The last human to walk the face of the earth.

Submitted into Contest #60 in response to: Write a post-apocalyptic romance.... view prompt

1 comment

Romance Adventure Thriller

 It was the type of day where you just wanted to smile and remember it for ever. The sun bouncing against my windows, creating the slightest reflections of orange and yellows on my light hardwood flooring. The mid-afternoon sky that only happens on that one perfect summer day, the most beautiful of pinks and purple blending into each other. i grip my coffee with one hand and grin towards my window "God really has the most amazing plan for us" I say to myself.

 As i sit down on my couch to enjoy the rest of my coffee, it happens, my house begins to shake like a earthquake on steroids while a cloud of green and grey smoke surrounds my windows and front door. Standing up as the house underneath me shakes, i quickly grab my remote and turn on my tv

 "WARNING: NATURAL DISASTER DO NOT EVACUATE THE BUILDING YOU ARE IN. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE." runs across my tv over and over with the loudest, most annoying siren you could possibly imagine. Screams surround me, sounds like its coming from my neighbors house. "What the fuck is happening!?!" I say as I see what looks like a human run past my front windows, but it was weird even through the greenish fog i could tell something was off. They didn't look normal, they looked like a nightmare, like the creature you see at the end of your bed when you wake up in the middle of the night. Grey and skinny, human like yet not.  

 I don’t know what came over me , call it a gut instinct but i knew, i had to get out. Running to my attic, thoughts filled with horror fill my mind like a storm fills a river, over flooding it and decaying everything around it. “This has to be a dream” i think aloud as i pull down the string to my attic. I crawl up into the darkness. Ive always hated the dark, something about not knowing what could be staring right at you, waiting for the taste of your blood. I flip the switch on the small wall beside the opening. I pick up the box under my dingy old winter jackets. My grandfather left me this when he passed, its not much but its everything he had kept from when he fought in World War 2 . Its still in perfect condition, thank god! I pull out the rusty green colored gas mask and the dark silver knife his father had given to him when he was a child to keep him safe.

 I open my front door trying to keep calm so i don’t have a asthma attack in the mask. I see 2 of them now for the first time up close. So human like yet nails long and sharp, slender like they didn’t have any organs or meat , a sunken in face, not like you haven’t slept in a few days, but like a dead body in a coffin after years of decay. I expect to be attacked, my knife in a death grip in my hand… but its like they don’t see me, or that they just don’t care? Then i see it, one of the 2 of them with a locket wrapped around their neck, not just any locket but a bright purple one in the shape of a star, i would know that necklace anywhere.. It was my 12 year old neighbors, Sarah , she had the brightest green eyes and hair down to her shoulders. Theres no way that is her right? Please let me be right.

 Im frozen in fear but i know i can not stay here , the fog is so thick i can barely see more then 5 feet in front of me. The emergency bunkers my town had set up incase of another war is only 10 miles away. I can do it , i have to do it. Running as fast as i can, the rubber of my pink sneakers bouncing off the concrete like gum against your teeth.

 As i turn the heavy steel wheel handle of the bunker, It slightly opens just enough for me to get inside. Closing the door behind me i look around the overly lit room. " Oh my fucking god" i mutter as my jaw drops. Shelves of food against the entire left side wall, 20-25 jugs of water and on the right hand wall was beds and storage containers. This is perfect! But why am i the only one here... Everyone knows where this bunker is and to come here in any mass disaster , yet here i was in this freezing cold bunker, all alone.

 Its been 10 months, at least i think it has been. Im almost out of water. I've been going mad in here, started talking to myself about month 5. Started seeing things month 8, not like figures but like visions, just blood all over a white concrete floor and my hand gripping my knife.

