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properantagonist · 2 years ago

Text

Never look back

One. Apotheosis of lost hope.

Name pronunciation:

I have decided not to translate the names, just because the story takes place in Poland, unlike most in the genre that center around North America.

Bielecki – pronunciation bi·e·lets·ki, a generic surname meaning something like “White” or “Whiteman”;

Shroomz – the only translated name in the story, originally Grzybek, translation literal;

Zuza – pron. zoo·za, short for Zuzanna (Polish form of Susan);

Szymo – pron. shi·mo with a super short i, like in the word “bit”, short for Szymon (Polish form of Simon);

Lis – pron. lee·s, meaning fox. Likely from a surname like Lisowski or Lisiecki, or from red hair. I haven’t really thought about it too deep;

Łezka – pron. wes·ka, meaning teardrop;

Juliusz Słowacki – a Polish poet; he is often made a patron of institutions due to his importance in Polish literature history.

✨🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑✨

Our world has turned into dust.

Many have snapped, given up. The streets were paved with corpses – hangmen hung up or fallen from trees, houses full of entire families poisoned with carbon monoxide and loners swimming in their own blood.

First came the mentally vulnerable. Next, those physically impaired. Elderly couples gnawed up to the bone, laying on sidewalks, dragged out of their homes. Paraplegic bodies hauled out over city greenery, inhumanly distorted, turned into a bloody mayhem, almost voluntarily, because they lacked the strength to fight back. The groggy junkies were easy to find underneath bridges and overpasses. Those ill and recovering in the hospitals, left behind by nurses and doctors as easy prey, were the ones fighting back for the longest. They had the blessing, or maybe a curse, to get that last chance. The faintest, pale glimmer of hope. The bravest lasted a month. They ran out of water soon afterwards. Children on the other hand were seen rarely, if ever. They were the ones protected at all costs.

For half a year I had been stationing in a nearby school. We had a group of around forty people, mostly families with children and shitheads my age.

Most of the refugees found the school shelter thanks to the enormous banners made of bedsheets that we’ve hung from the roof. At first there were only we, the biology class and the physics teacher. The rest of the students started panicking after the usual emergency routine had failed. They went running, likely in the direction their homes, but it was too late. Bielecki kept us locked up in the classroom till the evening. He instructed us to call our parents, yet we were answered by nothing but silence. Some of us were crying, trying to reach the other end for hours. I knew it was unlikely anyone from the outside was actually going to survive for long, and I had accepted it. We left the class only the next morning.

We quickly realised that the power went off in the middle of the night. We were lucky to had been stuck inside with an engineering professor who would find technological solutions for us. Mobile phones were forgotten soon after, because our first and most important rule was to not waste any drop of juice from that 50-year-old generator we found in the school basement.

Nobody yet knew how serious the situation was. Nobody knew the people falling like flies for an unknown reason were supposed to come back to life.

On the fifth day Bielecki ordered us to paint the banners. We’ve decided democratically that a bigger group will grant us safety, that’s why we decided to look for survivors. We didn’t even consider using a radio, our limited power supply was too precious. It took a couple of days for people to start rolling in. People had started coming out of their houses.

Officially, we were under quarantine. In practice, there was likely nobody else left to enforce that.

Bielecki had fallen on the fifteenth day. While he and the strongest of boys were trying to clean out the school yard of corpses, out of the blue one of the bodies moved. It bit Bielecki in the arm, tearing a chunk of his tissues off. The corpse was all swollen, the pressure had pushed its eyes out of its sockets, its sickly green skin had cracked, painting its surface with blackened stretchmarks. Nobody yet thought that this thing could ever attack anybody. They missed one simple detail, its torn out tongue. It had likely bitten it out of its own mouth, way before it would have swollen together with the rest of its body, allowing it to now chew on human meat. It no longer needed to speak, nor to swallow. It bit off its own tongue as a price for tearing into living flesh.

So they rushed back into the building, holding Bielecki as if he was the Christ in Pietà. I never spoke a word. I already suspected what was about to happen. Bielecki spoke in high pitch, assuring everyone that it was going to be alright, that he was going to heal, he pleaded with teary eyes. That same night the moans started, the cold sweat and the torment. Up till the eighteenth day they moved him farther and farther away with each night. Eventually, he ended up in the school nurse’s office. The next morning, when they carried him out of there headless, we all knew. We knew that since that night nobody will leave the office alive. But that’s the way it had to be done. The rapture of the spinal cord was the only salvation and the only remedy there was for our epidemic.

