Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Not With A Whimper ❯ 1 ( Chapter 1 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Randoman 
Unfortunately unedited.
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Post-apocalyptic | Type: Poetry | Uploaded On: 02.22.2011 | Updated On: 02.22.2011 | Pages: 1 | Words: 1.5K | Visits: 244 | Status: Completed
Unfortunately unedited.
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Post-apocalyptic | Type: Poetry | Uploaded On: 02.22.2011 | Updated On: 02.22.2011 | Pages: 1 | Words: 1.5K | Visits: 244 | Status: Completed
He didn't bother to shut the door behind him as he stepped out into the dirty hallway. He could still hear her screaming at him, and no amount of doors, closed or open, would change that. He swore he'd hear her till the day he died. Besides, it's not like the inside of the room had been any better. In there, the dirt had been piled up as if
it could hide all the broken dreams that the room contained, but outside it was still practically rusting away in front of him. He went down the stairs to the front door The steps creaked wearily, as if they were only enduring his weight out of habit. There certainly didn't seem to be any structural reasons why the steps were still standing.
Outside, it was easier to ignore the sound of her screaming. The sounds of a bustling metropolitan were ingrained into the very sidewalks. Birds chirping, children screaming, cars honking, and the terrible sounds of a nation so dreadfully intent on going nowhere. Those always drowned her out.
He adjusted his path quickly and swerved around one nearly hopeless scrap of rust. His hip bumped the wreck and he wasn't at all surprised when the bumper fell right off. Nor was he surprised when the driver didn't notice, or even acknowledge him. This was the city after all.
Even though he had no real goal in mind for walking, he really didn't have the time to stop. Today was a big day, and he was certain that he wouldn't miss it. Not this one.
The sun beat down, unnaturally hot, even for the midday. He was sweating, but he didn't care, he stank, but then, he didn't smell half as bad as everyone else. That thought brought a smile to his face and he kept walking down the street, whistling just to spite the burning sun.
He dropped by his favorite store. It'd been suffering recently. The plaster was falling off one of the walls pretty poorly, and there just wasn't enough business to make the money to get it fixed. He sighed. Everything was going to hell, he though, some things just slower than others. He grabbed a drink -warm, of course, the refigerator was almost certainly broken- and then left some money on the counter.
Maybe there wasn't much business for the store, but he at least knew that no one would take the money either.
The bell above the door didn't ring as he left. He was almost certain he saw the hammer on the ground somewhere.
The drink may have been warm but it was good, and he revelled in its temporary splender. It didn't take the edge off the burning sun, but simple pleasures were always the hardest to take away from someone.
He was startled as he walked by a youth's bicycle and it clattered to the ground. It looked as though it'd been locked up, but either the bike had rusted through, or the lock had. Either way, it didn't seem like anyone would miss it. Kids needed to learn to take better care of their things, he thought.
That was the problem here, of course. The kids hadn't learned to take good enough care of their things.
Those kids had grown into adults, and of course, the adults hadn't taken care of their things either. In the end, nothing was taken care of, and here we all were, in a world of rusting stairs, bells without hammers, rusted bikes and locks and a shop with a wall that wouldn't last much longer.
He'd taken care of himself, at least, and now, he had to admit, there was something to be said for that. Unlike the bikes, shops and bells, he was not falling apart.
Only everything else was.
He didn't head back to the house he'd left. The screaming would not have stopped, and the ingrained sounds of a city would not be enough to drown it out.
Of course, he still didn't really have a goal in mind, he just wandered about, letting the memories guide him, and he fell to them as they showed. The shop, of course. Next was the park where he'd played as a child, now quite dry and dusty, the cracked, desperate branches of trees he'd climbed on now clawing at the sky. They didn't mind the sun, he knew, but it'd been a while since they'd had some rain.
It'd probably come again though. Probably.
Then again, today was a very special day, and so it was hard to say exactly what would happen after this. The unknown was a bother for a lot of people, but not him. After being surrounded by the nigh-constant decay, he had to admit that a bit of almost anything would likely be an improvement.
No one really seemed to notice his wandering. Just an odd man wandering about in the searing bright of noon. They really seemed to be looking right through him, their eyes never following him.
He didn't mind, it didn't seem to matter to them that today was special. Maybe it didn't matter to them.
