ONE
It is so hot I can almost feel my body melting. My skin sticking to the ground like wax burning down from the body of a lit candle. The smell is awful and it’s choking me. Suddenly, a burst of reddish yellow luminescence gleamed from the darkness. From a tiny speckle it grows into a ball of rich warm color. It is beautiful and is inviting me to come near it, touch it, but it seems so far away from my reach. It glimmers and dances until it grows abruptly into a sudden blast. The flame creeps towards me, intent to devour what little life is left of my body and I jerk myself up.
I woke up amidst ruins, with the sight of the world terribly devastated, destroyed, dead, reflected in my eyes. I hear nothing but the horrifying silence of the landscape, the blowing of wind that brings chills to my already frozen spine and the echoing of the earth’s underground growling in disarray. Dust and ashes linger all over my face as I try not to inhale them, but I still did, unintentionally, and felt every tiny microscopic bit of it sticking to my lungs.
I try to cough them out as hard as I can, but I figured these dusts that are seeking shelter to my lungs are just the least of my problems. I look around and see rubbles of cement, dismantled bricks that scattered on the ground, debris of different shapes and sizes that all look like they came from the same source of building. From there I am sure whatever or wherever that building was, it is no longer standing high anymore.
I try to get up and immediately feel the heaviness in my head. It’s doubling, no it’s tripling the weight of my body. There are a thousand pins each poking the insides of my brain, my stomach rumbles inside as I feel my guts twisting. Afraid I might pass out again, I started breathing deeply in and slowly breathing out, by doing so I felt a stabbing pain in my chest, this time I am sure it’s no pin or needle, it’s one of my ribs that I broke. It seems to want to poke out of my skin on its own.
One by one my body parts start to turn against me, betraying my very own self like they’re in a protest. I still couldn’t get up so I started strolling my eyes around. Everything is a disaster. It’s like a hurricane combined with an earthquake combined with a ball of fire struck the city into pieces- whatever city it was, I don’t know. I don’t remember how it looked like before this, or if it has always been like this, I’m simply just not sure. My mind’s in a deep blur right now and I don’t know how to get out of it.
No one seems to be anywhere either, but I still try to call out, “Hello? Anyone?”, and my raspy voice only echoed through the ruins. I waited for a while then decided to take a walk once I felt better, but I am no better. I am still feeling excruciating pain, especially in my chest. But I figured I don’t want to die alone here, injured and in the middle of an aftermath caused by whatever happened that I honestly remember nothing about. I should at least look for water and food, then pretend to be surviving after.
While slowly walking away from the scene, I try hard to remember anything. Just anything so that I can distract myself from the fact that I am alone, wounded and probably dying. I started with my name, yes, my name, but what’s my name? I don’t remember it, damn. Blank, there is nothing in my mind but a mere blank. I am a few feet away from the place I woke up from but I see no difference. If not totally destroyed, everything that I see is just ghostly and abandoned. No signs of life that I can see or hear, except me and a few rodents running all around and under the surface looking for shelter, or food. I look up and saw that the sky is in a mix of pale gray and pinkish red gradient, not quite looking as how it should be, that I know of. The clouds are scattered and looked as if they too were part of the massive destruction that hit the place- and they may be, but I wouldn’t know about that. “Hello? Is anyone there?”, my shouting triggers the pain but I know I have to try. Somebody might hear me. Somebody should hear me.