Day thirty first. The group had expanded to thirty four people. Shroomz was the one keeping up with the refugee list, he also took responsibility for food rations and water supply. The rest of the class trusted him the least out of the entire group. Back in the normal days he would bear the role of a class accountant, a common thing in Poland. He collected the money for school trips and minor class events, oftentimes cheating and spending it on his own whims. Now he had the opportunity to feel important, since Bielecki’s death he was in charge of nearly everything from a comfortable pedestal, without getting his hands dirty once. They called him Shroomz for an obvious reason. He used to bring hallucinogens to those huge, crazy teen parties the students used to throw. Most of them liked this type of shallow entertainment, I never did. But I didn’t blame them.

Zuza had gathered a group of new friends. We used to be close, up till the day the world stopped. One thing I can give her, she had the ability to turn the worst situation around to her own advantage. Her new friends were most importantly useful. They carried her things, arranged bigger food rations, stood by her side in internal group conflicts. Honestly, I never wished her any harm.

Szymo got that chance of feeling important as well, considering the biopolitical climate. He was wide as a doorway and built like a brick house, with his voice low and stentorian. He failed a year a few times, eventually they kicked him out. Yet, in these times that provided a rather positive outlook on survival, at least up to a point. There was no reason to believe he had lived through the initial wave, then he appeared on the horizon, bringing with him the final pack of eight people.

This was the end. There was nobody left.

Everyone who could have come, came before the thirty eighth day. After that none more came. We knew there had to be someone else, that one day we would have to fight for shelter or resources, but we didn’t really think about it at the time.

Months went by.

Nobody ever came.

I remember the night Lis mentioned the late Bielecki. “You’re all so naive” he spoke. “You’re vastly overestimating your chances, the resources are running out. What would Bielecki say if he saw you now?”

Then there was silence. Szymo stood up, rising over everyone like a tower. Lis glanced at him judgingly, continuing “I’m not ashamed of my opinion. Nor am I afraid. I don’t care if you beat me up to a pulp.”

I knew perfectly well what he really wanted to say. School kids frenzied in their self-proclaimed, totalitarian regime were blinded by their own pride. I myself have had enough, but was too afraid to stand up to a group carried on the backs of a bunch of thugs.

That night I sneaked out of the canteen-makeshift-nightshelter praying not to be spotted. I counted every step between the sleeping bags scared out of my mind. Zuza had stopped letting people out a while before, the only exception being the resource expeditions that only former students could make, and not all of them may I add. The families were kept in the dark and convinced it was all for their good and safety. In reality, it was all about control.

I escaped in the early morning hours, not looking back. I ran in a random direction until my legs refused to carry me any longer. I ran as tears soaked my cheeks and I wailed, I shrieked and I wept, I wept until I could no longer. I didn’t care that noise attracted the dead. At that moment the only thing that mattered was my freedom.

When I fell over onto the ground among brutalist, grey blocks, I realised I unconsciously drifted towards my past home. The school was around five kilometres away, but with rushing adrenaline that distance felt like nothing. My weeping attracted a creature, not at all a corpse. From amidst the bare walls and sparse greenery came my little Łezka. She recognised my voice, undoubtedly. I remember when we used to let her out for a night sometimes, and so we did in the eve of the world’s end, that time she did not show up in the morning. She had known before any human could. She was a loner most of her life, the past couple of years, however, she started following me like a loyal dog. Despite her years, she fought fiercely and till her last breath. Somehow, she survived all those months.

I decided it was a good idea to check out our old flat. I wasn’t hoping to find my parents alive, nor any food scraps. I took only some dry and shelf stable stuff, a medium pot and a sleeping bag. When I exited, Łezka was waiting in the exact spot I left her.

Łezka was leading me out of town. She was leading me into the woods and I trusted her completely. It was the middle of summer, according to our closest calculations around the beginning of August. I was sure that the next couple of weeks were going to be easy, even sleeping under the stars. We were surrounded by the forest and coming close to the city’s border.

