The world is still here.

I hardly remember the world outside. The last thing I remember is the blinding sun on my five year old skin, slowly sneaking to the tips of my fingers then vanishing as my father shut the door for good. 

We have been here in this bunker since. It was on the 10th of December 2012. 8 years ago, when the world ended. At least that's what they told me.

The Parkers from across the street shared the bunker with us. Mr Parker lost his mind a couple months ago and killed himself. The bunker is not exactly the sanest place. He had always been really nice. He taught me to read and write. I read every book he brought down with him. 

They had a daughter, Lizzie. She didn't make it either. Lizzie was born a few months after we came down here. She had a random fever when she was five, and...

Her mom got it too and died. We never went into the room they were in until Mr Packer bleed out, so I could put his body with his family's. One by one the fever claimed us. My parents didn't make it. 

Only Mr Parker and I survived the year of the fever. It's been a couple months on my own so I need to leave this place before it takes me too.

The world must have ended, if it hadn't we would have been found by now. There is no point in staying in this deathtrap any longer. Dying out there would be better than dying trapped in this dungeon, this mansion sized coffin. 

So today is the day, I open the door and step out into the world. 

Backpack stocked and ready, a deep dense breath filled my lungs, eyes fixed on the cursed door. 

Standing here in front of the way out, trembling and unsure… I will not let the madness take me like it did Mr Parker. They could have been wrong. I have looked over their reasoning.

I am going to finally feel the sun, if it's still there. It might be covered by dark toxic nuclear waste clouds. I glared at the hazmat suit hanging by the massive circular metal door to the outside. Logic I had been raised to know for fact tries to convince me to wear it. I look away. It's illogical, all the books and videos, it didn't make sense. The world had to be out there.

Everyone I had ever known was here, in this grave they had built for themselves.  

My hands reach for the spinny thing on the bunker door. A hatch, at least I think that's what it's called. With all the force I can muster tears trembling at the edge of my eyes, I start turning it. 

Damn my luck! It's stuck. My lower lip quivers as I fall back, a little defeated. Desperation welling in my gut. 

Sincerely dreading having to go back to get oil from the stores which would really help, may be even some tools. I rummage through a small shelf under the hazmat suit. There is a small flask with grease in it. Just what I need. A moment later I have doused the joint of the hatch. 

A little less teary and a lot more determined I yank on the spinny thing with all my strength. It moves, and hope wells. I muster more strength from the pit of my stomach where my massive last meal of endless canned meats and greens sat a little disgruntled by the strain.

I push and the door opens up a me-sized crack I can sneak through. Sounds of life on the other side leak through.

With a final glance back, I wipe the welling tears away with the edge of my sleeve. The hazmat suit crosses my mind. I quickly put it on, hold my breath and push through the crack into a stony gap, about a square meter wide. 

There is light glittering through the green on one side of the stony gap, close enough for me to reach and so I do. It flickers on my hand like it did when I was five. Without a thought I push past the green. The glorious light of the outside world floods into my eyes, blinding me briefly.

The world is still here. The grass, trees... Everything bright and alive. A butter fly flutters past some bright yellow daffodils. Birds singing in the distance. The trees rustling in the wind. The world is still alive. It's still here. I rip the hazmat helmet off my head and take a full deep breath. I remove the rest of the suit in such a rush I tumble to the ground. My logic floods in some panic as I realise the air might still be toxic.

Lying there on the ground preparing for death. I feel grass between my fingers as my vision slowly returns from the dizzying tumble. There are trees all around. Tall massive and green like in all the books and videos. It's warm in the sun but there is cool breeze brushing against my skin. 

A breath fills my lungs and I cough. I take another, and wait for the toxic air to knock me out but each breath feels better than the last. A murder of crows flies past the popcorn clouds in the deep blue sky. A smile marks my face for the first time in what has felt like an eternity. 

I close my eyes as a tender breeze caresses my skin. I can feel it blow between my fingers as I reach for the sky. I find my feet. 

A loud creak that sounded like the final gasps of death escape the little nook of a cave in the rock. I glance back trembling at the idea of ever having to return to that saffocating space. A howl echoes in the small cave behind me and my feet rip me from where I stand into a run. 

It has been so long since I ran on endless ground. For all I know I could be dead right now and this would be heaven. Away from 'there' was all i want to be. I don't stop. I can't. With nothing but hope guiding me I flee deeper into the woods praying to whatever god exists that I will find sanity and finally get to live. 

After a couple hours, of stumbling through the woods and curiously watching fascinations, it suddenly hits me that there aren't any people or evidence of them anywhere. The insanity whispering horrid thoughts in my ears. What if I am the last human here?

I feel a small distant pain in my lower abdomen. I must have pulled something in the run.

I reach a small clearing that looks like it might have been a road at some point. I look left then right, no idea which way would be best to follow. So I do what anyone would do in this situation, "ennie minnie mynnie mo, which way do i go. Right it is," I mumble to myself. If I am the last human here what difference would it make. Sure there are a bunch of creatures I probably don't know about so... I grab a knife from the backpack and keep it close. 

Snacking on one of the many flaxseed protein bar's I had, the road begins to clear up the further I walk. I am still alive, no sign of mutation or allergic reactions. I look at my father's watch round my wrist and stop walking for the first time realising I would never be able to find my own way back. I swallow hard and stuff the half eaten protein bar in my pocket to munch on later. 

Their tomb might never be found.

