled her to the ground. Ridahne scrambled to get up, but he was already looming over her. Ridahne was fast, but not fast enough; he pistol whipped her pretty hard but thankfully missed the soft spot of her temple, leaving her still conscious. Conscious, and fighting. Still on the ground, hair now tangled in bits of leaves, Ridahne swung forward and sunk her knife into the man's thigh. He howled and fell, which she quickly took advantage of. Despite his efforts to pistol whip her again, or to kick at her, claw at her, swing at her, she managed to fight her way on top of him and without much thought, planning, or hesitation, she brought her knife down underneath his ribs.

The man still gurgled and gasped for breath but Ridahne knew the fight was over. He'd be gone in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Distantly, there was a part of her that felt pity. There was a part of her that never wanted to kill anyone for any reason. There was a part of her that wondered what might have happened if they decided to band together. But these thoughts, these things that once made her civil, now seemed cold, withered, and far away like a relic from another age. Anything to survive. Anything. Ridahne cleaned her knife, a wicked but well-crafted and simplistic bowie knife, replaced it in the sheath strapped to her back under her shirt, picked up her pack, and stumbled back on the way she'd been going.

The fight was short and Ridahne eventually came out the victor, but not without a few wounds herself. She hadn't realized it, but one of her wrists--the left one--must have been sprained, because it was hot and a little swollen, now. She could feel a couple bruises beginning to bloom, but worst of all, she felt her head. Her throbbing, drumming, pounding, thundering head. He got her good. A little tickle prompted her to touch the side of her face; her slender fingers came away bloody. She had to keep going, at least until she found a safe place to bunker down for a while, or somewhere she could find some supplies.

Supplies showed themselves first. A small store sat like a hollow ghost of itself on the side of the road; through the window, Ridahne could see there were some items on the shelves still, even if they might have been a bit mismatched and picked through. She hoped to find dishtowels, toilet paper, crappy tourist t-shirts--anything that might make a suitable bandage for her head, which was still a little sticky and wet down one side, streaking parts of her black and blue tattoos with additional lines of smudgy red. Everything seemed quiet, still, so she proceeded. She would just need--

The door swung open when she pushed it, finding it unlocked and not even smashed open. But the moment the door began to swing, it caught an irritating chipper bell hung above its frame that made her cringe. Why didn't she just go through a window if it was going to make that much noise? It echoed in her ears amidst the cold silence that she'd grown so accustomed to and some part of her wanted to cut the thing down out of spite. She didn't get too far into those thoughts when she saw another figure inside the store. A male. Her knife was out in an instant, the curved Bowie a smooth extension of her lean arms. It seemed to materialize out of nowhere, but it was merely hidden behind her back. Though her grip on the weapon was tight, she couldn't quite hold the object still when she held it up. She said nothing.

The woman, dressed in a black hoodie, fitted olive pants with a large pocket on one leg, and with an aqua blue backpack on her shoulders, looked harried, but still resolved. She stared at him, tangled hair rustling in the soft wind so that it matted to her bloody cheek. Her eyes, though determined, seemed a little out of focus and glassy, and she swayed ever so slightly as she stood there.

"Don't." She warned, though she wasn't fully sure of what she was telling him not to do. Why did she feel so dizzy? "I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you make me. So don't--" she screwed her eyes shut and opened them again, blinking; were there two of him? No. Just one. "--Just don't try anything." One of her pupils was dilated slightly, the other looked normal. She had none of the telltale signs of the sickness, nor did she seem the sort that would leap at him at any moment just to rob him of his shoes. No, she had the look of an injured dog, slunk off into a corner to try and lick its wounds while trying to keep intruders at bay all at once. She looked like she needed help, but also looked like she didn't want it, or didn't want to admit it, rather.

"Turn around. Keep walking. Wait--are there bandages in here? T-shirts? Dishtowels? Cloth?" She shook her head as if trying to loosen something from it. The world spun but she kept her feet. "Nevermind. Just keep your distance. I won't follow you and you won't follow me. Got it? There'll be trouble if you do."