​The World That Killed Itself



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Chapter One :)



Before I met Alex, I wandered alone and isolated, and I mean in absolute utter isolation. During World War III, world leaders decided to release nuclear bombs, destroying nations and eradicating all of humanity in their last, desperate and stupid moments before the end of their lives. Unluckily, I survived when millions didn’t, left to survive on whatever remained. I never imagined the world would end like this—just three of us left, wandering a bare, empty world. I met Alex ten days after my area was finally cleared of the dangers that had lingered in the air for so long. I left my small, ruined, dust-choked, depressing apartment to search for survivors, but I was met with only emptiness. Never have I seen the horizonless, terrifying and eerie sight of so many dead people.



The streets were littered with dull, dusty debris. The scattered remains of forgotten lives, people who were once alive, living and so, littered the street everywhere.Only after leaving did I meet Alex: a young boy with a jagged scar running down his right cheek, black hair falling over one eye. He looked almost like a guard or soldier, though I couldn't be sure the first time I saw him. I found him slumped against a wall in an apartment that reeked of dust and rotting wood, the furniture within it was unrecognisable, covered in dust, destroyed and crushed by the materials that collapsed onto them or burnt. The building was located somewhere on the eastern side of The City I lived in.

“Hello?”

No response.

“Hellooo?”

Still no response. The nerve, am I right?

“HELLO?!”

At that point, I assumed he was pretty much dead, so I searched him, y’know, for stuff that I could use to stay alive because what was he gonna do with them? Use them?

​

Two minutes into my search, and I hear a small grunt, then a loud:

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” followed by an unsuccessful attempt at swiping at my face, I obviously successfully dodged (I got hit) while he glared angrily at me.

“Sorry, I thought you were dead.”

I shot quickly,

“You loot dead people?”

He responded, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Yeah? What are they gonna do with their stuff? Use it? They’re dead for crying out loud!”

“You have a point.”

I bit back, angrily. “Exactly.”

An awkward hush passed, the wind outside the window violently blowing and crackling from the chaotic world outside strung in the air.

“Who are you exactly?” Alex began, cracking the silence

“A person, you?”

“The exact same.”

The air blew soot and ash through a cracked window nearby, filling the silence that had appeared again.

“What’s your actual name?” I started.

“I asked first for yours, so…”

“Embry, yours?”

“Alex.”

“Alrighty, Alex, how long have you been here?”

“3 days.”

“Cool. Warm welcome to our neighbourhood, amirite?”

“Sure,” he sighed, “3 days after moving in, and everyone’s dead,”

“I kinda expected this, honestly”, I started, and Alex gave me a concerned side eye. I shrugged and looked out the cracked window, the world falling apart more with what remained behind the broken glass pane. There were a few bits of plastic caught on its exposed and jagged edges.

“There was just that growing feeling that they were all about to kill each other. Without reason as well.”

Alex nodded and began to speak “That is true. They were starting to become angry with each other. I’d know.”

“You’d know?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” He says beginning to sit up “I used to guard my country’s military base”

“Woahhh…so, like, you contributed to all this?”

“What?! No! I actually left as soon as I found out they were planning something as terrible as that”

I rolled my eyes “M’kay, sure.”

“I’m being serious!”

“Okay! Fine! I believe you, geez….”



He stood up, wandering out the charred door in the room, leaving me behind in his destroyed, . I stood in the silence he left me behind in, thinking. Are we the only two alive? If so, what would we do? What would things be like after this? My “thinking,” which felt like five minutes, actually lasted an hour, and that hour was interrupted by distressed yelling and a series of high-pitched screams. The screams couldn’t have come from Alex—if they had, he’d have a remarkable set of vocal cords—but I knew it wasn’t him. That meant there must be someone else who had also survived.



I sprinted out of the building to find a bleeding Alex, his arm scratched, standing before a slim woman who couldn’t have been older than thirty-five. She was trapped between a burning wooden pillar and the blood-soaked pavement. Flailing her arms, kicking and screaming, she yelled, “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!” Poor Alex looked so confused, clutching his arm, fear etched on his face. When I tried to calm her down, she slashed my face and her leg flew out to kick my arm with so much force, it began to bruise afterwards and eventually, exhausted, terrified and confused about what had happened, her eyes began to well up and she began to sob into the dust and ashes of what was left of our city. I honestly couldn’t blame her. Waking up to the world in shambles, all of civilization wiped out except for three other people left to survive on what the numb-headed leaders of countries hadn’t destroyed yet was a terrifying concept to face.