Last to Die
All I could see were the trees around me, threatening to fall down, swaying with the black fog that constantly covered the sky. It always looked like night, even in the middle of the day. But then again everything was so wrong now, twisted into things that it should never have been. It had started as a fight for good, yet they were in love with evil. Crazy and twisted, their minds had become full of power. They thought they were invincible when really they were far too easy to kill.

I can’t remember how it all started and I don’t know where it will all end. All I can tell is my tale of what I know… and that is it. It’s not like it’s going to be much use to anyone, considering I’m the last living human being… but then again maybe there’s someone out there that’s still struggling to hold on, someone with more will power to live then I have, but that’s most unlikely because I am the last to die.

I had always heard the stories about what would happen if the whole world got into one big war and sent the nuclear bombs everywhere… but those were just tales told around the campfire at night, just something to send chills down your spine and make you have nightmares for a week, nothing more… and nothing less than that. At least that’s what everyone thought, until that day…

I remember that day so clearly. The sun shining down, the temperature at least 85 degrees. It was perfect, everything so perfect, but those are usually the day’s when everything goes wrong and this just happened to be one of those days…

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when the first bomb hit. I don’t know how many they launched off in total and I don’t know where they came from… no one did. I remember when we saw it coming, the panic stricken look on everyone’s face. Mothers grabbed their children, tried to shield them with themselves, when all it did in the end was leave a bigger and bloodier mess. I remember running all I knew was I needed to run and not stop, never stop. I felt the wind on my face, blowing my hair back if it would have been any other time in my life I would have loved the feeling but not now… never now. Everything I knew was gone, I had to make it back home and see if they were all right, they had to be alright…they just had to be.

I remember hearing a loud, shrieking scream. I didn’t know who it was or where it had come from, until I turned around a saw my reflection in the antique glass mirror. I realized my mouth was open, and that blood curdling scream was coming from within my body. Then I dared to take another look at them… they were lying on the floor, they looked too peaceful, like dolls just sitting there, staring at you with their unblinking, pale, yet shining eyes. My parent’s, dead, gone, forever leaving my life, forever leaving behind this world. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it… I never thought I would see their bodies lying on some hardwood floor…dead, but I guess life is mostly made up of what we don’t expect.

I ran out of that house, knowing I was never going back. I didn’t know where to go next; I knew that all my friends, everyone that I held dear, had to be dead by now. I just wanted answers, nothing more than some simple answers. Why were there bombs? Who sent them? Why here? Why now? How come the government didn’t stop them? We were supposed to be a country united. This stuff wasn’t supposed to happen here, anywhere but here. We seemed invincible to stuff like this, but how wrong, how naive of us to think so, to not try and protect ourselves against them. But it was too late now, far, far too late.

I remember the sun setting. The sky had been red that morning… there was always that saying “Red sky’s in the morning you better take warning, red sky’s at night a sailors delight.” But no one ever took it to heart, actually thought anything serious about it, until me, on that day. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe it was a warning. It was too late to figure it out now, why was it that all the answers and the questions came to you when it was too late to give and ask them? Too late to try and fix all the mistakes and turn things around for the better. Too late to save lives and stop disasters.

I didn’t know where to sleep, where to go, or who to find for help. Was everybody dead but me? Was I the last sole survivor of the once great United States? Were all the countries gone now? Blown up? Forever hurt by the violent nature of the human race? Were all the children dead? All the flowers of the future just a bunch of blood and guts lying on the side walk waiting for some stray animal to come eat what was left of them up? I tried to steer clear of these thoughts; all I could think about was survival. I didn’t know why I had survived, but I knew I couldn’t last long; I was starting to feel the effects of the bomb and I could see the cuts and burns on my skin. But really what was the point in living? I was alone, the love of my life who never knew I loved him was dead, my parents gone, my friends, family, everybody I ever knew and even everyone that I had never gotten to know dead and gone, blown to pieces before my very unblinking eyes. I had no reason to go on, my dreams, hopes; desires crushed before me, now just a bloody mess on the concrete floor. But I knew if I was going to die, I at least wanted to die knowing why.