I hadn’t left the school building in months. The outside world seemed so unreal, emerged from a dream and coated in lies that we were fed for weeks. The expedition team was telling us horrible tales about the hoards of dead, extreme conditions and countless dangers. All of that was just an illusion created solely to keep us in line. As I walked, I heard nothing but silence. The emptiness was nearly painful. The quiet and only the music of cricket violas. When I stopped for a little moment, Łezka would cry after me from the front, afraid to lose me. The bodies were nowhere to be found.

The bodies started emerging as we entered the countryside. They weren’t those moving, half-living creatures ready to attack. They were merely scraps of bone and rotten meat that barely held up. The view was horrid, yet not as repulsive as the repugnant stench. The houses were insufferable to stay in even for a moment. That was the exact moment it came to me, I knew it for certain. I was alone. What was more, I’ve managed to figure out that the dead stopped being dangerous in a very specific moment, the moment when their brains turned from a human organ to formless brown goo.

And it hit right then and there. The questions about my own form and existence. I exist, I’ve been crammed into that vulnerable physical form, but what really defines me? What really is life and human existence? Surely not that fleshy ragdoll which carries all the life’s juices. Am I just a pile of memories, experiences? Or sights? Or tastes? Or am I a hypercorporeal helmsman exceeding all of humanity’s knowledge? Do I really cease to exist irrevocably in the second my brain stem stops to conduct? If so, what are those corpses?

What is life if not a chain of events that matters only as much as a speck of dust in the wind that carries the existence of all?

What is death if not just another transition of the eternal, immortal energy of the universe?

And we slept in the bushes, together with Łezka, no sleeping bag or bedding. This was the end, there was nobody left to bite. In the morning, we woke up still smelling the air carried by the wind from the city full of rotting corpses. And we set out on the trail again.

The woods were murmuring with bird songs and distant howls. It seemed as if nature sighed with relief after the fall of humanity. The critters weren’t bothering us, and we weren’t bothering them. And the animals all sounded and looked beautiful. The rupture of the spinal cord was indeed the only salvation and the only remedy for our epidemic. The epidemic, as I had realised, wasn’t death, nor were the diseases that carried it. It was humanity itself. The real epidemic was the life, and that was effectively eradicated by the rupture of the spinal cord right below the occipital bone. Humanity was the disease of this world, and the Earth was trying to find a cure for centuries, in vain. In vain up to a point, because this time it was successful.

As we walked, we’ve seen houses after houses, all empty. Those that were ransacked were easy to identify by their open doors and broken windows. Sometimes we’d stumble upon those that were untouched, typically those hidden or difficult to reach. Those truly pictured the dreadful nature of lost life. Life torn apart like a ribbon snipped by the scissors of fate.

You would enter those by breaking the window. It was necessary to find a heavy rock, then bang on the window as close to the corner as possible, sometimes more than once. Then you’d take an old blanket and break the bits and pieces further, pushing them inside. Modern windows weren’t as easy to break as they used to be.

And you would finally enter the house, and see all the fallen trinkets, drawers left open in hurry with traces of clothes still in them, open cupboards. But you’d also see scorched logs in the fireplace, unwashed pots on the stove and books still on the tables.

Then again, the same emptiness. You’d like to believe that in the ashes of civilization there are some wandering spirits left. The truth is that behind the gate of apocalypse there is nothing but vacuum and blackest void, ice cold to the touch.

Autumn came. I had no idea how many days really went by since the escape, nor what month it really was. Łezka stayed with me loyally and we went from building to building looking for shelf stable food. Survival was easy, most shops were left stocked up at least halfway, which let me deduct that barely anyone, if anyone at all, survived.

Loneliness. At first it was a blessing.

After a couple of weeks it irritated the nape like the moist, cool air of a fall evening.

Loneliness like a fake friend – takes time to see its true face.

Not that I missed the vile scum of former friends. Maybe somewhat. In the face of deaf, distressing silence even they seemed worthy of a chance.

Łezka tried to comfort me, jostling my thigh with her tiny head and licking my hands. She did more for me than any human could, but I still felt so... Empty.

I felt like a traitor, not appreciating my best and only friend only because she was a cat. Is company of those my kind really that important?

Loneliness tastes wholely different when you know you can stray off your beaten path or turn back and meet a lone hermit or a homeless person looking for shelter, and you will always find a sparkle of life. All of them were dead. None of the roadside ecosystem survived, against the dead we needed palisades.