" What was that?" I ask myself as i hear a knocking of metal ringing in my ear. Then it happens. The dark steel door opens and she walks in , tall, dark black hair down to her chest , olive toned tanned skin and a black double barrel gas mask covering her face. She was covered in black goo and blood layers thick and was wearing black combat boots and what looked like a military uniform, two guns on her hips. I freeze in shock. She walks up to me, shaking me and says in the most gentle voice. " Are you okay!? Where is everyone else! Ive been searching every government owned bunker and every house on the way and they're all.... they're all filled with those horrifying Balancas!". I blink hard and fast while shaking in fear and whisper. "The what?". She stares at me confused and then she told me. 

 She said her name was Myka. She worked for the government in a secret community called the " Unknowns " , They was to study the creatures that the naked eye can not see. They found ways to see them through experimenting on unwilling citizens. Drugging them just enough to have them on the verge of death. The secret veil between worlds. The study subject would see things, things that can not be explained, monsters. While in shock therapy with one of the subjects, it happened. The subject was over came by what is had called it self " Balancas" it squealed in a high pitch tone that could pierce through you ,in a language unknown to humans . Green and grey smoke started pouring endlessly from the subjects nose and mouth, even their ears. The doctors in the room began to change, growing slender and aging by the second , skin sinking in and turning grey. It was what ever was coming from the subjects mouth. 

It started to spread and there was no way to fight it , killing the Balancas didn't stop the smoke from leaving their bodys, it only increased it. Myka was the only one in the equipment room when it happened, was lucky enough to pull a mask over her face before the smoke could come into the room. Everyone else wasn't so lucky, shes been searching and searching for all these months for survivors. she had only found 3 of them about 5 months prior and one of them, named Trevor began to decline into a crazy episode of depression and mass suicidal thoughts when they looked into the eyes of one of the monsters. He waited till they all was asleep in a home they found along the way to check another bunker in North Carolina when it happened, he stabbed one of the other survivors, He screamed loudly. It woke both Myka and the other girl up, but before Myka could reach the desk with her gun on it, Trevor had already ran up to the other girl and gave her the same fate as the other. She had to do it, she had to shoot him before he could kill her too. Myka says the monsters have been killing or taking over the bodies of humans. She thought she was the only person left on earth, that this bunker was going to be her last before she gave up. 

 Its been a few weeks now, we've been on the road checking other bunkers and getting to know each other. Its like i've known her my whole life or in another. I felt safe by her side even though i know what she did to those people in those labs and to that surviver driven mad. I see her coming back to the car empty handed and with out anyone with her. Fuck! Another house with nothing eatable left , i don't know how long we'll be able to survive if this luck doesn't change soon. She opens the car and gets in, throwing her mask behind her as she kisses me softly. "Im sorry my love... I know you havn't eaten in days." she whimpers into my ear in a sad yet soft tone. Its not her fault, shes been protecting me, trying her best to search so i don't have to, making sure that my mask always has a new filter even when hers doesn't. " Its okay." i say as i pat her arm with a gentle touch.

 We found a place worth staying in for a few weeks, it has food and well water so we can stay comfortably. Myka even found a inhaler in the master bathroom so now i can finally breath during my attacks. We've been here maybe a week and a half and honestly i feel peaceful for the first time in now almost a year, tomorrow will officially make it the anniversary since everything was normal. Its not our home technically but we've made it home, decorating our bedroom wall with things we've collected along the way. Like this sick painting i found in Texas of a ghost holding on to a old pocket watch. Like it couldn't let go of the past. and Myka even hung a few fairy lights even though we cant actually use them since now none of the buildings we find has electricity , but it still makes it feel like home . 

 I hold my cup of disgusting old tasting black coffee in my hand as i look out the clear back door . Yawning as i set my cup down and watch the sun set , it's still hard to see in the distance but i can slightly make out the orange and red colors of the sky. Then i see it. " Do you see that?!?" I yell to Myka on the couch reading a old newspaper comics , as redish black smoke soars into the air from the house behind us. It has to be survivors! It just has to be! I pick up my mask as she does the same and we open the door faster then I thought we even had the energy for. 

 As i open the door to the house Myka is squeezing my other hand tightly. I have a gut feeling again, like we shouldn't be here and I think she's thinking the same. I step into the house and i see it right in front of me. Balancas tied and bounded to the kitchen wall in front of us by chains , had to be about 10 of them. " what the-" I start to say as a brightly green bat comes into my vision, before i can even react it takes me out .  

