ADRIEN - A short story

ADRIEN - The Short Story

I had been walking for days through the forest, never growing any more comfortable to the darkness than I had been for the past week. But Adrien-- the voice on the radio-- was leading me to him, to the old radio tower he had called his home for the past year ever since the Zero Day. Apparently from what he had told me, Adrien was on vacation when it happened, visiting the United States, coming from France to visit friends and family who lived here. Though after the Zero Day, plans had changed. He was forced to stay and build up a makeshift home out of some abandoned tower. Personally, I lost most of my memory that day. I can remember the chaos, but after blacking out and coming to, I found myself on the ground in a muddy puddle, with only a backpack and a radio. All alone in the city. After everything I had been through, traveling across the country on foot simply to meet another human in this desolate world, I was ready to finally interact with a living person again. I had been talking with Adrien on the radio for so long on my journey that I couldn't wait to see him face-to-face, and maybe some glimmer of hope could enter my world once more and shine against the darkness that had consumed it for the last two years. After walking just a short while I finally came across a clearing in the forest, sitting in the middle was a large rusted metallic structure, shooting into the sky, with wires hanging from it and stretching off miles in every which direction, in fact it was one of these wires that I had been following for the last hour. In that moment, the blinking red light at the top of the tower, despite how small it was, gave me hope, the first piece of working electricity I had seen in years. I radioed Adrien, and exclaimed that I had finally arrived at the tower. After a few moments of silence the radio cut back on and I could hear Adrien on the other side, with his usual accent which I had grown accustomed to over the past few months.

"Incroyable! You have, I can see you out the control room window!" He exclaimed, matching my excitement, looking at the radio tower I could see a room, near the top, with large windows on either side, structured similarly to a watch-tower of sorts. The windows were very dirty though, so I could not see inside. Due to the circumstances I didn't think much of it. "Well, mon ami? What do you wait for? Come on! Oh, I can't wait to finally meet you after all of this time.." Not wanting to postpone this moment any longer I held my backpack close and walked up to the tower, coming apon a large door. I grabbed the large bar on the door and pulled backwards with all of my strength, and eventually the door swung open, the sound of straining metal filling the air around me, a sound which I can only compare to that of nails on a chalkboard. After that unpleasantness I was greeted with the bottom of a staircase, which spiraled upwards into a hatch near the top. Over the radio, Adrien started to talk again. "Je t'entends, you're getting closer! Just up those stairs mon ami! I'll be waiting for you." I quickly started climbing higher, one step after another, until I found myself looking down the side, the distance to the bottom being sickening. With every step my movement became uncertain, something wasn't right. It was cold, freezing in fact. Not even the winter coat I was wearing could hide that fact. Not only that, but other than the crackling of my radio and the straining of the stairs under me, there was nothing but silence. No movement above.

Swallowing my doubt I shakily grabbed the handle to the rusted hatch in the ceiling, this was the conclusion to my twisted cross-country trip, the penultimate chapter of my journey, only to be topped by meeting Adrien in person. The only thing standing between me and my future was this hatch. With a sigh, and a tense grip, I pushed open the hatch, only to be greeted by a slight gust of wind mixed with dust. I climbed into the room above. I called out for Adrien but was met with nothing, an eerie silence that dominated the room. My breathing became heavy as I looked around, seeing a bed, with a thick layer of dust settled on top of it. There was a desk by the window, filled with scattered papers. A chair was knocked over beside it, and a piece of the roof was broken off, letting in only the slightest bit of moonlight through the top. There was one more table by a broken window, and I slowly walked over to it, the floorboards of the control room creaking under my every step. On the table was a radio set up, though it looked like it hadn't been used since the Zero Day. The metal was cold, and wires hung out of one side. I called for Adrien one last time, knowing that there would be no response. Had I gone to the wrong tower? I had to have been. I went to try and contact Adrien again with my radio, but I came to the realization that the batteries in it had died, as the crackling had stopped and it wasn't working. Quickly I opened the back of the radio, only to be met with nothing. There were no batteries in the radio. It hadn't occurred to me that in the past two years I had never needed to change them.

With this revelation I didn't know whether to be frightened or livid. In a fit of frustration I yelled and threw the radio at the window of the control room, breaking it. Trying to recompose myself, I slowed my breathing, the shattered glass I had just created drew my attention back to the bed. I noticed something I had missed when I had first looked at it, there was a coat hanging over the side of it, along with a small handheld mirror. With I walked over and grabbed the coat, noticing a weight in one of it's pockets, reaching in I took out a few miscellaneous things, some papers, coins, and finally a french I.D. card. One the top it read 'Adrien Bonnet', Age 32, Male. There was a picture on the card along with the description, the image bringing with it a crushing feeling of finality. The face was not only a familiar one, but my own, and the image I saw in the cracked mirror beside the coat continued to confirm that fact. I slumped onto the bed, staring at my reflection in the mirror. Had this solidarity caused me to stoop down to madness? Had I made up this entire journey in my mind to give myself some goal to achieve, some meaningless endpoint to this nightmare? I held the mirror up to my face and stared at myself for a short while, before finally speaking. 'Hello Adrien.' I looked off out the window of the control room, at the endless forest I had walked through for the past few weeks. They say that at the end of every story a new one begins, though as I reach the final chapter of my journey I don't know how, or if I want to continue on. The only part of this trip that gave me any kind of hope for my future was the fact that I did indeed make it to the tower. With another sigh, I looked back at the mirror. 'We made it'.