Waking Up To Ash And Dust

Yui gazed through the window as the sky began its transition from black to a murky shade of grey.That which was illuminated was scarcely worth seeing.The entire world,at least her portion of it, was nothing but ash and destruction.

She sensed the black dog of her despair begin its familiar encroachment,but  fought it off by turning her scrutiny from the dismal view of the street back to her bed or,more specifically,the person snuggled within it.

Lying there was the girl who was not only the love of her life,but the sole reason for continuing with it.She smiled at the thought that Ella – Ella Maguire,the most popular girl at school – was now her girlfriend.They’d barely been aware of the other’s existence,each of them moving in very different circles,not that Yui actually had a circle.If they’d been characters in a high school sitcom Ella would have been the archetypal mean girl/head cheerleader and Yui the shy,nerdy,Asian overachiever.Ella may not have been mean,but Yui reflected with embarrassed amusement how close she’d been to her shy,nerdy stereotype.Ice cold reality doused her and put a halt to her musings.How long ago,how other worldly,did high school now seem.It had been exactly a year since the......calamity,since the destruction of virtually everything she’d known.A year since her mother and father.......

She and Ella knew one day they’d have to leave their haven and they speculated on what they might find.They joked about discovering a zombie apocalypse,though there were corners of their brains that didn’t totally rule it out.Besides,there was every chance the crazed,confused and frightened humans they were likely to encounter would be many times more threatening than any lumbering creatures from the movies.

She was as certain as she could be there was nobody alive in the surrounding flats and houses,but she knew there were other survivors further afield,as every so often a vehicle would pass through,occasionally stopping at one of the local supermarkets,now denuded of staff,but still containing a copious,if diminishing,bounty of canned goods.

If Yui ever spotted these strangers,whilst embarking on her own supply gathering missions,she’d ruminate on whether to expose her existence to them,but had so far taken the safer (or cowardly) option.Now she had Ella and there was a part of her,quite a substantial part,that didn’t want to share her with the planet at large.

......

Their first meeting (post school) would have been one to tell the grandkids about,though it seemed unlikely those people would ever exist.

Yui had taken a trip to the mall about half a mile down the road from the flat she’d made her base.It was not a location she enjoyed visiting.The contrast between its bustling past and empty,eerie present always left her uneasy.Her tiny footsteps echoed thunderously and the countless dark corners harboured a thousand potential surprises,none of which were likely to be pleasant.

She’d quickly selected a half dozen paperbacks from the town’s only bookshop which was situated next to a former Pizza Hut.Tears pricked her eyes as she remembered the excursions she’d taken there with her beloved father,outings they had to keep secret from her mother who disapproved of either of them indulging in fast food.

She had the urge to scuttle home,but forced herself to wander the corridors of the ghost mall for no other reason than to make herself feel brave.She filled up her backpack with socks,functional underwear and t shirts two sizes too big which she’d utilise as nightwear.There was no immediate need for these items,but it seemed such a waste if she didn’t fill every inch of her bag.

She exited onto the street and was struck,as always,by how grey was everything in this iteration of the planet.She scanned the terrain,saw nothing she hadn’t come to expect and set off briskly,keeping close to the store fronts in case she needed to dive into a doorway to evade danger.

The outer door to her apartment building was substantial enough to repel intruders packing anything but the heaviest artillery.That was one of two key reasons she had for selecting this address.The other was the huge window that afforded panoramic views of her environs.

She’d been home,not that she truly regarded this place as “home”,for forty minutes before she heard a banging at the front door.Or did she? This situation had led to a heightening of her senses,but also her imagination.The sound came again,three resounding thuds on the entrance to the property.There was no doubt this time.She sat on the floor,her only movement a wholly involuntary trembling.She was filled with the desire to stand at the window to identify who,or what,was outside,but she knew if she did she would surely be spotted.

An hour passed before she felt able to budge.A glance out the window revealed the street to be as deserted as was generally the case.She’d planned to read one of her newly obtained books by flickering candlelight,but didn’t dare light up that evening,and lay sleeplessly on her bed instead.One thing was obvious,her visitor hadn’t called at random.Someone knew she was here.

The following day was spent in a state of trepidation.She could discern only two options.Either flee before she received a return visit or roll the dice and open the door.

She was desperately loathe to leave her present surroundings.She didn’t imagine anywhere would feel completely safe during these desperate times,but this little bolt hole felt as secure as anywhere.And if she left,where exactly could she go and what perils might await her on the road.She knew exactly what perils a young woman alone might face and tried,with little success,to banish the thought from her mind.

Lacking sleep the previous night,she dozed off on her battered,but surprisingly comfortable sofa.She awoke to three dull thumps on the door.Had these been real or were they the remnants of a dream? The cacophony recurred thirty seconds later to answer her question.

