If it takes the end of the world

When the world goes dark, no one thinks about anything except survival.

I had always been the type of girl to be found lost in fantasy worlds. Books, movies, games, and even dabbling in some writing. It all filled my head with all sorts of unreal happenings, and left no room for reality. I didn’t mind. In fact, I preferred it that way. 

Reality is messy. Without ever really knowing what someone wants from you, or how they expect you to interact with them. Every situation is filled with choices that could potentially destroy your life. 

Talk to your crush and tell them how you feel? Well that’s embarrassing just to think about. What if they laugh at you? What if they try to let you down easy, but it just breaks your heart that much more? What if they actually like you back? Then what? Do you just immediately start kissing them, like in the movies? What happens if you find out you were wrong and don’t actually like them at all? 

So many questions. No, it’s better to live submerged in the worlds where I have control over how things turn out. And when I’m just enjoying a book or something, like I’m used to doing, and the characters lives are predetermined, I take comfort in knowing that things usually end up having happy endings and that these stories are not happening to me. Like, I’m not the one living through my uncle telling me I have a long lost twin I never about, that got left on Earth, while we speed through space away from him, but those things sure are fun to read about. 

I didn’t have that luxury anymore though. Now I spent all my time just trying to live. Well, mostly, at least.

Like right now, I know I should be out looking for food, but last time I went topside, I smuggled a book back with me and I was almost to the end of the chapter. And I told myself, as soon as I got to the end of this chapter, I would start heading out to accomplish what I didn’t want to do.

As much as I never wanted to go out before, it was so much worse now. Whenever I read about the end of the world previously, it would always be caused by something uncontrollable. Asteroids or aliens or disease or any number of countless other things. But when it actually happened, we could’ve stopped it, but we just choose to ignore it, hoping it would go away on its own. But, of course, it didn’t.

As the planet slowly started heating up, it wasn’t until it was too late to do anything, that people tried to fix it. But it was too late. The ices melted and the waters rose. Flooding was the main cause of destruction. After that the air was suffocatingly hot. People died of dehydration and air pollution. The few million people left over, hid underground and made homes there. 

For the most part, my life remained the same. Talking to people still terrified me, and so I never did it if I could help it, and I still wrote and read whenever I could, but that wasn’t likely even once a month. That just wasn’t my life anymore. Everyone had to work. And this new life was like my very own badly written fantasy novel.

There weren’t many people that had been saved, and as groups formed in the aftermath and looked for shelter, ours had stumbled upon a pre-existing underground compound. It seemed too good to be true, but it was where the 50 or so of us called each other family.

Even though we didn’t have a big group, there was plenty of work to go around. We worked to keep the shelter held together. We worked to keep food growing. We worked to keep clean water to drink. It was demanding and even four years after we went subterranean, it’s all people seemed to want to talk about. People had the fanciful idea that at some point, things would return to normal if we just hung on long enough. Maybe I wasn’t the only one that believed in happy endings.

As it was, I did have to gather some food. We were lucky, because the space we lived in was close to a lake. Some of the water would seep into the walls of dirt, creating little pools here and there, and if I was very careful, I could look for my food in one of those pools. More often than not I preferred to scoop the sopping wet dirt from that area and capture worms and frogs and bugs. Three times I was able to get a fish this way, so I was always hopeful.

As I dragged my bin through the muddy water, preparing to sort through it all for something to eat, another villager, as we called ourselves, joined me.

“Hi,” The guy said as he stood just a couple feet from me. “mind if I look here too?”

I didn’t know why he was talking to me or why he had to stand so close. I mean, I was usually the only one in this little section, but even when I wasn’t, there was plenty of space. We didn’t have to be standing on top of each other.

I might not have liked him so close to me, and it made me nervous, but I also wasn’t rude. So I replied with my best, faked confidence, one word answer “Sure.”

He laughed a little laugh and asked my name.

“Jane. What’s yours? And what’s so funny. Was it something I said?” I couldn’t imagine that he had found humor in the single word I had spoken, but this is why I didn’t like talking to people. I never knew what they wanted.

“Well, hello Jane,” His voice was relaxed like he didn’t have a single care in the world. “Nothing’s funny. Well not really. It’s just that, even though you said 'sure' that I could share this space with you, you seem kinda upset that I’m here. And I’ll leave if you want, but I don’t really see you around, so I thought now that you’re alone, I could at least try and introduce myself. I mean, maybe you’re just not great at making friends. That doesn’t mean you should be alone. I’m James by the way.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I barely mumbled. His eyes were full of waiting, but I didn’t know what else to say so I went back to scooping for food.

James was quiet for a long time, digging with his hands into the pool, and throwing anything he found of interest into a silver bucket at his feet.

I didn’t catch any fish, but I did have a frog, some plants, and more than enough bugs. As I turned to leave, not intending to say anything more to James, my stupid foot caught on his stupid bucket and I fell over.

Of course he caught me right before I hit the ground. Like I said, my very own badly written, end-of-the-world fantasy novel.

Well, I hope he didn’t think I was some damsel in distress. I didn’t need him to save me. Oh well if I didn’t like talking to or being around people. Too bad if there weren’t other people around our age living with us and it was unlikely that we would find more. Tough if the world ended, and we all ended with it.

Just because the circumstances were the way they were, didn’t mean things had to go certain ways. 

I mean, life might be something different now, but I didn’t go chasing after boys or go looking to start friendships before all of this, and I sure didn’t plan on any of that changing now.

I understood that people formed closer connections now more than ever, because there weren’t many people left to connect with in the first place, but I couldn’t just switch my anxiety off and on like a light switch. Besides, I liked how things were. 

Yeah sure, I had to live underground and sometimes I went days without eating, but I didn’t have to pretend for anybody. I could just be me and not worry about so many people questioning what was wrong with me. 

The apocalypse had turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.

“Whoa, you ok?” He did sound genuinely concerned as he righted me on my feet.

“Yeah, I’m fine” I half shouted over my shoulder as I made sure my stomps in the opposite direct kicked dirt in his face.

“Hey, wait a minute.” He tried to call me back, but really, I had no interest in making friends of any sort. 

My interests didn’t stop James though, he caught up to me in no time, grabbing me by either arm to hold me in place.

“I just want to talk. Please.” Earlier, he had looked at me with such patience and I couldn’t have cared less about what he wanted to say. Now his eyes were full of pleading. A saddened, hopeful begging gaze.

“Please.” He repeated. “Aren’t you lonely? Don’t you miss being around people? It’s been four years, and things don’t seem like they’re ever going to get better, no matter how much everyone wants it to. We’re never going to get to live in the fresh air again; not in this lifetime anyway. Doesn’t that make you sad? Don’t you want something more than how we’re forced to live now?”

I suddenly felt bad for him. His life before all of this must have been exactly what society portrayed as a perfect teenage life. Friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, work, multiple hobbies, planning for the future, drama, happiness, everything. It occurred to me at that moment, that some people gave up so much more than what I had to.

I didn’t really care since the world ended because my life carried on mostly as it had before. I knew everyone didn’t have the same reservations as me. I had turned out stronger in the aftermath because I didn’t have to change all that much mentally. 

Maybe I owed it to this new world to give the little comfort I was able to. In the old world, I was the only one uncomfortable living and being around everyone else. Now everyone else was uncomfortable.

“I don’t miss it. Any of it. But obviously you do.” I began explaining, although I wished I could’ve just walked away. “Come on, James. Let’s go look for more food, and you can tell me all about your life.”