The Lonely Boy

Awakening

  Suddenly James stirred awake, he had no dreams that night, he never dreamed. He always wondered what exactly a dream felt like. But he noticed something missing, his dog, Hades, wasnt at the foot of his bed as he usually was. "Hades?" James called out, "where are you boy?" No reply or sound of movement in the house at all, wherever Hades was James was sure he was fine. Hades was a Doberman, one of those gaurd dog breeds. Hades didnt trust anyone except James and his family, speaking of James' family, where were they? James got out of bed and opened his bedroom door and the hallway was dirty and the wood was rotting, it definitely wasnt like this before, "mom?" No reply. "Dad?" Nothing. He opened their bedroom door but what he found was a hole in his house, as if a giant had come over and grabbed a chunk of the house and thrown it far away, it was just gone, the doorway was there but after that, nothing. He continued walking through his house to see the frint door smashed and open, the kitchen a mess, all the white that the tiles used to be was blackened by ehat looked like burn marks, the cupboards looked destroyed, broken glass scattered the floor and the oven was on but no gas was coming out. He checked the lights but that wasnt working either, no water either. Strange, why was his room the only clean part of the entire house, as if the world decided to remove his room from the destruction of whatever had happened James' room was still as clean as could be. Whatever had happened he knew it wasnt safe here, the house would surely collapse if he kept moving around, he decided to grab his biggest backpack and start packing, he put on his warmest jacket and his jeans and he packed sweatpants and a windbreaker, in case it rained. He grabbed his flip knife and hooked it to his belt in case he cane across any trouble, he checked his cupboards for any food but all he found was 2 cans of baked beans and 4 bottles of water, he packed all of it.

Now it might seem strange that James was willing to up and leave so soon, but to understand his haste you must understand him, James has moved time and time again with his fanily before, hes currently 15, he got adopted by his new parents when he was 13. His life has been moving from orphanage to orphanage time and time again. So James is not afraid to pack up and go when the time comes. To James, home is where you slept last night and wherever you will sleep tonight. James is different than most people in that sense.

James walked out the front door and as he left behind him a part of the house collapsed. It was the roof to his room. James walked down his street through his City, Colorado Springs in Colorado. As he walked through his street he looked at the homes, some of them completely collapsed, some of them in okay shape, but most of them were destroyed in some way or another, and some were completely gone, small piles of rubble remained where a house used to be he continued to walk toward the center of town, he knew they had a hunting store and a gorcery store, both would have useful materials if he planned to keep on living. When he reached it, most of the supermarket was empty, all that remained in all of the shelves was about 5 cans of canned spahghetti and 5 clean bottles of water. He put all of it in his bag, the more the merrier. Next stop was the hunting store a small walk from the supermarket, he made his walk carefully, as he heard something moving, another person possibly? He looked at where the sound came from to find only a coyote scavenging through the wreckage of an old gas station. Funny, the sign on the station said only one thing "National Gas Sh-" and the rest was cut off. The coyote spotted James and ran off, James decided to check the gas station for anything but there was nothing as if it hadnt been stocked in years even before whatever had happened happened. All he found was a skeleton outside of the station against the wall. It was shuddering but there wasnt any gore so it didnt frighten him much. That was the first sign of any human life other than him, and thats what most frightened him. But, he continued to the hunting store it was also mostly empty, all that was left was a machete and a sheathe he could sling on his back and a couple boxes of .45 bullets which he also took. Better safe than sorry. He continued to walk til he reached the edge of the city, he looked back into the now dreary broken world he used to call home and continued into the forested areas of his hone state. He knew of a few places he could stay in the woods, his goal was to reach them by nightfall. He followed the road, rusted shells of cars and vans littered the roads and scraps of metal glass and plenty of other thinfs were scattered around the street. Some cars had the shells of what used to be living people inside, skeletons. He continued to follow the path to the cabin he knew of, he had a friend who used to live there. Coyotes, cats, and other animals  roamed the areas around him but no people as if this was humanities own punishment, as if this was someones fault. He reached what seemed to be some kind of roadblock, a wall and two towers blocked the road, part of the wall was crumbled, so he walked straight through, behind it was a couple of skeletons in military like clothing, one of them carried an M1911, perfect, thats the gun he had bullets for, he picked it up along with the ex soldiers holster and put it on his belt. He also picked up the battered helmet the soldier used to wear, it was dusty as hell but he shook the dust off and put it on his head. Strange, cars littered the street behind him but after the checkpoint, there was nothing. No cars. No buildings. Nothing. Just road and forest, he was getting close to his friends house so he continued to walk. When he reached his friends house, it wasnt too broken at all, most of the walls were still fully intact, windows were all broken and the door had tnings that looked like bullet holes in it but otherwise it was fine. He entered thd house, "Freddy? You home dude? What the hell is going on?" No answer, he checked fhe garage, no car, noone home. He checked the whole house then he closed the front door and set up camp in his old friends living room. As he lay, he wondered, where did everyone go? If they are all dead, why is he still alive? Why is everything so strange. So many unexplainable things had happened to him he just sat in wonder, looking at the ceiling, then he slowly drifted to sleep.