In the early days, it felt like a party.

All of us, cocooned in the lush interiors of the Palacia Grande. Eventually though, when people started dying, it began to feel more like a prison. Do you know how it feels to need your prison? To be totally and utterly beholden to it? It was the only safe place on earth. And yet, it felt like a tomb. 

In the early days, people were social. They walked the hallways, stopping to chat and offer problem solving and encouragement. Then, it felt like we could ignore the apocalypse raging on outside. The Palacia was uniquely equipped to weather the storm. We all thought things would go back to normal soon, so we continued to live normally within our luxurious compound. 

When I was young, several years ago now, I idolized the people coming and going from the Palacia. With their tailored pants, diamond rings, coiffed hair: they were like modern royalty. It was easy to lose hours sitting on the sidewalk across the street, staring and dreaming. 

When I grew older, I began to reserve my savings for stays at the Palacia. Every cent I could spare went into an account labeled Perfection at the Palacia. I had no interest in saving to travel anywhere else, the Palacia was the only dream I ever needed. The first time I entered the Palacia, I was 17 years old. I could’ve stepped inside sooner, but I didn’t want half an experience. So I waited until I could purchase my full dream. 

I forwent the graduation parties and the rites of passage. I took all of my savings from the past several years of dead-end jobs, tutoring and car washes and I bought myself a weekend at the Palacia. I bought everything: the food, the suite, the spa. Even the valet. I dressed the part as best I could: the simple pantsuit worn for college interviews, the fitted beige dress from a cousin’s rehearsal dinner two years ago, and the comfy-chic resort wear from a dead aunt’s trips to Martha’s Vineyard. I wanted to feel like someone worth being ogled and admired. I had the time of my life. All the years spent observing from the outside paid off. I felt like American Royalty. I felt like I belonged at the Palacia Grande. 

When I arrived back at the Palacia several weeks ago, it was only my third stay here. The first, at 17, was by far the best. The second, for my honeymoon, is a marred memory. And this time, a post-divorce pick-me-up, has turned out oh-so-differently from anything else. 

In the early days, nothing sounded better than several uninterrupted weeks at the Palacia. The news came on a Tuesday. A news alert crept across the airwaves and internet, changing everything forever. At first, the story was only available as an oddity from a local news affiliate in New London, Connecticut. 

It spread quickly, though.

Once the behavior of the infected changed, the news became widespread. It was insidious, everywhere. It began with jokes and derisions, with people refusing to upset their daily lives. Soon enough things changed. 

The first week, we knew nothing. In the warmth and opulence of the Palacia, no unsavory news could reach.

The second week, the people of power staying at the Palacia began to talk in hushed whispers. The kind of tone that conveyed importance but also invited listening ears. The problem with the rich and powerful, I’ve found, is that they need people to know they are rich and powerful. By the end of the week, we all knew the Palacia would be our home for quite a while. The news alert read: “President and governors clash: states issue mandatory shelter-in-place, feds encourage work go on.”

The third week exposed us all to new things. We thought we had weathered this storm before, in 2020. Oh, how wrong we were. The sanguevirus threw everything we’d learned before out the window. It decimated countries and economies in record time. And yet, life at the Palacia somehow remained calm, sophisticated. It carried on like this for several weeks. As things raged on outside, the people of the Palacia stayed safe.

The sixth week, when they started attacking, was when I knew things were irreversible. There would be no cure, there would be no return to normal, there would not even be a new normal. Normal is routine, and routine is what killed us. It struck me, in frantic moments that week, that I’d never be the same either. Funny how the mind has time to muse even when running for its life. But I persisted. I did better than the other occupants of the Palacia. The rich, the true Palacia people, began to crumble. Stripped of their last artifices of wealth, they came undone. 

By week seven, the Palacia was breached. 

That’s when I stopped counting the weeks. 

I haven’t seen another person in what I can only assume is several weeks. Truly though, it may have only been days. Or maybe months. 

When the break-ins began, the rich men of action were confident they knew what to do. They reinforced walls, set watches, instituted strict no-contact rules. Me, I hid. I knew I couldn’t stop the sanguevirus or its victims – the virans. I knew my best course of action was to hope the world would forget me. That it would leave me safe in this pocket of my dreams. 

I was lucky. I’ve seen what the sanguevirus does, and I’m not smart enough to have hope that a cure could be possible. There’s no way to cure relentless hunger or animosity. There never was. The first to go were the ones with families: the staff, the philanderers, the vacationers. Then the heroes.

Now, it’s only me. 

I haven’t seen a person in many non-weeks. Did I mention that already?

The first break-ins were explosive. They came from nowhere. The virans came screaming, vengeful and mindlessly violent. The virus did something to them. I have no idea what the science is, but I can attest from an anecdotal perspective: they’re no longer human. They don’t even look human anymore. The first time I saw one was a rare opportunity. 

I was lurking behind several boxes on one of the Palacia’s covered balconies, surveying the street below. The covered balconies are perfect for reconnaissance. I was eyeing another Palacia refugee, rooting through garbage across the street, when I saw him. 

I’m not sure if genders exist anymore, but this viran was distinctly masculine. Tall and hunched and emaciated, he crept up on the refugee. I was stuck, too fascinated with witnessing this new and increasingly less rare creature to warn the refugee. I watched as he darted forwards, exposing greying and mottled skin to the watery sun. In an instant, he was on the refugee. They don’t go for the neck or the brain, not like in the movies. They go for the intestines, ripping them out hungrily. A messy business. 

I didn’t have to stifle a cry. Though I was surprised, I’ve never been much of an exclaimer. Perhaps this is part of why I’ve survived so long – a rare predisposition to post-apocalyptic life. For a long time I was worried the Palacia would be irreparably breached. That my beloved hotel would become the play palace of these virus-laden former-homosapiens. 

