"It's over we can go out."
We cheered and packed some food into bags so we could go out to see what was left of West Virginia.
Dad pushed open the trapdoor of our bunker and we all ascended the ladder.
The light from the sun shone down and I was surprised to see nothing looked different. The trees were in bloom and I guessed it was early spring.
We had survived the apocalypse, but nothing looked different.
"What's going on?" My little brother asked, "Why does everything look the same?"
"I don't know Sammy," my dad said.
And then I saw it.
The first of the ghosts.
The entire planet was filled with ghosts except for us.
They didn't talk. They didn't seem to even see. They just drifted.
"Dad, what are we supposed to do?"
"I don't know, Lucy. I really don't know."
My mom sank to the grass with an anguished look on her face. I sat down next to her and hugged her tightly.
Sam sat down on her other side and my dad sat down in front of her. He pulled us all into a hug.
"We will get through this. There has to be some other people out there somewhere," Dad said.
We didn't get through it.
Sam was the first to go. He contracted a disease that we couldn't treat. Mom and I cried for weeks after he passed.
Then mom started to get really depressed. Her feet dragged as we were trying to find the nearest road to Washington DC. At first we had driven in our family car, but it eventually ran out of gas. Then we started to walk. Mom progressively got worse until she could barely stand on her own. Dad carried her from then on.
She finally got the same disease Sammy had gotten months before, and she was gone within the week.
Every night when I would get up to take watch I would find Dad silently crying. He carried on that way for months. He was in a constant state of shock and anguish. I watch as he slowly dissolved into a mere skeleton as he rarely ate. He didn't last very long after he stopped eating.
And then I was alone.
From what I knew I was the last person alive on Earth.
That's when the voices came.
"You've nothing left to love. Nothing left to live for," they said.
I had their memory. I had happy times in my past.
"Why don't you just end it all?"
I want to see if I really am the last person alive.
"You know in your heart you're the last."
That may be, but it never hurts to try.
"Fine, but you can't get rid of us."
I can ignore you.
I argued with myself for days as I continued in the direction of what I hoped was the capital. My food supplies were running out and the water was nearly gone. If I didn't make it soon I don't know what I would do.
I began eating and drinking less and walking more. I was weakening. The voices were getting stronger.
"You can't do it."
"You're too weak."
"You're going to die."
"Your family is gone."
"Why are you even trying."
I HAVE HOPE! THATS WHY!
I kept going. I walked until I couldn't any more, and then I crawled until I couldn't move at all.
"Where's your so called hope now?"
"Just admit it. We've won."
"You can't even move."
"You're starving. You're severely dehydrated."
"You're dying!"
I know.
I knew I was beaten. There was nothing more I could do, but accept my fate and walk into the arms of death willingly. So that's what I did. As my eyes closed for the last time I saw the ghosts of what people once we're surrounding my body with peaceful looks on their faces like they had been waiting on this moment. It was almost as if they were waiting on me to go with them into whatever awaited us in the afterlife. Right in the middle of them I caught a last glimpse of my little family. Mom had her arms open with a smile on her face like she was waiting on me to give her a final hug. I smiled and let my eyes fall shut.
Goodbye cruel, dark world. I'm finished. Hello warm embrace of death. I'm going to be with my family again.
Written by Morgana.