 My eyes barely opening from the bright light ahead of me. As my face hurts in pain, i try to move my hands to my face but cant see to move them. My eyes adjust to the bright light in front of me, i look around and i seem to be in a basement with two pillars beside me. I think im tied to a pillar, spider webs hanging from the brick corners , i look over to the left corner of the room and see Myka laying on a dusty brown table tied down. " Baby! Are you okay! Please be okay! Myka!!" I scream over to her not caring in the moment of who can hear.

I hear stomping coming down the dark wood stairs on the right. I start breathing deeply in a panic as a man enters. He has on torn dirty pants with a long black sleeve shirt on , brown hair framing his face and the darkest under eye circles i've ever seen on a human. He isn't even looking at me, he's staring right into Mykas soul. " Who are you!?" i whimper out as he takes a step closer to the only person i have left. I pull my wrists trying to break what ever is bounding me to this pillar but it doesn't budge. 

 He slaps her awake and pulls out a silver knife from his side, I look harder and realize who's knife it is and its mine! He must have went and raided the house while we was out cold. Myka looks up at him and fear fills her eyes , i've never seen Myka scared before. I can read her like a open book, she knows him i can tell she does .

"T...Trevor? But i killed you!" she screams in the most high pitch tone she possible could. Trevor runs the tip of my knife against her arm as i'm stuck frozen in fear. " No you only thought you did , You see the Balancas chose me . Chose me to get revenge on ever single human on this god forsaken planet for torturing them, any time one of your precious subjects would cross the veil, one of them would too. They had no way to get back to their home! You brought them here to suffer! ". He digs the blade into her arm slightly just enough to cut her. " Please take me instead!!" I scream as tears fall down my cheek. He stares at me and looks deeply into my eyes as if he was reading my soul inside and out. " Your ancestor , he knew of them and what the government was doing, i cant see how its to foggy but i can see he sacrificed someone for them with this blade so when the veil has been lifted, he would survive . But since he died before that could happen that deal has now been passed down to you.. I can not kill you even if i wanted to. I was kind enough to bound the Balancas so they wouldnt kill her weeks ago!" I shake my head and scream "No! I know you're lying! Take me! Please...". Myka looks over at me with fear covering her entire face. " They never cared when they seen you but cared when they seen me for a reason. It all makes sense to me now my dear... I love you..." . Trevor takes the blade and places it above her heart and before i can even think to scream, he killers her instantly.

 He slowly walks over to me as i'm shaking in sadness and rage. He cuts the rope between my wrists and i fall onto the dirty concrete basement floor. I stand up and walk over to Myka as he watches. My tears falling against her face as i bend over and kiss her one last time. " I love you too." i whimper with the weakest of breaths left in me. Trevor walks behind me, placing his hand on my shoulder. " Im here to protect you now, its my last mission." He says in the most monotone voice i have ever heard, it was terrifying. I quickly grab the knife out of Mykas chest and turn around 180 degrees, slicing Trevors head off , his head hitting the floor before his body even drops. The cries of Balancas fill the air as his blood fills the white concrete floor. He killed the only person i have ever loved. He should have took my offer and killed me instead.

 Its been two years now since the last day earth was normal. Everyone is gone, its all just Balancas. They surround me daily, walking by me like i am not even here. Ive been so alone, I miss Myka everyday but i know i can not stop living, i have to for her. 

Im going to kill every single last one of them. I may be the last human left , but i am not afraid of them. They should be afraid of me. I will be the creature that lurks in their darkness.

September 25, 2020 09:38

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

1 comment

Raza Adil
07:54 Oct 01, 2020

Interesting first story Destiny! Liked reading it.

Reply

Show 0 replies
Reedsy | Default — Editors with Marker | 2024-05

Bring your publishing dreams to life

The world's best editors, designers, and marketers are on Reedsy. Come meet them.