She didn’t move,nor did she on the three subsequent days as the ritual repeated at exactly the same time.Two sets of three bangs carrying with ominous clarity up the stairs to her first floor residence.

On the sixth day,she dared to peek through the window in time to see a small hoodie ensconced figure scurrying away.On the seventh day,she knew she would open the door.

There were two locks in the massive slab of oak.She had no evidence it truly was oak,but she’d come to think of it that way.Her discovery of the keys in the janitor’s room,as she was out foraging in the early days of her isolation,was the decisive factor in her decision to move in.

Now those keys were ready to be turned at the very first knock.My,how she wished someone had the foresight to install a peephole.She thought she’d known fear previously,she’d imagined nothing could eclipse the terror she’d felt at having to fend for herself in this strange new landscape,but there wasn’t even a word for what she was experiencing now.There was a part of her quivering soul that was content to die.Just make it quick,no capture,no torture,no......

Three stentorian blows echoed around the hallway.Yui was expecting them,but jumped anyway.She turned the two keys simultaneously,for she knew if she procrastinated just one second she would lose her nerve.

The door opened a merest crack and the creature hurtled through and attached itself to her.They skirmished for fully thirty seconds before Yui realised she wasn’t being assaulted,she was being embraced.She managed to extricate herself and locked the door,but only once she’d ascertained this interloper had no associates.

She was immediately engulfed in a hug of rib cracking ferocity.When she finally broke free,Yui could see that beneath the hoodie and layers of grime was a girl of approximately her age.She looked familiar,a visitor from a time and universe now extinguished.

“Thank you,Yui.Thank you for opening......” The girl disintegrated into an hysterical crying fit.

Yui was at a loss.She’d mentally prepared for confrontation,even violence.A distraught teenage girl was not a scenario she’d anticipated.She marched up the stairs,the sobbing girl following,head bowed.

They sat on the sofa,their conversation delayed by the girl’s incessant bawling.Yui held her until the tears dried up.Her instinct had been to pull away because the girl’s odour could,most politely,be described as ripe,but she sensed she was needed and it had been so very long since anyone had  needed her that her own eyes moistened.

“How do you know my name?” asked Yui eventually.

“You don’t remember me?” said the girl. “I’m Ella.We were at school together.”

Ella,the golden girl.Princess Ella,the most popular,most beautiful girl in school.She’d been practically a goddess and was now so gaunt and caked in filth she hardly looked human.

“I’ve been so scared,Yui.I’ve been so lonely I just wanted to die,but I couldn’t even find the courage to kill myself.”

Yui grabbed her to head off another bout of wailing.Ella looked around.

“This place,Yui,it’s amazing.”

Yui had considered her apartment as utterly prosaic,but her visitor gazed in wonder as if she was seeing the Palace of Versailles for the first time.That became less surprising as Ella described how she’d been existing.

She’d awoken in this disastrously altered world bewildered and bereft.Initially,she’d searched for anyone she knew then,later,for anyone at all.

One day she’d encountered four young men who’d attempted to force her into their car.She’d managed to escape,but had become paranoid they’d return for her.She slept in a different setting each night,ever on the look out for predators.

After months of this desperate,watchful,intinerant lifestyle she’d spotted a girl on the street.She watched intently,staggered that she recognised this person from her past,from a time the earth was still a place she understood.

She followed as closely as she dared until she ascertained where her quarry was dwelling.Ella spent weeks gathering the courage to knock on the door and once she did she didn’t hang around long enough for an answer for fear both of rejection and of being discovered out in the open.

“You can stay here if you want.You really must stay here.” Yui thought Ella would at least make a pretence of considering the offer.She didn’t.

“Oh Yui,” shrieked Ella,as she threw her arms around her new flatmate, “thank you,you’ve saved my life.I knew at school you were beautiful,but I had no idea you were so kind.”

Despite the outlandishness of the situation,Yui couldn’t help smiling. "Ella Maguire thinks I’m beautiful!”

“I could you run a bath,” Yui offered,too polite to add “by God,you need it.”

“You.....you have hot water?” Ella seemed giddy at the prospect.

“Well,I have water and I have gas to heat it.It’s a long process,but.......”

Before Yui could finish her sentence Ella had begun discarding layers of clothing with the unselfconscious air of a toddler.Yui noted that as well as the dirt that was ingrained in every pore there was a relief map of scratches and bruises disfiguring her body.

Whilst Ella wallowed in the tub Yui found clothes for her to change into.There was a foot difference in the height of the two girls so the fit would be approximate,but appearing fashionable didn’t seem a great requirement at this moment.

