Single Survivor

"Can anyone hear me?!" he shouted on top of his lungs for hundreds of time today, to gain any attention. Anything, bad ones, good ones, he just hope someone respond to him. But he can only hear his own ragged breathing accompanied by echoes of his voice.

"Damn it!" He bit his lips frustratingly. He checked his bag contained with supplies he had gather for some time. Mostly were canned foods, water bottles, and snacks. He also found a particular object which brought great sorrow in him. It was picture of his sister.

"I shouldn't have left her." his legs started to wobble as realization downed on him. He dropped to his knees when her last words flashed through him like a cinematic film going on in his head.

"I'm scared, please don't leave me alone."

He cried, and cried, and cried until it exhaust him and fell asleep on the middle of a road.

-

Gulp.. His last drop of water he had been saving these past several weeks finally went down in his sore throat. It's been months since his sister is missing. Not only that, the whole world seemed to be missing all of its citizen in his eyes. He had never met any human being anymore. Anyone, never. Not even once.

He threw the bottle away with a blank expression. His lips were dry even when he had just been drinking. After all, it was only a drop to keep him sane. It was definitely not enough to quench his thirst. He also stinks like a rotten meat inside your fridge, but it's not like he cares anymore. At this point, who would?

With his last drop, he realized something. He wanted to kill himself. Why would he spend his time in this abandoned planet all by himself? He was starting to lose his sanity. What was there to hope in this again? It's over for him, because he's the last person in this earth. At least that was what he thought.

- 

He didn't know, how long he had been sleeping nor what had happened to the world during that period. What he know was, someone else had woken him up. Someone, a human. The person keep on shaking him but he can't seem to focus. He tried to squint his eyes and managed to realize that it's a human girl. Finally, a human.

"Oh my God, please wake up! Those things are going to kill us if you don't wake up now!" her once indistinct voice start to become clearer as she shook him more violently. He raised his hand, signaling her to stop shaking his whole weak body. She immediately grabbed his hand and help him got up which confused him. "Uh, what happen?"

She ignored him as she held his arm around her shoulder to support him and ran. He had trouble following her pace but did his best not to burden her further. She breathed heavily since she was running with a guy’s weight mostly being propped by her. Even he had lost weight, he was not a small-built guy.

Soon after they left, a loud explosion can be seen at their previous place. Both of them averted their attention to the raging explosion and was stunned. The man was the first to gain his composure back because their surrounding got darker so suddenly. He looked down at their shadow. It got loomed over with something bigger. He quickly looked at his back and saw a debris was falling off of a building, heading towards them. The girl saw it a little too late as he already wrapped his arm around her and brought her to crouch down at the nearest ally to protect her.

She prayed silently in his arms as she closed her eyes, waiting for their end. Fortunately, they weren't crushed down by the debris, but she could feel him leaning more on her. She opened her eyes slowly and went wider as she saw the sight of him.

The already weak man had gotten a massive bleeding on his head while still holding her in his arm protectively. She stared at the man in awe. When he noticed her stare, he smiled weakly. Despite his bloody mess, he looked majestic in her mind. Soon, he dropped his body on her, losing consciousness again. She groaned at the sudden weight but panic take over her almost immediately as she realized that he was bleeding heavily and might die.

With his weight on her, she had difficulties to move and it made her even more anxious. You can't die on me now. She prayed while sobbing as she tried to move him away, so she could check on his pulses. When she was able to wriggle her hand out, she quickly checked on his wrist.

He's still alive.

She sighed in relief and felt her mental energy had completely drained. She struggled underneath his weight again but eventually managed to make her way out.

Thankfully, he was a smart guy as he brought themselves to an ally before embracing the impact. At least the tall building on their both sides can minimize the damage of the debris falling on them.

She treated him again when he was unconscious, like how she met him for the first time. Despite them saving each other's life, they haven't even introduced themselves, let alone a proper talk. She hope it can be done soon though.

The next morning, he woke up feeling like his head had been banged to a metal door hundred times. He groaned loudly, holding his head which had been bandaged perfectly.

"Shush! Don't be too loud, you don't want their attention on you right?" the girl beside him whisper-shouted while glaring at him. He groaned again but quietly this time as he tried to remember what had happened. He looked at the girl again, inspecting her head to toe. She reminded him of his sister.

"I'm sorry to burden you, but what happened?"

