A Thousand Endings

The next morning I stretched my limbs to the farthest they could go as I began to return to the living. I yawned and looked around, I was alone in a little bedroom of the abandoned house me and Finley had adopted.It was a little war torn but in pretty good shape overall.
This place was stocked with supplies when we first came here.Thankfully the guy that lived here before us had collected like a hundred sticks of deodorant, which is a good thing.No electricity, equals no showers.The house is located in what I assume was once farming land because of the well, where we get all our water.I wouldn’t be able to know for sure, the land for miles is just dry desert from all the fires and explosions that took place during the war, they were meant to kill all signs of life.I wouldn’t expect to see another form of life anytime soon, along with the lush forests and pastures went most of the humans and animals. Finley and I haven’t come across other humans for almost a year.
I licked my dry lips and walked down the creaky old steps leading to the small downstairs, my body still feeling the sorrow from last night’s horrors.This place had to be a hundred years old and abandoned for at least four.I sat down with a huff at the kitchen table and picked at the peeling white paint of the chair as Fin nibbled on some crackers.He shoved some my way but I opposed to eating with a shake of my head while staring blankly off into space.He sighed as I awaited the scolding sure to come.
“Hayden you have to eat some time”.I turned away. “This isn’t healthy, you need to eat”, he said more sternly while pushing the crackers at me.
“I’m not hungry, really. Anyways, its better I don’t eat considering we’re gonna be out of food soon…”.
“Dennie-“
“No, Fin, what are we gonna do? We can’t starve! And that’s whats gonna !happen if we don’t leave here. We need to leave soon”.
It’s not like this house was bad or anything, it was cozy and served its purpose, I guess I’m just sort of paranoid that the secessionists will find us.That’s what they call themselves, the secessionists, they’re the ones responsible for worldwide destruction. The sound of Fin’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Well what’s the point of starving ourselves before the food is gone, now eat”. I hated when Fin got that bossy, fatherly tone with me.
I gave in and shoved a cracker into my mouth with very unladylikeness all the while giving Fin a death stare.He chuckled and did the same crunching loudly on a cracker and mocking the stare I thought was stone cold but apparently wasn’t. I growled trying to sound fierce but it came out as a weak “grrrrr” and pretended to be mad with my arms crossed over my chest, and my back turned away while I stared at him unblinkingly over my shoulder.This act soon turned into a full blown out staring contest. Which then led to chasing and a well needed but gut splitting tickle delivered by your very own, Finley Jones.
It felt good to clear the air of gloom and our impending hunger, oh and there’s always of course that whole end of the world thing.
I escaped and ran upstairs where I locked the door and began to get ready for the day. I brushed my dark blond, wild and untamable curly hair with my fingers. I padded dirt off of my only pair of clothes consisting of black vans, black skinnies, and an old, blue, fitted tank top, the clothes that I had been wearing when I lost everything, everyone, and all things familiar and comfortable.
With this simple action my thoughts dwelled to the pre-war times.Before the human species had a group of humans as well, hunting them, and when I was just a normal fifteen year old girl.They don’t think of themselves as humans though, they think they’re a different breed sent to exterminate anyone that showed greed in the world, which would be everyone in their eyes.People who didn’t join them were killed by them.First went the people who ran big incorporations, then wealthy people in general followed, after that they went to just killing everyone.The streets of big and small towns burning in pursuit of mass extermination.
It was attempted to end this, everything was greatly affected by the killings, even modern life, certain items started to become rare, the internet showed signs of giving up, and any male over the age of eighteen was forced to war with no training and sometimes not even a weapon.Once that started to fail they forced all the women over the age of eighteen to join, then all eligible people (eligible being not disabled) over the age of fifteen were forced to join.
It wasn’t only the secessionists deciding cruel fates for people, some were committing suicide in treacherous ways or horribly mutating their bodiesand broadcasting it as a sort of sick protest, though I don’t know what dying will accomplish. But we resorted to animal like instincts in these hard times and once enough were doing this the rest followed pursuit and it quickly became the normal before everything just stopped. Just stopped… existing.
You’d think that the uprising of a group like this and with a goal like this would be quickly ended, that did not happen.Armies of all countries tried to stop this, but the idea of greed needing to be put to an end spread like a plague worldwide.Even some whole armies agreed with the secessionists and turned on their country. I thought the U.S would stay strong and free, we were affected worst of all and stayed that way, broken.
We even went first.Now the thing about the United States of America is that we are very powerful and when we fell apart at the seam we had the whole world to follow.Which unfortunately made it easier for the secessionists to kill more people and bring down whole countries in a matter of four years, I am now nineteen.
I don’t allow myself to think about the family I was brutally forced to leave behind, and how I ended up here with Finley.I’m not ready yet.
I solemnly stare at myself in the cracked bathroom mirror, at my freckled cheeks, my small pointed face, the cold crystal blue eyes that stare back at me, the piercings in my nose, bottom lip, eyebrow, and in various places in my ears. I give a nod concluding that that’s as good as it gets and hop down stairs to discuss the plan for today with Finley, hoping that we finally get to leave.

Notes