A Series of One-Shots

Prayer of the Refugee

 Prayer of the Refugee 

Xavier growled at the lighter as he sparked it over and over. Two years. It had only taken him two years to go through every last lighter he had. He glanced at the horizon where the sun was slowly sinking. Being out alone in the dark was the easiest way to be killed. It wasn’t like he could sit in the dark alone and silent like he had in the beginning. He couldn’t blindly shoot at anything that moved like he used to. He’d long since run out of ammo.

Now all he was protected by was a knife. A long, sharp hunting knife he’d stolen from someone he’d killed just a few weeks after the government had fallen and all laws became void. Of course, the violence hadn’t started abruptly after the fall of democracy. It had taken about a week for people to realize that no rules applied anymore and after they noticed, all bets were off.

It became hell on Earth.

Every day was a struggle to survive. Especially for the independent. The independent were vulnerable. They had no strength in numbers or any promise of protection. They were alone and left to their own devices to survive. Xavier was one of them. He hadn’t used to be, with his younger sister by his side. But she had committed suicide a few months in, unwilling to fight any more, like many other Americans. It left Xavier by himself, to live a lonely existence filled with fear and pain.

He was wary of everything after two years of the constant killing. He learned that no one was to be trusted and to never sign a contract. A contract meant you were trapped. It was follow the terms or meet your death, and Xavier wasn’t interested in dying just yet.

He threw his burnt out lighter on the ground and cursed. He needed a fire. It provided warmth and warded away unwanted predators. It didn’t necessarily ward away humans, but it gave him reassurance that someone couldn’t just appear in front of his eyes in the dark. It protected him from the shadowy delusions he was bound to see as the sun sunk lower into the horizon and his paranoia rose with the moon.

Xavier ran a hand through his long, greasy hair and gave up on his fire. I should’ve kept those matches, he thought, who cares if they were wet. They would’ve done me so much good right now. Instead, he grabbed his pack and wandered into the cluster of bushes and ferns a few yards away from where he’d been. He concealed his pack, making sure the ugly olive green color was hidden in the yellow-brown shrubbery. When he was sure he couldn’t see it anymore, he went into the bushes himself. He pulled his small, knit blanket from his pack and curled up on the ground, covered in the blanket with the pack functioning as a pillow. Hiding was favorable, in his opinion, since people could more easily sneak up on you.

Xavier had never been more grateful there was a place to hide for once as he drifted in and out of a restless sleep.

When morning came, he decided it was finally time to head into town to scavenge for supplies; possibly to find some new lighters or a match book, food and fresh water. He folded his blanket neatly and put it back in his pack. His slung it across his back and began the slow walk toward the nearest town or city.

Xavier hated going into the city. It was dangerous. They were more populated, usually with people having formed small governments. They’d kill anyone who trespassed and take anything they found valuable. Some of them even practiced necrophilia in desperation of fulfilling “needs”, one of the reasons he’d burned his sister’s corpse after she committed suicide. Civilization had forgotten a lot of their moral values. They were willing to do whatever they found necessary to survive. It was terrifying.

He walked for what seemed to be hours. The sun was high in the sky by the time he was nearing the edge of the city.  Sweat had soaked through his shirt hours ago, making the fabric stick to his skin irritably. He hated looking at the scenery around him. The desolate wasteland that the once beautiful land had become. There had once been rolling hills of green grass, bunches of live trees, and moving life. Now it was a dead, gray place with potholes in a road, with abandoned and ransacked cars every now and then. More than likely with a lovely human skeleton in it.