Alone

Matters

I popped the hood of the car but to only find I didn't know what the hell I was looking at before slamming the hood back down.

As the morning sun rose higher into the sky I began to feel the intense heat of the desert. I tried to start the car a few more times but to no avail.

"Why?!" I threw up my hands and cursed into the sky. "Why didn't you just take me too like everyone else?!"

I sighed and went back to the tent out of the blistering sun.

I had eaten all of the food and I only had two bottles of water left to last... well, until I died out here.

I could try to walk back but there was absolutely no way I'd make it.

There was nothing I could do.

The next day was completely terrible without food and my sleep was worse and so were the agonizing aches in my body. I felt absolutely awful but I kept trying to fix the car until late in the afternoon when I just gave in and collapsed in the tent.

Dan probably hadn't even realized I was gone yet and here I was realizing my inevitable and not so distant death in the desert, I'd only be able to go a few days without water and I only had a bottle left. Being out here in the day dehydrated me so quickly that it was hard to ration it.

But I still had a bottle left.
What was I doing?
Was I already giving up?
I had to try to fight, it didn't matter if I was thirsty or if my body was in awful pain, or if I just wanted to go home.
When did I become like this?

I pulled myself off of the sleeping bag and picked up the last bottle of water.
I could just sit here and die. If I was going to die, it would be trying.

I began to walk following the road from which I had come from only with a flashlight and the bottle of water. It was already dark and cold but at least it wasn't smothering hot and sucking the liquid out of me.

As I endlessly walked I realized something. I had been glad people were gone because I blamed people like Kim Kardashian for being the problem with society. It was me though, people like me were what was wrong with society. People gave up on things too easy if it wasn't just handed to them. Expensive macbooks, iPhones, designer clothes and makeup, it all really meant nothing. They all just left it behind like they're own kind of fossils meaning about as much as a paper weight would of before all this.
People were what mattered, not their man made things. My family mattered, I had spent holidays with them and told them I loved them. I still remember my mom rocking me as a young child and when my baby brother was born. I remember playing Guess Who with my sister on the weekends with my nana that died a few years ago.

Dan mattered, Dan mattered not only to me in this time we've been stuck together but to Phil, and Phil had obviously mattered to him as well. I recalled him mentioning he had a younger brother a little older than me. Maybe he played board games with his little brother too and maybe those memories meant something to him as well. Maybe that's why people had the drive to keep on living, to keep those memories alive.

I decided that even though everyone was all gone and society had ended, I wasn't about to. I wanted to keep living, I wanted to keep my memories and make more. I still wanted to find more people.

I never stopped walking no matter how tired I was. I pushed myself on ward all night, and all morning as I watched the sun rise over the desert horizon.
I just kept going.
I felt like my legs were gone and numb by noon and finally let myself have a drink and a brief rest before trudging onward.
I was practically dragging myself by the time the sun went back down. I thought this was impossible to keep moving this long, but I was trying.
I began to feel sick and finally I had to stop to throw up what little water I had drank. My legs finally gave up forcing me to sit.

I had to keep going, I was so absolutely exhausted, but I had to keep going. I pulled myself up off the ground and stood on my wobbly tired legs and forced them to move.

I kept going but I also had to stop and dry heave a few times as I broke out in a cold sweat and shivered. It felt like the more I pushed myself the worse the shivers got soon ending up in tremor like proportions.

Then it happened.

I felt dizzy and my legs locked up sending me tripping forward into the sand alongside the road. Even though I tried, I couldn't get my body to move, my energy was gone.
I tried so hard to crawl but it only made the dizziness worse.

Was this what it felt like to die? My body throbbed and my head spun.
Would I get to be with my family wherever they were? Or maybe this all was still a dream and If I fell asleep I'd wake up at home in my own bed.
I convinced myself that it would work and I shut my eyes letting everything go black.

I felt light on my face and I heard something that almost didn't seem real.
Chirping.

My eyes batted open but squinted at the sunlight that was coming through my bedroom window.
I looked around my bedroom in disbelief. I was shocked a moment until I heard voices coming from down stairs.
It was my family.
I leaped out of bed and jogged down the stairs and through the living room, into the dining room where my family all sat the table just casually having waffles.

"Look who's finally up." My mom looked up and gave me a smile. I looked at the table and saw there was a spare seat for me with a stack of waffles waiting on me.

I was so happy to see them.

I sat at the table and joined them and actually smiled as my little brother started yelling at our older sister.

"We thought you were never getting up." My dad gave me a chuckle.

"Me too." I told him.

"Well we're glad you woke up in time." My mom now said.

"I'm not." Nate threw in being his normal mean self.

"Shut up and leave her alone." Callie defended me to my surprise.

Wait... what was she doing here? Why wasn't she in college?

Why was dad home this early in the morning? Even if it was a weekend he still wouldn't be here.

The only sounds were clangs of silverware on plates as I froze to look at them just happily eating.

"Am I dead?" The clanging stopped and they all just suddenly looked up at me like I had just said 'fuck you' to each of them.

"Are you alright?" My dad asked me.

"That's a really weird question to suddenly just ask, Ames." Callie said as she gave me a weird look.

"I've been wanting to talk to you about this for a while, but now I'm really worried. I think you're going through depression." My mom said.

"Don't say that in front of the other kids." My dad scolded my mom.

"Please, what does she have to be depressed about? She's a kid." Callie rolled her eyes.

"I'm not a kid." I stated.

"That's right, she's a teenager and they get depressed the most.

"Stop." I almost shouted and then realized I was ruining breakfast, it was my fault. "We can talk about it later, right now let's just eat and be happy." They looked at me weird again. Was me trying to be positive that much of a shock to them?

No.

It was like they were frozen looking at me, like they were robots.

"Guys?" I asked but they stayed frozen.

"Amelia." My mom said suddenly with that same blank stare as everyone else. "Amelia. Amelia. Amelia." She said over and over.

"What?" I asked quietly with fear and hesitation in my voice.

What she said next was what I knew from somewhere deep within me all along.

Edited by: Josiemakattack198