He found himself at a very large building. He'd worked there once, back when there was something more to it than just a skeleton of steel bars curling over onto itself in the roadway. he paused and furrowed his brow, it didn't seem that it'd been that long ago. When had he been here last?
Perhaps, he thought, the decay that we'd let ourselves get into actually got worse as time went on. The longer it went, the faster it ruined?
Everyone else had already settled on the decayed building, either resolutely staring into the sky as if to defy the hateful sun themselves, or simply reclining in the shade it provided. This was not the place for such a special day, to be surrounded by those so affected by the decay. He could hear their thoughts so clearly. Some moaned for better days, but took no responsibility, some sighed in the simple escape from the heat. Others screamed madly for what they'd do to fix it, but yet, achieved nothing.
No, this was not the place for today.
He kept walking.
He kept walking until the sounds of the city began to fade, and he knew he was getting close. He was leaving the city, this was clear, but it felt right.
As the last sounds stopped, he knew. This was the place.
This was the place to be, and the time was near.
He couldn't hear anything, all those horrible memories gone already. The empty house he'd once called a home, now left only with the empty vessel of what had once been a lover. The yelling wasn't from the vessel, but from the memories of what he'd had. Just so with the sounds of the city. It was empty too, but the memories were so ingrained in him that they came to him unbidden as he walked the streets. Not so here, a quiet silence.
The memories of those who'd been in the building, now corpses only sleeping their pain off. The memories of a shop, a bike, as if those things had even mattered. Of course they didn't, shops only mattered when there were things to buy, and bikes only mattered when there were people to ride them.
Hell, even the words were meaningless, when there was no one to hear them. Only him. Only him to say them, and he could just as easily do it in his head, adding to the symphony of What Had Been. What was, however, did not need it. It simply did not matter, nothing did. Nothing could.
Here was perfect because that symphony wasn't so much forced upon him as the result of simple reverie. He found it all too easy to turn it off. Just like that, the last man on earth turned off society as it had been known.
The silence was overwhelming. It brought tears to his eyes. It was quite a moment, as he'd known it would be.
No one had thought about the end. Not even him.
They'd never considered how it would come, but in truth, there was only one way it could have come; in silence.
But man had always bucked convention, and it would only stand now that it should be the same.
This armageddon was no battle, it was not the slow death of scientific fact, but an inevitable emptiness that swallowed us all.
In the symphony of What Had Been, this was the curtain call, and it was up to the Last Man to play the final note.
So, on this very special day, this Last Day, this Last Man did what man had always done, and offered the last little bit of defiance to the unruly universe. He cocked his thumb and pointed his finger up towards the end as it came to mankind.
'Bang.'
it could hide all the broken dreams that the room contained, but outside it was still practically rusting away in front of him. He went down the stairs to the front door The steps creaked wearily, as if they were only enduring his weight out of habit. There certainly didn't seem to be any structural reasons why the steps were still standing.
Outside, it was easier to ignore the sound of her screaming. The sounds of a bustling metropolitan were ingrained into the very sidewalks. Birds chirping, children screaming, cars honking, and the terrible sounds of a nation so dreadfully intent on going nowhere. Those always drowned her out.
He adjusted his path quickly and swerved around one nearly hopeless scrap of rust. His hip bumped the wreck and he wasn't at all surprised when the bumper fell right off. Nor was he surprised when the driver didn't notice, or even acknowledge him. This was the city after all.
Even though he had no real goal in mind for walking, he really didn't have the time to stop. Today was a big day, and he was certain that he wouldn't miss it. Not this one.
The sun beat down, unnaturally hot, even for the midday. He was sweating, but he didn't care, he stank, but then, he didn't smell half as bad as everyone else. That thought brought a smile to his face and he kept walking down the street, whistling just to spite the burning sun.
He dropped by his favorite store. It'd been suffering recently. The plaster was falling off one of the walls pretty poorly, and there just wasn't enough business to make the money to get it fixed. He sighed. Everything was going to hell, he though, some things just slower than others. He grabbed a drink -warm, of course, the refigerator was almost certainly broken- and then left some money on the counter.
Maybe there wasn't much business for the store, but he at least knew that no one would take the money either.
The bell above the door didn't ring as he left. He was almost certain he saw the hammer on the ground somewhere.
The drink may have been warm but it was good, and he revelled in its temporary splender. It didn't take the edge off the burning sun, but simple pleasures were always the hardest to take away from someone.
