When the World Ends

Tears

The sky was crying.

Our math teacher had taken us to her home when our parents hadn't come to get us. I had no siblings, but she had a little sister at the middle school, which had not been built to withstand the force of the quake. It had already been an old building in need of being replaced; now, it was the site of burial for so many of the students it had housed.

She had cried. How would she tell her parents? Why hadn't they come to get her?

Our teacher had explained that, due to the quake, roads were most likely blocked. That calmed both of us down, having a reason, and we'd slept--me on the couch, her on the chair.

Our teacher's son had slept in his mother's bed, beside her--he was still frightened and anxious because his father wasn't home.

We stayed there for a few days, with several small quakes occurring throughout the short period of time. She was smart--she suggested to our teacher that we stock up on supplies, because whatever was happening 'could not be good'. So our teacher went out during those few days, and, like millions of other people, bought as many water bottles and canned goods as she could. It took until the event of the fourth day before all order collapsed.

The cause of the collapse: An earthquake more powerful than all of the others tore through many parts the central US. We were hit hard. Buildings collapsed, roads were torn up, people were thrown everywhere. She and I were in the living room; the mother and son in the bedroom they had been sharing.

And when the roof collapsed, it signaled that our world as we knew it was over.

Because in the distance, the sky seemed to have a tint of gray.

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The roof crushed our teacher. Her name was Carly Sanchez. Her death was quick.

Her son, however, had the whole lower half of his body pinned beneath all of the rubble. And he wouldn't stop screaming.

His death was slow, and painful.

We tried everything that we could to save him. Other people tried to help us lift the rubble off, but it wouldn't budge. He screamed for hours. I'll never forget that screaming.

She was the one who asked if anyone had a gun. People shook their heads, but one woman told her to wait and then came back out and handed her a small pistol.

She told Robin that she couldn't shoot a little boy, and that Robin would have to do it herself. And then she said that she couldn't watch, and she left.

The little boy's name was Louis. He was only eight years old.

She pointed the gun at his head, her hand shaking, her whole arm shaking. But before she could pull the trigger, a loud gunshot ripped through the air.

A burst of red.

And a man's voice, saying:

A girl like you shouldn't have to do something like that.

Ah, if only he knew what the world would soon become.

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We left a note for Mr. Sanchez, to tell him what had happened. We didn't know where to put it, so we put it in his mailbox, which was the only thing on his property that still stood.

She hadn't looked at me when telling me what we needed to do: load up all of the water and food we could scavenge into Mrs. Sanchez's car. Grab anything else that might be useful. Then we'd be out of here.

I'd asked her about the roads. She'd said we'd have to use whatever we could and sit out in the car for awhile. While the chaos died down.

I'd said that that was a terrible idea--I thought we should go and look for our parents. She'd stated that they'd have nowhere to go with the roads like this, so we'd be fine with hiding out for a few days.

After a lot of arguing, I'd finally relented.

Which, in the end, kept us alive.

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The cities were a burning mess. She'd managed to drive the car into an area that was neither city nor country--it was in-between. And we'd ended up hiding out for nearly a month, moving the car every few days to a new location--where've we could mange with the roads as bad as they were.

People looted, murdered, stole, and burned everything and everyone. It was our own apocalyptic horror movie. The earthquakes didn't stop; the sky only grew grayer. Breathing was becoming difficult and painful; people with weak lungs quickly grew ill and died.

She'd found us some cheap surgical masks in the ruins of a grocery store. A week or so later, I'd managed to scavenge several gas masks from the ruins of some hardware-like store. Those masks would keep our lungs from filling up with ash.

We quickly learned about the rain. The first time we noticed the sky growing even grayer than usual, I wanted to set out buckets to collect drinking water. But she'd told me no, and explained that she had a premonition and wanted to make sure it was safe.

She'd known it was volcanic because of the ash, I know now. And she'd known that eruptions can cause acidic rain.

I know now the super volcano caused many other smaller volcanoes to erupt, a chain event of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, and the like. So much ash and acidity was put into our atmosphere that day that the rain is only now safe, and even then only barely safe even as far south as I now am.

She'd observed a small squirrel as the rain began to fall. It scampered about in the rain, perfectly fine, it seemed. But the rain was not as contaminated at that point as it would later get.

She still refused to let me leave the car.

When the rain finally stopped, we had been asleep for awhile. She'd woken up a few hours later, and she had quickly tugged on my arm and said, Look, Keane, oh my God oh no this isn't good.

And she'd pointed at the squirrel, which laid bloated and lifeless on the ground.

And my only thought was, Oh, shit.