"As much as I want to explain everything to you, we haven't introduced ourselves yet." she replied as she went to check on his bandage. He awkwardly stayed still with how close their distance were. "The name is Marianne. Thank you for saving me." She tapped his head lightly, causing to groan again, to tell that she finished fixing it.

"Thank you very much but please don't do that again."

She giggled, "Sorry."

"My name is June." he replied shortly. He was still constructing his words on how surprised he was to see her, another human after so long in loneliness. She noticed his troubled expression and decided to explain her situation first.

"I saw you lying on the streets around 3 days ago. I was wondering how you managed to keep alive despite being in the middle of open field like that. You don't know how delighted I was when I know I am not the only survivor here." she paused, looking genuinely happy as she smiled.

"I also tried to carry you but as you see, I have a small body figure so it would be impossible to do so. The least I could do was to drag you on the sidewalk, covering your body with clothes to conceal your presence-"

"Wait, why do you need to conceal me? Why are you wondering how I can still be alive in the middle of open area? The matter would be how I eat, drink and sleep properly to keep me alive right?"

She stared at him dumbfounded. "You... Seriously doesn't know what happened to our earth?"

He tilted his head, brow furrowing in confusion. He honestly hadn't thought about it much since his sister's missing. He never met anyone, or anything so of course he wouldn't know anything.

"I- I never met anyone or anything besides you for months."

"Months?!" she half shouted, but immediately cover her mouth. "Damn, I'm too loud. Hope they didn't heard us."

"They? Who are they?"

She sighed exasperatedly, "They are our enemy. The one that wiped our race's existence. But are you sure you never met them?"

He shook his head, "No, and I'm still confused. Are they the reason we can't find anyone else? Where are the other humans?"

She looked down, closing her eyes as she inhaled deeply. "They're dead."

"What? I-How? They just kill millions of people without missing any of it?"

"They did miss, look at us now."

"Just the two of us? I mean, in zombies and other dooms day stories there are always more humans that survived-"

"It's a fiction!" she cut him off harshly. "This is our reality. As far as I know, I haven't meet anyone for weeks in this once crowded city. I thought there would be someone else even in other side of the world. But I actually heard them saying that human existence remained with only one person."

She saw his confused expression went deeper, so she continued, “I guess they have techs to discover us by any means? But they’re wrong. I thought I was the one to survive but here you are with me."

"Have you ever met them head on?"

"Yes, I almost died. Fortunately they lost track of me when I hid. They found other humans with more people, they target crowd first." she shivered as she seemed to remember that incident. "When did that happen?"

"Around 3 months ago. I think those crowd were the last time people crowded in one place. I only saw one to two person each time I encounter someone. The last were weeks ago."

He nodded, trying to register all of the new information at once. He then felt the need to share his part. "I never met anyone or anything again for almost 4 months. The last person I saw was my sister. We were at our villa in suburbs, far from crowded place. The news said crowded place are really dangerous so I brought her there to find safety. Her last words to me were begging me to stay with her because she was scared. I thought it would be okay as long as it wasn't crowded, so I left her to catch some fish." he tried to hold his tears, but failed miserably as he cried, feeling guilty for leaving his sister.

She stroked his back in attempt to comfort him. After he had calmed down, he continued, "When I got back to our villa, she was gone. I looked for her everywhere around the area. I couldn't find any clue where she went. So, I gathered my supplies and walked to the city in hope of meeting someone or finding a clue to my sister. 2 months passed, I saw nothing except myself and those tall abandoned building."

He sighed as he began to count on his finger. "No human, no animals, no lives, nothing. Weeks, months of scavenging to keep me alive, all alone." He waved his hand in dismissal before putting it down.

"My last water was my cue on giving up. In the end, I gave up after 4 months. But plot twist happened, you came." he ended his story with staring at her intently, as if blaming her because she had stopped his end.

"I am sorry for what had happened to you, June." She wrapped her arms around him, thinking he might need the warm of someone else since he had been all alone all this time. He appreciated her and hugged her back, feeling relieved and happy once again.

They stayed at that place for a few days and they had become much closer in this abandoned world. They managed to survive with little to no supplies since his injury wasn’t healed yet but they were happy. Their peace were soon disrupted by a loud machine noises that coming to their way. He instinctively grab her and drag her out from the alley. Despite his throbbing head, he led the way as his adrenaline gave him the strength to function properly.

