The dim bunker is enveloped by grim silence.
"How long is it since I last saw daylight? Or any other kind of light? I have no recollection of how many days, or even months have passed. This is what they want, right? Make us lose track of time... forgotten in this damn bunker.
I stand with my back against the wall on top of a dead body. I do not know whom it belongs to. This should be good, though. The lack of concern sooths my remorseful, guilty conscience. A lie which is becoming weaker and weaker with each passing moment, stuck in my throat. I break down there and then. I know what it is. By the look of the frail, gaunt body, it appears to be a child. Could it be alive still, I wonder? I do not know, I do not care. Or do I?
I no longer feel cold. Do I have frostbite or is it getting warmer? Fifty people trapped in a cramped room can get warm, can't they? Answer me!
How long has it been?
Time. This goddamn time!
Nobody is telling me anything. Perhaps all of them are dead and I'm next."
The stench of rotten bodies is hovering in the air, permeating everything. It pervades skin, hair, nails. Even the mind is enshrouded in a cadaveric stink. Whomever it touched smells like dismay, anguish, and regret.
"From a corner I can hear the morbid sound of chomping. The body I am standing on is suddenly yanked aside. How many of us are there left?"
All of a sudden, a loud thump echoes in the room, growing stronger and stronger until it turns into a crack of broken bones and blood gushing on the filthy floor covered in human remains. The sound of a falling body indicates that once again a doomed soul is putting themselves out of their misery.
"Under normal, life-like circumstances I would have shouted at him. I would have shown sympathy and urged him to go on. Nevertheless, no such thing can be done here in the bunker, for we are no longer human. He got away with his ticket much faster. I burst into hysterical laughter. How sweet it is, laughing in a place where Death is dancing and life is pure comedy.
I would sell my soul to the Devil to find out what time it is. How long have I got left? Can I make it? Hunger pangs are tearing my stomach apart. I bend over, my hand still leaning against the wall and I reach for the cold floor. I touch the child's leg. Should I go for a bite? I keep groping in the dark, but above the knee, I can only feel a bone and the torn skin around it.
A gooey pool of blood encompasses the lacerated member, removed from its body. I get up fast, my hands around my stomach. I break down and start crying to myself – or at least that is what I thought. The tears running down my cheeks are not salty as they are supposed to. The taste of death is burrowing in the deep cracks of my chapped lips.
I can hear a woman retching in the pitch darkness. The horrifying sound makes it seem like she is spewing out her guts. The virus is starting to manifest itself. The gush of liquid comes to a halt with a sound similar to that of a body collapsing on top of many others. There is a slow slurp from the same place the diseased woman threw up early.
"Why are they doing this? Why are they sipping? What for? They do not know what time it is anyway. Time. Our savior or even better yet, our God. We are no longer humans, but animals. We are driven by our primal instinct – surviving at any cost.
What are we, exactly? A haughty, detached disease, condemning its own kind to the worst pains only to find out what it feels like? If not that, then what? People will go to any length to keep living their miserable, worthless lives. Nobody knows that better than I do. One second for us is an eternity in the realms of Heaven. It goes beyond reason how humanity can stoop so low. What were we now? A living proof that...
What? Who?
I can feel the firm touch of a hand. He is groping for my legs, going up against my feeble body until he reaches my face. He gets closer, putting his head against my breast. My breathing slows down, but horror settles in. I start breathing faster and faster, gasping for air.
He stands still in front of me and clasps my entire head.
There he is – I finally learn what time it is. I have acquired full knowledge. I am a God. Nothing can derail me away from my journey. I have seen and I have touched, I have heard and I have felt how Hell itself lives among us. It is not down somewhere, it is here, inside of us.
I do not fight back. The end enthralls me and I am now tranquil. "Come, death, come..." I whisper in the palm of the towering man.
He slams my head against the wall. Blood starts running across my face. The familiar drip is the final sound I am aware of. My skull is splintering under the weight of his crush."