In the distance I see a tarred road and I run for it. The road looked okay. Not too over grown as I would expect an 8 year apocalypse would have done. Still not a soul in sight. I squint in the distance and spot a billboard of sorts that i run for with new found excitement. It simply states "SADZAVILLE 4KM" with an arrow. 

I feel my skin redden under the hot sun. Maybe that's what killed the people, the hot sun, but the plants would have died too. Right? My parents had never been clear on what happened to the world only that it ended and that it was too bad to go back to.  

Dusk is beginning to fall when I start seeing buildings popping up. Still no people. Everything was clean, like people where around, but there were no people. The shops were closed, no cars were parked anywhere. Just empty. May be the rapture happened and all humans have been deleted from existence, only a world of ghost towns was left.

Walking down the middle of the empty streets. The echoes of my pitter pattering feet, break through heart wrenching silence birthing fear in my gut. I stop walking and tune my ears into the silence with my knife tightly gripped. I walk to a grocery store. The door is locked with a flip-over CLOSED sign like in the movies I watched in the bunker. How much I dreamt about the life in those films. 

There is sign stuck to the door, "NO ENTRY WITHOUT MASKS" and a picture of a surgical mask. 

The windows are clean. If the world had ended 8 years ago, then everything would be filthy and over grown. Where were the people?

I feel an odd warm trickle between my legs, like I have peed myself a little but not quite. I glance down and blood has stained brown cargo pants.

"Hey!" a voice calls from behind me. I jump and instantly make a run for it. Dropping the knife I still had out for protection.

"STOP!" the voice calls out but I dare not turn back, with all the insane 'what if's' running in my mind. If everyone is not here how could this person be here? Was this person even here or a figment of my imagination? Mr Packer had hallucinations in his last days, are these mine? 

My brain tells me to run and so I do. I make a sharp turn left, glance behind me to see if the man is still following. I smash into some rubbish bins. I must have knocked out for a bit, because the next thing I see is a maustached man hovering over me. 

"Hey, kid? Are you okay?" He had a surgical mask on. May be there was something in the air. Damn, I should have kept the hazmat suit on.  

I nodded faintly. Then remember the blood between my legs, "the blood, I am dying!" I scream out. 

He had reached his hand out to help me up, then withdrew it and stuffed his pink chubby hand in his pocket, "Um okay kid, we've got to get you to the station," he blinked way to many times and would not look at me. 

"Calm down. You will be okay. It will all be okay. It's completely normal," he sounded like he was reassuring himself more than he was reassuring me. What was happening to me?

I just glare at him, could this man be a survisor of whatever happened. I watched his pot belly move under his deep navy blue long sleeve shirt that matched his trousers. What a well fed survisor he must be, though.

"What are you doing out here at this time?" He asked.

He reaches out again to help me up. I ignore his hand and get up on my own. My knees a little shaky. I fix my eyes on the ground in front of me. Terrified.  

"What were you doing with a knife in front of John's?"

Frozen stiff with fear. I can't answer. "Why am I bleeding?"

"Uhm, uhhhh... Sal at the station will be able to help ya. Anyways, I can't have you loitering around with the pandemic and all." A pandemic, so that's how it ended. "Unless you want me to take you home instead." 

"No," I blurt out without thinking. A frozen moment of silence lingers as sunset shadows creep into the alley way, "I can't go back!" 

"Okay, kid. Then I have to bring you into the station. Don't run I am not up to chasing you again." He just said calmly, then gestured with his arm that I go ahead of him. 

I nod. We walk across the road and around the corner.

"Hey. Sal. uhm ahhhh," he scratched the back of his head awkward and sweaty, "This kid just got her period. Please help," he says to the lady at the reception who was busy on her phone. She just glances up at me over her pink glass frames, then hangs up immediately.  

"Am I dying," I ask, tears threating to stream.

"No hun. You will be just fine now," she said with a gentle smile that reminded me of my mother, "follow me." 

I sniffle and follow. A distant sharp pain starting in my lower abdomen. She explained it all to me. I learn how to put on a menstral pad. I cry and sniffle the whole time. Sal leaves the room for a bit.

My sunburnt face, almost unrecognisable to me stares back at me in the full length mirror by the door. She comes back in with some police sweatpants for me to change into.

"Did the world end?" I ask. 

"You mean now," she asks with a chuckle, "No, kid, its just a pandemic. It will blow over in a few years. You can come out and take a seat when ever you are ready." 

I nod. Disappointment washing through me, I mumble,"The world didn't end." 

She shuts the door behind her then I finally allow myself to break into a deep sob. The dreadful realisation that the hell I had endured in the bunker was for nothing.

My mouth dries up and I feel sick. All those years of canned food, of being trapped underground, never feeling the kiss of the Sun. I lived with corpses for years before I left that death trap. 

There is a soft tap on the door, "Hey, kid," the old moustached policeman's voice rings through to me, "Do you want some lasagna? Sal makes the best lasgna in the world."

"I'll be right out," I say loud enough for him to hear.  

"Okay," he says back to me. Then mumbles something to Sal that I couldn't hear. 

I finally muster the courage to wash my face and walk out of the police station bathroom, to find a plate of lasagna on the policeman's desk. Sal was already half way done with her serving. He looked like he had only just begun eating. 

It smells amazing, so I dig in like a starved beast. It tastes amazing! 

"I'm Charlie, what's your name," the policeman says with a his mouth full. 

"Ally Smith," I mumble back.

"Where are your parents, Ally?" He types something into the desktop computer infront of him. 

"Dead," I reply keeping my eyes on the food. They didn't need to die. I sniffle, a deep sadness cloggling my throat. My tears all dried out.