He is smart, but one need to know their stronger enemy's weakness to win over them. He breathed heavily as he asked, "What are their weakness?"

"I don't know!" she hardly shouted, also out of breathe. It was hard to talk with their pace of running. She was surprised that he could run this fast, even asked a question without much effort with those injuries.

Call it cliché but she tripped over a rock and fell on a puddle of water. He quickly pulled her up again, but she was out of it.

"Marianne! Come on!"

She snapped back to reality and started to run again. She wanted to tell him something but her energy was deteriorating dangerously fast. They were out of breathe and it can't be helped that their endurance were at the worst. They hadn't eat properly for days. It looked like his adrenaline had started to run off as well, his pace was slower.

She saw a decent house after their marathon run. She had been into that house before. She pulled him to follow her but he resisted, "What are you doing?"

She pulled him harder, really out of breathe and needed oxygen. "Just- trust me." she managed to say and run toward the house. He followed him, feeling unsure but it's better to fight it together than being alone.

Once they're inside she closed the door and went upstairs. He thought of catching a breather after they're inside but she kept on moving. He groaned and went after her. Upstairs, he find her inside a bathroom, turning on all the faucets. She stopped for a while, finally catching her breathe. He did the same but still throwing her suspicious look. "I realized something that might be their weakness when I fell earlier." she paused, still trying to steady her breathe. "It was heat."

"It's not exactly their weakness, but it can help us escape him. Maybe even fooling them. Now help me while I explain." she ordered him to look for heater packs in this house as she started taking clothes or any thick fabric and soaked them in water.

"I think they can always find us with our body heat." she began as he had back and brought several of heaters pack. She ordered him to arrange it like a human body inside a wardrobe. "Remember when they lost me when I hide? Actually, I thought I was doomed. At that time, I slipped and fell into a pool." she snorted.

"Of course I went to surface, it's an automatic respond for survival. But I saw one of them approaching me, I instinctively dive in again and observed it. It looked confused at first but then it perked up, it's like it had received new signal and went to other direction. I went up again and saw there's crowd of people in the distance and it caught them in its radar."

His face lit up, "It is worth a try. I get your plan but there's two of us. How do you plan for the other one?"

"Of course the two of us dive in together in the tub."

"No, our heat will get more visible and it's not like the water is ice cold, I can't even guarantee it'll totally work to conceal our heat. So, I will put half of the heater on the bed and pretend it's a human and put the rest inside the wardrobe to make an illusion that it was only a heater. I mean, he won't attack anything with heat right?"

She thought deeply, he were right. Her plan is exposing both of them in risk while his plan might only expose one, or both, or even no one. He saw her quandary and convinced her again, "Let's just bet my knowledge on this. You take the tub, I'll take the wardrobe."

"No! You-" she stopped as roars of machine wailed in the distance. Both of them looked at each other. He directed her to the tub and reassuringly told her to lay down. She cried as he patted her head, "Survive for me." he whispered, kissing her forehead.

She put the tube in her mouth and laid down before he put clothes in the tub to cover her. The echoing roars sounded really close right then. He quickly went inside the wardrobe.

They were inside the house.

Machine sounds can be heard all around the house. Soon as they entered the room, they destroyed the bed. It frightened him to death as he caught a glimpse of the bed, the place where the heater was put was shaped like a hole. The laser shots stopped for a while. He was relieved, but it was only for a moment. The machine loads again, from the wardrobe’s gap he saw that it was directed to him.

He closed his eyes and sighed,  I guess this is the end.

BAM!!

She heard indistinct sounds from the bedroom, including the laser shots. There’s a gap between the shots. The answer to his bet was, one of them survived and it was her. She got up quietly, taking deep breathe as she walked outside.

She burst into tears the moment she saw him. She immediately ran to him and caressed his cheek, "You’re still alive right?”

“I promised you to survive, you would do the same right?" she hold his hand with both of hers, “Now, I’ll check your pulse that you are alive.” She smiled as tears streamed down her cheek uncontrollably

Of course, he no longer have pulse. He is dead.

She immediately fall on her knees, covering her mouth to suppress her loud sobs as she grieved for him. She brought his lifeless body in her arms as she cried on his cold chest. Her body was shivering in cold and she no longer have anyone to warm her up again.