For some reason, I’ve been lucky on that front. I haven’t built many fortifications to be proud of. In fact, I’ve barely prepared at all. However, after the early days of the attacks, they simply stopped coming. Like anteaters ripping the bark open on trees, they left once they thought they’d cleaned out all of the ants. I was lucky. As lucky as one can be in these times. 

The one piece of preparation I foresaw a need for was food. After the first break-in, the other Palacia patrons began to discuss rationing and stockpiling. They were finally of the opinion that things would never go back to normal. During the second break-in, a scant day after the first, I left them to their defensive maneuvers. I scurried to the kitchens, took a 10 lb bag of pasta and 24 cans each of green beans and baked beans. Sometimes I feel bad that I continued to take rations after that, even when I had my own stockpile. But I knew. I knew I was holding out for when there was no one else to go outside, no one to hunt or forage for me. 

These days, I eat only when absolutely necessary. I barely crave food at all anymore now, anyway. I used to be one for routine and rigid schedules, but those don’t serve a purpose any more. It’s freeing in a way. Sometimes I feel cut adrift, no longer the person I was back then. Other times I feel unburdened, no longer needing the person I was back then. 

It’s a fine line, these days: the divide between human and viran. I coined that term, you know. Viran. One of those with the virus. I think it probably means something in Spanish, a conjugation of a boring verb, but languages escape me more and more these days. 

I think of things in three sections now. The early days, those days, and these days. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the first two. But these days there’s not much to think about. 

I’d been eyeing the viran’s leftovers, when they used to leave them. I’m surely anemic by now, and other worse things. I haven’t seen anything resembling a human for many non-weeks though. Even the virans are becoming few and far between. I see a bird here and there. Once a deer. The deer didn’t last long.

I like watching the virans. They move like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s a big widow’s watch atop the Palacia. In the early days, some of the rich set up boxes and plywood, screening the inside of the widow’s watch from outside view. They were obsessed with ‘keeping watch.’ For what purpose, I never knew. Why would we want to know if the virans were coming? We’d found no way to stop them.

They told me I was being bleak, but they’re gone now. So it turns out I was being a realist.  

I don’t think I miss human company. Sometimes I trail my fingers over my own skin, approximating the touch of another, but I think that’s more of a sensation thing. I need to convince myself it’s more of a sensation thing than a human contact thing or I’ll start to unravel. I’m not like those other people though, the ones that unraveled. I can do this.

I think I’m the last person in the world. I can be the last person in the world. In high school, I was voted Most Likely to Take Over the World. What irony that’s turned out to be. 

As one would expect, night is the worst in the post-sanguevirus world. Not because the virans have any advantages at night or anything, but purely because everything has always been worse at night. What is it about the dark? It loosens tongues, strengthens bonds, tricks minds. I think about the darkness a lot. What’s up there above me? What dark planets await out there in the yawning sky? I think if I had the choice to be rescued by aliens, I’d stay here. 

It’s not so bad, this life. It was unsettling at first, but I think I’ve come to terms with it. The Palacia is still grand as ever, even since the heros ripped her up to board the windows shut. I was never very good at small talk or deep connections – now I don’t even have to worry about those things. I’d say my least favorite part is the confinement. 

And the cold.

There’s no one to pay the heating bills anymore. No one to provide the heat to be paid for, actually. 

It’s night time now, and I’m shivering. 

I’m trying to train my mind not to focus on the little sounds of the dark, but it’s quite difficult. What’s that scratch? Who’s that scurrying about? Where did that pitter go to patter? Are they closing in, the virans? Or is something worse coming? 

There can’t be anything worse coming. What could possibly be worse? 

Another human. That would be worse. It’s not just that I’m fine without them – I’m afraid of them now. Afraid of what they might ask of me. I’m not some hardcore survivalist, I’ve never been that person. But if another human comes? They’ll assume I worked to survive. I’ve done nothing, I’m just lucky. I’m worse than lucky – I’m an opportunist. 

I watched those rich men get torn apart. I examined their blank eyes once the virans were done with them. I may have even taken a sample or two. Is that so wrong? In a world populated by virans, who am I to reject their lifestyle? 

If another human comes, surely they’d try to convince me to leave the Palacia. I don’t want that. I want to stay here. This place? It’s me. It’s all I have left of the old me and it’s become a witness to the new me. I’m feral and this is my haunt. I haven’t looked in a mirror in weeks. That way I can tell myself that being here so long has turned me from a pumpkin into a beautiful resident of the Palacia Grande. 

I laugh when I envision myself like this: long gowns and long gloves; long hair and long earrings; it’s how I’m meant to look when I’m here. No one can take me from this place. This hallway is my favorite, you know. It’s got silk wallpaper. Forest green silk wallpaper. Still intact too. I caress it whenever I’m here. How is silk always cool to the touch? It mimics soft skin. 

What’s. That. Click.

There’s a man here, in my hallway. A proper man – beard and everything, even glasses. He’s leveled a large gun at me. I don’t know why. I put my hands up, slowly. This man, who is he? Where has he come from? The Palacia was breached but all the men died and all the virans left, I’m the only one who’s supposed to be here. Who is this man? Where did he come from? 

His glasses are reflective in the low light. This him, the other last man in the world.

What’s that, there? Standing in front of him? 

That’s a viran.

That’s.

Me. 

Not the last human in the world then.

The viran in his glasses looks crazed. It’s breathing deeply, wild eyes and outstretched arms. I’m breathing deeply. The pulse through his skin is visible. I can see it. His stomach is small, but soft. The viran in his glasses lunges – I lunge. Careful not to get any blood on the lovely silk wallpaper. It’s forest green, you know?