Survival of the Fittest

It was all over.

***

The apocalypse… the world. Sonya was sure it was over- there hadn’t been a creature sighting in months, maybe it had been a year. Time wasn’t the same as it used to be. The day still turned to night and the sun still set into dark but it had been so long since the days actually mattered that she stopped caring.

Her hair, which was once a long dark brown, was short up to her chin and often pulled back into a small ponytail so that she avoided running her hands through it. Washing it often wasn’t a luxury she could have anymore- maybe it was vain of her, but she’d always been proud of her appearance.

She used to be upkept, nicely dressed and bright. Often she was told that it was her light that inspired people to be better. Sonya had to wonder what those same people would say to her now.

She laughed bitterly, the thought creeping in before any sense of reason. Those people probably didn’t recognize her anymore. They probably weren’t alive.

Maybe she was the last one left and as improbable as it was, with the vast nothingness around her, it was an easy one to believe. No, perhaps it wasn’t easy to believe but what she wanted to believe.

Something about it was twisted in her mind. She should want other survivors… but anyone who survived had to do horrible things. Kill the people that they loved when they became the creatures that they feared.

Sonya wasn’t the woman that she used to be.

***

When it all started, when the first human turned to become a deadly creature, Sonya was almost certain that she would give her life to save those around her. She was going to self-sacrifice, she was going to be the leader that led a group of her own to a safe place.

She was so sure that she was going to be the person that others would call a hero in the wake of her death.

Sonya wasn’t the person she thought she was.

It was selfish, sure, but she loved life. And when push came to shove, she ran instead of staying. She let other people die for her and although she wanted to regret it she wasn’t sure she could. Because she was still alive. Five years after everything started, she was still alive and while surviving wasn’t the same as living, being alive was being alive and that was the only thing that matters.

Remorse was not as strong as her will and if there were others willing to sacrifice their lives for her then she wasn’t going to argue. Maybe that made her a horrible person but with the world in such a state it would be foolish to put so much faith in something as fickle as morality.

The line was gray and she’d danced between it too many times to care about being a picture perfect person.

If letting others die in place of her made her a horrible person… so be it.

***

Zombies weren’t the right word for such a creature. Sonya didn’t understand exactly what they were, maybe not one did, but she knew enough from the books and movies. Zombies acted on an innate pulse to survive and the way they did that was eating human flesh.

To zombies, humans were cattle- lower on the food chain.

She didn’t want to say it was natural, because creatures such as zombies were nothing natural at all but the impulse itself was the same as the one humans had. Humans eat animals to survive because they are stronger and don’t want to starve.

Sonya was sure that if humans were left long enough to starve they’d start eating each other.

The thought was baseless, created only from her own desire to understand zombies. But then, understanding zombies wouldn’t do any good to understand the state of the world.

Because Zombie wasn’t the right word for the monstrous thing.

Sonya wasn’t religious so maybe calling them demons was incorrect but if hell found a way to become human then that is what they would become. The creatures that may or may not still roam the earth looked like demons.

They seemed almost too intelligent to not know what they were doing… but if they came from people just like her what changed in them to make them want to kill. To want and desire ripping apart the unchanged.

Was it evolution?

A change in the genetic needs of human survival. Maybe it was written in codes of DNA and something triggered the chance. Sonya thought, maybe they were always supposed to become killers.

But if that were true… wouldn’t she become the same?

There wasn’t basis for any of her theories.

***

Two years after the change the government started to bomb major cities. They couldn’t lure them, the creatures were too smart for that, so they made their best estimate about the density of the population.

There was no warning, no chance to prepare or say goodbye to whoever was left. The bombs came a desolated everything. The ground was leveled, save for the remains of fallen buildings- there was nothing left. No life.

Sonya heard the explosions but she had already let go of normality.

***

She used to fear them. She used to be afraid that she’d go to sleep one night and wake up with a creature out for her blood.

At some point she stopped being afraid.

Death only struck fear when she had something to lose.

***

It was all over- the mass fear and chaos.

She was in a new era of survival.

***

Once, three years in, Sonya ran into a group of people wandering a ruined city, perhaps searching for food. For a brief moment she considered going up to them but something inside of her was pushing back.

As she tried to move forward her legs were rooted in place. All she could do was watch from her camp- it was a small hole in a fallen building. Not home but then again, nothing was.

Sonya hadn’t been with a group of people since the first year and while the pain of losing someone never went away there was no denying the benefit of being with multiple people. If she was able to convince that group to let her join then her chances of survival would skyrocket.

But something stopped her.

Call it a gut instinct or maybe it was fear but something felt wrong.

Maybe it was the fact that the group walked as if the world they lived in wasn’t a hellhole. Their backs were to her and she couldn’t see their faces but perhaps she didn’t need to.

The group wasn’t looking around- they weren’t observing the surroundings. It was as if they weren’t afraid at all.

The indifference was different than Sonya’s; she wasn’t sure how she knew but in the way they held themselves it was unnatural. No matter how long she had spent in a world that wanted her dead she was aware. Her senses were sharp and attune and she spent far more time focused on everything around her than she ever had before.

Her body understood before the answer was clear in her mind. She hid, only watching as she looked out of her camp but not revealing more than her head. If they had seen her surely she would have died.

Because these people looked normal but they reminded her of the creatures. The way they walked, the nature in which they so casually approached buildings. They were looking for something, Sonya could see that well enough.

And maybe it was food- maybe it was her. Perhaps those were one in the same to them.

One of them laughed and she was almost certain then, of what they were- it was unnatural in every definition of the word. No one laughed anymore, certainly not her. And when they turned, it confirmed what she had already figured out.

Because their mouths were covered in blood, dried and new as if they couldn’t be bothered to clean themselves off. Their eyes gleamed like a predator- like a creature.

A creature that looked just like her. If it weren’t for the blood she wouldn’t have had any idea. Maybe that was the only way to tell now.

Yes… maybe she was the only human left.

***

She should have figured it out sooner.

***

Those who learned to survive in such a world were certainly favored by natural selection. Something about them had surely adapted to live in hell or rather it was something about them initially that kept her alive.

It was foolish to think that she was strong enough to survive this long on her own.

Sonya was smart but the truth of everything eluded her until the memory of that group of people returned. They had seen her. One of them at least- their eyes had met once, briefly and the person had smiled.

Back then, her mind played tricks on her. She convinced herself that she hadn’t actually been seen, that it was only in her imagination, formed from fear. Now, it was clear.

Now she understood why it had left her alone.

Now she understood why she had survived so long.

Natural selection, survival of the fittest… those that don’t have what it takes to survive, won’t.

***

Sonya once thought that she was the only one left but it was of denial, ignorance, maybe a mix of everything she didn’t want to admit because there were no humans left. Creatures so smart that they did anything to survive wouldn’t be taken down so easily.

Not by bombs, not by morality.

Even if it meant suppressing the memories of acts that they needed to commit to stay alive, the creatures would do anything to survive.

***

Survival of the fittest took out all humans.

But Sonya was still alive.