Forgotten Ink (what it takes to survive)

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The trees at the rear view mirror shrunked as he kept on driving the old worn out car. Two hundred sixteen days, two hours and fifty two minutes. That's how long he's been surviving after the world had reached its final stage.

Some days left uncounted and excluded. Surviving is a huge pain in the ass this days, the bane of his existence.

No one had the idea that the world will end just as exactly the previous virus had ceased to exist. It was so sudden, barely half of the population made it out alive at the first wave, and even few survived the second one. Nowadays, hoping to meet survivors that's uninfected and sane is like hoping to see the end of this apocalypse which is likely to be impossible. None of the scientists had time to even warn their people so what makes it any different when making a cure for the virus that wiped more innocent lives than the previous one?

It all leads to one category, and that is false hope.

One way or another, people will not die because of a bite, they'll eventually die by starvation now that canned foods were near to expiration (maybe some had expired a long time ago). Farmed foods are basically impossible to acquire now that mother nature is taking her revenge on humanity.

Farming isn't really impossible, but there was no permanent place to stay. There's no home to permanently call and stay. No way to be safe, no safe zone.

There's no safe place in a world that has given up on her people. As depressing as it sounds, it's the cruel reality he lived in. Nothing to worry about.

It's just a surprise to see himself alive and trying to stay alive after all the things the universe threw at him even if the days stretched longer than the last and even when everything suddenly came to a screeching halt.

...

What was he even surviving for?

The answer is, he does not know.

Maybe it has something to do with the unspoken promise he promised at his brothers or maybe as simple as.. his fear of death.

Darkness has always been his number one enemy after the events at his previous school at Kuala Lumpur. He doesn't act well when it consumes him whole.

And death Is quite lonely and quiet. Empty even. An expansion of an endless abyss stretching forth with no escape.

It's just so.. Scary. And he's admitting that as a sixteen years old who had been a witness of the dark side of the world and as someone who had also lost enough like everyone had.

It's just not fair, he's not even aware if he's still sixteen or if he's older than he had expected. Time moves faster than light when you don't mind it, but moves slower than a snail when you realize that you're spending your days alone with no shoulder to cry on. It's all too much.

He doesn't even know if he wants to continue on surviving or simply give up.

"Find something to fight for" they say, but when he doesn't- correction. Can't. But when he can't find something to fight for then what? He still tries to survive and move on? For what? For the ghost of his brothers?

He had watched them leave the door one by one only to return as infected and crying, bidding farewell as if it would be last. Which is the last, the last farewell was his last straw, he left before they could say a word. He's sixteen for crying out loud, he's not a kid, not anymore at least.

None of his brothers were.

They grew up faster than the years could decide. He just has to accept that fact.