Population: Zero

 

 

                I feel the rush of blood begin to pour from behind my legs. The trap slashed me. I have no idea where Shepherd is, but I’m hoping she’s close by. If not, I’m certainly dead, or I will be soon.  “Shepherd!” I cry out, yelling at the top of my lungs. “Help me, I’m in pain!” I hear no response, no barking, no mad dash to come and get me. I was slowly realizing that Shepherd was gone. But I don’t know what exactly carried her off. There aren’t any animals. Not here, and not now. The intense pain was growing rapidly by the second, and soon my legs began to douse themselves deeper into flames.  I gave it one last shot. “She-phe-rd” My voice sounds so faltered that I barely recognize my own tone. Soon, I would be passing out. Soon, I would be facing what I knew was my ultimate fate. Death.

 

                The morning sunlight peaks through my window and lights up my green and blue walls. As it hits my eyes, I slowly begin to roll out of bed. I look at my clock. “10 AM,” I think. “Time to get up.”  Immediately when I walked outside of my door, my German Shepherd, Shepherd, comes to greet me. “Hey girl, where’s Mom?” She suddenly began to whimper. “No, no. None of that,” I say to her. “It’s much too early for all your chatter.” I look around my home, and I quickly notice my mother’s absence. “It’s ok girl,” I tell Shadow as she looks up at me. “Mom will be home soon.” I stride into the kitchen, find the orange juice, and-

 

SNAP. I hear something crack in front of me, as my sudden day dream quickly fades. I had passed out from the amount of blood coming out of legs, and I felt rather numb. The pain quickly came back again as I noticed chunks of barb wire stuck in the gashes. “What was that noise?” I think to myself, beginning to gasp for air. Not only was I bleeding out, but I was in the cold. “Teaches me for not wearing a big jacket.” I ponder. Somewhere in the distance, footsteps are barreling towards me. The sound of military boots scratching at the winter leaves reached my ear drum at record time, as I turn over and see two dimly lit shadows staring over me. One, a human. And the other, my dog. “We found one.” I hear the voice say, as it picks up my stationary body off the concrete.

 

                As I’m being carried by this shadowy figure, I see a tightly strapped gas-mask over his beady eyes. I could still clearly see the man inside the suit, but it made him less visible. “You’re dreaming,” I tell myself. “This is the body guard assigned to carry you to your permanent fate.” Soon I begin to black out. Before I can see where the guard was taking me, I was already dozing in and out of consciousness.

 

                As I take the dog for a walk, there are no cars in sight. “Well,” I say to Shepherd. “You wouldn’t want to be out too early, would you?” As I continue to walk, the suddenly quiet situation begins to hit me a little. “Where is everyone?” I think to myself as Shepherd struts beside me. “Mom’s car wasn’t in the drive way, but where would they have gone?” It didn’t make any sense. As far as I knew, there wasn’t anybody having a city event or anything today. It was going to be a regular, rainy Saturday in the city of Seattle. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. As I continue to walk Shadow, we seem to be all alone. Empty home after empty home, empty parks with no other dogs in sight. As a precautionary measure, I yell at the top of my lungs. “HELLO!?!” Still, there is no response.  Just the breeze passing through its completely silent atmosphere.

 

I awoke to the sharp pain of a kick to the ribs. “Wake up!” I hear a voice say. “What the hell is going on?” I reply. “Oh, you’ll find out rather quickly, actually.” The voice says back. “Man, I don’t know what this is, I don’t even know if this is real or not, just please, I just was bleeding out back somewhere. Give me a break.” I say, finally noticing what my sounds like after not speaking for the past few hours. “So tell me,” I say with faked enthusiasm, “What’s your name?” “Oxford,” the voice says to me. “Sergeant James Oxford.” “I’m Ryan Wilson, a few hours ago I was the last person on the planet.” I call back. “Oh, is that so?” Replies Oxford. “Oh, I know who you are now. Turns out you’re very famous around here. Oh, and about where we are, before you ask that question. We’re in the base of the Last Ones, a group that I work for. We’re assigned to do work, for example, search for human life in the works to sustain the human population. Which actually brings us to you,” said Oxford. “You, lucky you, are our new recruit so to speak.” “So, out of the first humans I had a selection of meeting, God gives me you. Lord help my soul.” I say back. “Whoa, whoa slow your horses there buddy. I have a lot of things I could, well, you know, kill you with.” “Calm down Doctor Who, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves now,” I let out with a slight laugh, mocking Oxford’s English accent. “Now, as much as I like chatting with you, let’s get to knowing one another face to face, shall we?”