He was startled as he walked by a youth's bicycle and it clattered to the ground. It looked as though it'd been locked up, but either the bike had rusted through, or the lock had. Either way, it didn't seem like anyone would miss it. Kids needed to learn to take better care of their things, he thought.
That was the problem here, of course. The kids hadn't learned to take good enough care of their things.
Those kids had grown into adults, and of course, the adults hadn't taken care of their things either. In the end, nothing was taken care of, and here we all were, in a world of rusting stairs, bells without hammers, rusted bikes and locks and a shop with a wall that wouldn't last much longer.
He'd taken care of himself, at least, and now, he had to admit, there was something to be said for that. Unlike the bikes, shops and bells, he was not falling apart.
Only everything else was.
He didn't head back to the house he'd left. The screaming would not have stopped, and the ingrained sounds of a city would not be enough to drown it out.
Of course, he still didn't really have a goal in mind, he just wandered about, letting the memories guide him, and he fell to them as they showed. The shop, of course. Next was the park where he'd played as a child, now quite dry and dusty, the cracked, desperate branches of trees he'd climbed on now clawing at the sky. They didn't mind the sun, he knew, but it'd been a while since they'd had some rain.
It'd probably come again though. Probably.
Then again, today was a very special day, and so it was hard to say exactly what would happen after this. The unknown was a bother for a lot of people, but not him. After being surrounded by the nigh-constant decay, he had to admit that a bit of almost anything would likely be an improvement.
No one really seemed to notice his wandering. Just an odd man wandering about in the searing bright of noon. They really seemed to be looking right through him, their eyes never following him.
He didn't mind, it didn't seem to matter to them that today was special. Maybe it didn't matter to them.
He found himself at a very large building. He'd worked there once, back when there was something more to it than just a skeleton of steel bars curling over onto itself in the roadway. he paused and furrowed his brow, it didn't seem that it'd been that long ago. When had he been here last?
Perhaps, he thought, the decay that we'd let ourselves get into actually got worse as time went on. The longer it went, the faster it ruined?
Everyone else had already settled on the decayed building, either resolutely staring into the sky as if to defy the hateful sun themselves, or simply reclining in the shade it provided. This was not the place for such a special day, to be surrounded by those so affected by the decay. He could hear their thoughts so clearly. Some moaned for better days, but took no responsibility, some sighed in the simple escape from the heat. Others screamed madly for what they'd do to fix it, but yet, achieved nothing.
No, this was not the place for today.
He kept walking.
He kept walking until the sounds of the city began to fade, and he knew he was getting close. He was leaving the city, this was clear, but it felt right.
As the last sounds stopped, he knew. This was the place.
This was the place to be, and the time was near.
He couldn't hear anything, all those horrible memories gone already. The empty house he'd once called a home, now left only with the empty vessel of what had once been a lover. The yelling wasn't from the vessel, but from the memories of what he'd had. Just so with the sounds of the city. It was empty too, but the memories were so ingrained in him that they came to him unbidden as he walked the streets. Not so here, a quiet silence.
The memories of those who'd been in the building, now corpses only sleeping their pain off. The memories of a shop, a bike, as if those things had even mattered. Of course they didn't, shops only mattered when there were things to buy, and bikes only mattered when there were people to ride them.
Hell, even the words were meaningless, when there was no one to hear them. Only him. Only him to say them, and he could just as easily do it in his head, adding to the symphony of What Had Been. What was, however, did not need it. It simply did not matter, nothing did. Nothing could.
Here was perfect because that symphony wasn't so much forced upon him as the result of simple reverie. He found it all too easy to turn it off. Just like that, the last man on earth turned off society as it had been known.
The silence was overwhelming. It brought tears to his eyes. It was quite a moment, as he'd known it would be.
No one had thought about the end. Not even him.
They'd never considered how it would come, but in truth, there was only one way it could have come; in silence.
But man had always bucked convention, and it would only stand now that it should be the same.
This armageddon was no battle, it was not the slow death of scientific fact, but an inevitable emptiness that swallowed us all.
In the symphony of What Had Been, this was the curtain call, and it was up to the Last Man to play the final note.
So, on this very special day, this Last Day, this Last Man did what man had always done, and offered the last little bit of defiance to the unruly universe. He cocked his thumb and pointed his finger up towards the end as it came to mankind.
'Bang.'