She then set to work in the kitchen.She had a pair of gas stoves she’d liberated from a camping goods store and utilised them to prepare a meal of spicy noodles and pasta flavoured with tinned tomatoes.She found a couple of packets of biscuits she hoped weren’t too stale and filled a mug with instant coffee.It was painfully obvious this girl hadn’t been eating well if at all.

Ella emerged from the bathroom,still naked.Yui didn’t know if she was always this free or whether she’d been so lost she’d forgotten societal norms.

“Oh my God,Yui,that was amazing.I thought I’d never feel clean again.”

She shrilled in delight as she dressed in pristine clothes and again as she noticed the hot food.She attacked the rudimentary meal with ravenous intensity.There was little trace of the elegant,sophisticated young woman Yui had known,or known of,from high school.

In the early days of their flatshare Ella was terror-stricken each time Yui left to go “shopping”,crying with relief when she returned unharmed,but as time went on they began venturing out together.Yui was coolness personified,but Ella remained skittish,alive to potential dangers,jumping at the merest sound.Gradually,though,Yui’s insouciance began to rub off on her.

All the while Ella was becoming not normal,because nothing would ever be normal again,but more her previous self.For her part,Yui luxuriated in having company.She hadn’t realised how enjoyable was the mundanity of life when shared with another person.

One afternoon after they returned from an excursion to the mall, which they enjoyed so much they briefly imagined they were regular young women indulging in a spot of retail therapy,Yui was pouring from a bottle of wine to which they were treating themselves.

“You know,” she said. "It can’t be comfortable sleeping on that old couch every night.I have such a huge bed,it would make sense to share it.....if you want.”

They lay side by side that night,warm and sleepy from the wine,but concurrently happy and giggly.Yui felt human for the first time since existence had collapsed.

As weeks drifted into months,and with their routines now firmly entrenched,they began to investigate beyond their immediate environment,discovering interesting new stores and poking around all manner of former residences,though that never felt less than intrusive however long departed were the owners.

Arriving home after one such expedition,Yui sat on the floor examining the booty they’d looted.She’d noticed on the journey home that Ella had been far from her customary loquacious self and now,despite reclining on the sofa a few feet away,a large part of her seemed distant or even absent.

“I’m fine,” answered Ella flatly when Yui inquired if something troubled her.She went to add something,but caught herself and resumed staring out the window.

“Ella,we’re literally all we have.I don’t think it’s a good idea or even possible for us to have secrets.”

“Maybe some things are best left as secrets.”

“Ella.....”

“I can’t,Yui.I can’t risk things changing.”

“Ella,please.I’m getting scared.”

“If I say this,you might hate me,you might send me away and I’d die if that happened.”

“I’d never do that,I swear,but you have to tell me or I’ll go crazy wondering.”

There was the longest,most excruciating pause before Ella spoke.All the while she looked everywhere,except at the only other being in the room.

“You’re the most remarkable person I’ve ever met,Yui.You created this fortress,you created a home when all around us is chaos.I’ve been all over this town,in every manner of building and every tap I’ve turned is bone dry,except for here.You’ve created running water.How are you that clever? And you’ve retained your decency and humanity while I became feral.I was an animal until you made me a person again.And on top of that,you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.I know you think I didn’t notice you at school,but....” Her voice tailed off.She took a couple of deep breaths before she could speak again.

“I love you,Yui.I love your friendship and just basking in your presence,but I also love you,like properly love you.The only times I’ve felt truly safe since.......all this,is when I’m lying next to you in bed,but still I ache because we’re so close and I just want to look into your eyes and kiss you.I want to kiss you and I don’t ever want to stop.” Ella dissolved into sobbing.

“I wish you would.” Yui’s voice was so soft it was barely audible.

“What?”

“I never thought of you that way in school,because it would have led to madness.You were so far out of my league.Besides,I couldn’t have come out back then.I already felt I was an outsider and I just wasn’t that brave.”

“You’re not brave? I don’t know how many girls are left in the world,but I guarantee there’s none braver than you.”

“So,do you still want to kiss me?”

“Do you mean it,Yui? Because if you’re teasing me I swear my heart will shatter.”

“Why are those lips still talking when they could be kissing me?”

And what a kiss it was.There was nothing Hollywood about it.No perfect hair and make up,no mood lighting or power ballad swelling in the background.This was messy,tears and snot mingling,but it was life affirming and it was glorious.

Much of their daily routine went unaltered.They still went exploring,but they walked down the street hand in hand,though they still had enough small town dna in them to look around to ensure they weren’t being appraised by judgemental eyes.They still took long baths,but now they did so together.Purely in the interests of water conservation,of course.And they still spent many hours in bed,though they now adjourned there a little earlier each evening and arose just a little later the next morning.Yui was surprised by how experienced Ella was and how much she herself had to learn,but boy,did she enjoy receiving her education!

If it hadn’t been for the almost total destruction of the known world,life would have been perfect.