Down, Down, Down, and the Flames Burned Higher

Well, to be fair, I never really promised myself. I just held off until now. With my husband dead, I didn’t really want to open the time capsule. And yet now, a year later, I found myself in the middle of nowhere. And this map I was given last year wasn’t applicable anymore. The buildings around me seemed to be empty. I think I am the last person in this town.

It came faster than any other wave that had hit our Earth. The first wave was in Texas, where the sun scorched every farm and house on the property. The second wave hit the entire eastern hemisphere all at once. Scientists said that it was the most devastating loss of life since World War III. After that, the heat waves just became normal and a part of our lives. Luckily it never hit where we were. 

Back then, the heat waves weren’t thought of as permanent. A childish me would have pushed aside any idea of a natural disaster ruining the life of over 25 billion people. There was so much fear during that first evacuation, but after 10 years of hiding in bomb chambers underground, the heat waves became just another trial in life. Through all the hiding from the sun and being in quarantine, I found bravery and a certain peace that these worldly things would protect us. I was safe away from the sun. I was safe there. 

And that's where I met him. We would play together underneath the bunks, the only place that wasn’t taken, or coated in a stench. He was my best friend at that time. We understood each other perfectly, to the point where he could tell when I would wake up. I was just fearless. I thought I was invincible and safe. Surrounded by my parents, the boy, and my sisters, I never missed the sun. My childhood was robbed from me but hadn’t cared. I never realized how different things would look when they were burned, until the day we were released from hiding again. I remember being blinded by the light. As I went back into the fiery world, I held hands with him. The boy had taken my heart as the sun had taken my world. We would live the rest of our lives together, or at least the rest of his.  

After years of living on during these waves, we felt the sun was cooking us alive. We knew that we would be dead soon, as everyone on Earth was dying from sun sickness and the dangerous UV rays. We didn’t know if there would be survivors. We thought there might be survivors if the Earth held up and the government ordered another underground quarantine. Of course, we stayed out of the sun as much as possible and the population began to live at night, but the sun was something you couldn’t completely avoid. I missed the sunshine and the warmth it brought. I wished I could go back in time and play as a little child before these quarantines and sun blockades. But I was content with my life with my husband in our tiny covered house. 

On my seventh anniversary, my husband brought me to the city, where he had hidden a present. After I found the gift, a time capsule, we wrote letters to anyone who would survive. We buried the special box and left it there. A special memory that wouldn’t burn in the heat, something that might last for others to find and read. 

Now as I walked through the town, the plants that used to be there were burned and shriveled. It didn’t feel like spring. The barren houses, empty buildings, and eerie surroundings left me emotionless as I walked through the town. I was the last survivor because I never left. They thought I would die as the sun got stronger in Maine. But I wanted to stay there- I wanted to stay home. Everyone left. My parents, my husband, all of my closest friends, the fear got the best of them. I had fear, but my fear had paralyzed me to stay. As the heat was moving down from the North, they thought it would hit us. As they fled to Wisconsin, a wave headed their way, as the heat was always sporadic. Then that night I saw it on the news. I was now alone. The only people I had loved, I had lost. My hand was empty and so was my heart.  

The map I held described each direction in detail. I never thought I would care so much about a single box, but when you are all alone, even a memory could bring life back. As I approached the spot that held the box, I stared at the burnt ground. 

The letter isn’t what I expected. I read mine first. And then I read his. As I read the letter, tears streamed down my dirt-crusted face. A picture of my sisters was in the box. There we were, grazing in the long grasses on the farm, full of joy as we ran through the fields of harvest. This was before the sun became an enemy. How carefree could I have been to live without fear? When I was 5, and with my family then, it never crossed my mind that the Earth would burn or that I would be the last one on it. I looked through the time capsule and all of our precious knick-knacks, things that had no value now. Inside the box, there was another, a small enclosed box that was tightly wound with string. I opened up the box and hopelessly fell to my knees. A plant fell with me. I loved to garden. But as the heat brewed on, I knew the plant life would not survive and I would have to give up my passion. As I saw the gift that I was left -kept alive in the moist underground and safe from the wicked sun- the only other life alive, I thought about how this spring would be different. There would be no flowers or grass, no life. Even this plant wouldn’t survive. 

And neither would I.