Afterlight

The world went out, not with a bang, but a whimper.

The news broadcast that signalled the end of the world still played in Chloe’s head like it happened yesterday. ’Stay indoors tomorrow. Do not open your doors. Do not open your windows.’ She could still hear the panic under the anchor’s calm voice. Who could think straight, knowing the only thing between them and death was a wall of plaster?

The government had set up places in every major city that those with a lower income could collect a week’s worth of rations so they would have enough food to survive the hurricane.

Her mother had been drinking again, so Chloe had to go in her place. The volunteers looked at her like a stray dog. Poor. Homeless. Starving. She neither wanted nor needed their pity.

But the hurricane didn’t end after a day. Not a week. Not even a month.

Chloe barely got a wink of sleep. Listening to the sound of the walls rattling, she couldn’t help but worry that in the next instance, their flat would be torn from the ground.

After the first month, the hurricane was expected to get stronger, so everyone who was still alive was evacuated from their homes to underground shelters sprinkled throughout the city. Everyone slept on the metal floor, eating the designated rations. It felt like shit, but it wasn’t much worse than the life Chloe lived before.

While in the shelters, Chloe spoke to some of the others in her shelter. That was the only thing you could do since the power had long since gone out. She heard from people with friends and relatives overseas that similar disasters were happening all over the world. But it wasn’t just hurricanes. It was volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis. Anything you could imagine. It happened all at once.

It was as if the earth was trying to get back at humans for destroying it. Religious zealots believed it was a punishment from God for all the sins committed by humanity. Crazy people believed it was caused by an alien species that wanted to exterminate humanity to take over planet Earth. But the only thing everyone could agree on was that it was the end of the world and no amount of governmental posturing could convince people that everything would be okay.

When the winds finally died, so had most of the world.

“So much for rebuilding the damage,” Chloe muttered as she ran a hand through her long black hair and kicked a chunk of concrete — once part of a flat. That was the first thing the Government promised. Before people’s homes could be rebuilt, they had to rebuild facilities that made such materials. But all the materials they would’ve used to rebuild were long destroyed.

She stepped into what used to be a small supermarket. As a child, it used to seem like a wonderland. Shelves lined with all kinds of toys and foods with weird names that magically reappeared every day. Sometimes she would beg her mother to let her look around and imagine what it would be like to afford any of the things there. She was such a stupid child.

But now it had a large hole in the ceiling which collapsed onto the shelves below it, burying what could have been useful supplies. Chloe briefly considered moving the rubble out of the way to see if there was anything salvageable under it, but as she approached, she realised she had already been beaten to the punch. If people were that desperate, anything useful the supermarket used to have would have already been raided. But she was desperate—and stupid—enough to keep going anyway. Chloe only had one tin of canned fruit left, so she needed to find food today.

The shelves were barren aside from some food that had been left to rot for so long it became unrecognisable, some bread—which was more mould than bread—and the ugly kids’ dolls that somehow became a status symbol to the kids in her class when she was eight years old.

With a heavy sigh, Chloe made her way to the back room. If there was going to be anything here, this is where she would find it. But, just as the pessimist in her expected, these shelves were also empty. Most of them had also been tipped over as a final ’fuck you’ to the former supermarket employees, but there were a few at the back still standing.

Chloe stepped over the fallen shelves and crouched down. There were a few tins hidden on the bottom shelves. They were dented but probably not damaged enough to be unsafe to eat. The only issue was that they were the shit beans she refused to eat as a kid. But she had to take them. Maybe the bacteria would make them taste better? Her mother usually couldn’t afford to buy the beans Chloe liked so she’d gotten used to forcing them down.

Now that she was thinking about her, she wondered what her life would be like if her mother was still alive. When their flat had been destroyed, her mother was crushed by the rubble. She wasn’t the best mother in the world, so maybe Chloe would still have been wandering around alone. But she was all Chloe had anymore.

On the way out of the supermarket, she walked past the ugly dolls again. They were overrated, but she would feel bad leaving them to rot here. Chloe took one of the dolls and attached it to her bag. It didn’t have any loops or anything for easy attaching since that wasn’t what it was created for. So, it sat upside down on her bag, but it was secured enough that it wouldn’t fall off easily. Maybe if she came across other people, she could give it to one of their children as a peace offering?

Chloe kept walking. That was all she could do anymore. Walking, hoping to find something, anything.

It wasn’t long before the city was bathed in darkness, lit only by the moon’s glow. Most of the streetlights had been uprooted in the hurricane, and those that miraculously survived lost power when the hurricane destroyed a lot of the power lines.

She needed to find somewhere to sleep, but she couldn’t sleep just anywhere. Not everyone was willing to live peacefully after their lives were destroyed. Some were desperate to survive even if they had to hurt children or kill the elderly to do it. While asleep, she would be an easy target.

There were some buildings nearby that appeared semi-intact. One would assume that would be the best place to settle for the night. But Chloe learned the hard way that that was what everyone thought. She would have to either fight for space all night or hope to be hidden enough not to be killed.

She would have to find somewhere that looked like it wouldn’t have any supplies. Somewhere no sane person would bother raiding. The more broken, the safer. So, she ended up settling in a block of flats that had been torn in half by the hurricane. You could see most of the inside, but she managed to find a small storage room that was completely closed in. This would hopefully keep her safe from anyone who might try to hurt her.

Chloe pulled her blanket out of her bag and the can of tinned fruit. It wasn’t the most filling meal, but it would keep her going for the night. She detached the ugly doll from her bag and sat it in front of her.

“If I could go back and tell myself the world would end within the next couple years—well, first of all, I would’ve assumed I belonged in a loony bin. But if I could prove it to myself, there’s so many things I would have done.” She pulled out a piece of fruit with her fingers. But there was one thing she regretted most of all. She told herself not to dwell on it anymore. The more she thought about him, the harder it was to accept that he was gone.

“He wouldn’t want me thinking about him like this… but…” She ate another piece of fruit, staring at the ugly doll. It’s bead eyes stared back.

The bracelet on her wrist got caught on her sleeve. It was just made of simple string and beads, but it was something he had made for her. “I don’t know why I’m still here. Why did I have to be the one to survive? I don’t know why I keep going.” She placed the tin at her feet and held her head in her hands. Why did anyone want to survive? That was the question. Chloe assumed it was for the people you had around you, but she had no one.

She shook her head. “What the fuck am I doing?” She grabbed the doll up and chucked it across the storage room. She was talking to an inanimate object like it’s a person. Like it was going to tell her the answers to her questions. Maybe she really had gone crazy.

Chloe finished her fruit in silence and lay down. She could never fall sleep easily. She never understood how people could lie down and sleep immediately. But she would have to pass out from exhaustion eventually.