That’s when I remembered that secret place that he and I used to go to… that little white park bench that we would sit at and talk for hours, the weeping willow that draped it’s branches over us like the protective arms of a mother, and the river that flowed quickly and silently by when you got to know one part of it, it had slipped away and a new friend had come to meet you. That was him, the one I loved yet would never dare admit it. I remember the way his fingers felt intertwined with mine, how I would lay my head on his shoulder and he’d drape his arm around me. We would stay that way for hours, sometimes talking, other’s we were silent, just watching the steady moving river, listening to each other’s heartbeat. We were only friends, yet so much more. He was my everything and I his. When we were together nothing could ever go wrong.

I started running again, away from all the blood, the pain, the screams echoing in my mind and I ran towards that secret place… secretly hoping inside me that he would be there, waiting for me, that this was all just a bad dream, an overdue nightmare.

But when I got there all that I could see were the tree’s swaying… everything was so dark, even though my watch told me it was only four o’clock… I had only been running around an hour when it felt like a lifetime. I was heading over to the bench where we always sat when I noticed one of the bombs sitting there stuck in the ground. I knew it was a bad idea to go near it yet alone touch it, but I knew I was going to die soon… so I went over to it. I thought about screaming at it, but I figured yelling at an inanimate object wasn’t going to do me any good so I kicked it. As soon as I was done taking my anger out on something that could never help me, something popped out of the bomb, it was a shiny box, I opened the lid and some type of object that looked like a tape recorder was sitting there, ready for me to hear it secrets. I picked it up and I saw a button that was marked play, I clicked it… The next part is hard for me to tell, I know it sounds wrong, impossible, crazy even, but I’m just retelling it as I heard it.

The recorder started out saying that this would only be seen after nuclear bombs had destroyed the whole world, everyone but a few would be dead, and those few would die soon enough, either from the side effects of the bomb or by their own hand. Then it continued to say that this was a self inflicted terror. Each country had sent nuclear bombs on themselves… This had been planned for years; our countries governments had been corrupt for years. They had been crazy, wanting death for themselves and everyone else in the country. How we never figured it out I will never know. The recorder also stated that they wanted to prove that God would never be the end to the world; the only end could be from the people who had taken everything to create it and given everything to destroy their own creation. That’s when it ended. I threw it down, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and even as I sit here and write it I don’t believe it, maybe there’s more to the story, maybe there was some brain washing going on, some aliens taking over, anything, anything else would make more sense than our countries having done this to themselves, but then again life never made any sense.

I started walking towards the bench again, that’s where I wanted to be when I died, at the place that had given me only happiness, never a bad memory. I wanted to feel the ghost of him there with me, I needed his comforting presence as I suffered and slowly died.

When I got to the bench I noticed a black envelope with my name written in gold letters, on top of it was a fresh red rose. I looked around wondering where this had come from. I opened it and slowly pulled out the piece of paper inside. Once I saw the hand writing I knew it was from him, my hand started to shake and the first tears of that day fell down my face. I opened the envelope and read the letter inside. This is what is said:

I had never known a feeling so deep
A love that could blossom again and again
All I ever wanted was for you to know how much
I loved you

But sadly that can never happen now
I sit here writing this as the bombs fall down around me
I know that you will find this
And I hope that you will take it to heart

Because I love you
I have forever and I will
Always
So until you meet me here in this place that they called heaven
I will wait

I won’t enter without you
And if I could have had the choice I never
Would have left without you

So please see me as soon as possible
With a rose of love
I leave you now
But remember you will always
Be in my heart
That was my breaking point, the moment when I could no longer try and live out the short remainder that would be my life. That’s when I stepped into the river and let it silently take me over. I become just another piece of the Earth… silently flowing along, my story becoming just another tale of the rivers, no one ever knowing I was there as I silently sank to the bottom and had the last thought to myself… “My names Holly and I was the last to die.”