Loneliness was like a drug. It lulled with gentle serenity in opioids’ image, at first it flooded you with euphoric bliss. I danced intoxicated with happiness through forests and meadows, enjoying my freedom to the fullest. I cried of joy freed from the chains of human regime, from the steel bars of self-proclaimed government of influence-hungry, barely grown-up kids. Yet, it’s easy to choke on the bitter medicine of loneliness. I didn’t see the bigger picture at that time, I didn’t see that the entirety of the situation was indeed caused by nothing less than the loneliness all along. So I’m choking, now I’m choking on the bittersweet milk infused with the sleepy narcotic which is the distant vision of death. Now that it’s too late to turn back.

Isn’t this what people are typically so afraid of? To die alone? Isn’t this quite indisputably the best alternative? When all you’ve loved is gone, death seems like so much less of a burden.

I was religious once. Now that I pass countless churches and chapels, seeing the piles upon piles of dead believers, or rather whatever’s left of them, I mock them in silence. Once I entered a church, once at the beginning of my travels. I saw rows of decaying precants, like meat puppets in the illusory theatre of faith, with blackened meat peeling off of their bones. It didn’t surprise me to see the preacher in the back room, barricaded with thick tomes and candelabras. Lies, all this. Lies. It’s true that faith itself won’t feed your children, but at this point it’s all about the illusion of it, about the institution. There were times when people killed en masse fell victim to this obnoxious farce. Men hanged, women drowned. In the name of what?

Our world has turned into dust, and we watched it crumble. Should we have fallen with it? Wasn’t it our inglorious fate to die while we still could keep our dignity?

What is dignity if not a straw puppet sewn from false constructs of society?

Loneliness has torn the cloak of dignity off all my former friends, but I didn’t realise, up to the point when it was too late, how much it did the same with me. It tore to the bone.

All civilisations fall, sooner or later. They fall typically not long after their golden years. But there’s always someone left to tell the tale. Cities rise from ashes, nations from genocides and epidemics. Was this our definitive end?

Autumn has reached the point when all the leaves turned regal shades of oranges and reds. From there it was only supposed to get worse. I was enjoying the luminous wonder of dying greenery while I still could. The temperature was dropping at an hourly rate. I was circling about amongst the falling leaves, I laughed and I cried. I lamented, drowning in pools of moist, fiery red leaves, until I had no tears left to cry.

I was asking myself time and time again. What about them? What about the group from Juliusz Słowacki high school? I never hoped they would survive any longer than I will, at the time I escaped their closest surroundings were already depleted of resources.

One sentence kept echoing in my head, a sentence whispered by Lis during the night of my escape. “Run, run while you can – never look back.” Run and free yourself, at least you, at least for a second.

Water.

Flowing water.

I started hearing streams of water on the sixth day after the last leaves had fallen.

We were in the middle of the woods. I had no clue of our location, nor our next direction. We still had a stash of rice and something like fourteen packs of beef jerky we picked up at the American market. We were ready for the journey. We were aiming to reach the next big city for the past couple of days, but it quickly turned out that the horizon seems to fall a lot closer than we could have guessed. I still didn’t accept the fact that we were lost.

The murmur of the stream seemed so close. Too close to miss that opportunity.

It started snowing. I didn’t even realise how low the temperatures had dropped. But my jacket was warm, Łezka had her winter coat and we were safe. We spent the nights together, with her tucked into my sleeping bag. We kept each other warm.

Every morning I woke up to the sound of the stream. We pushed forward relentlessly, we pushed in the direction of the water. The rumble of the stream seemed to form bizarre intervals, a music undeserved by human ear.

It seemed to had been calling my name.

Water.

Flowing water.

Voices?

I was thinking a lot about my parents who stopped picking up the phone when the world ended. After all those months a spark ignited in me, maybe they survived somehow. But I wasn’t grieving. I was no longer grieving anything.

All had wilted. And so did hope. Our world had turned into dust.

All life halted. Piercing, dreadful screams of citizens being torn to pieces had fallen silent. It was almost poetic. Like a politician, like a beggar, all devoured by the cruelty of fate.

And people say that hope dies last. There was nothing left, not even people, cities stood in ruins. And all had died, so did the hope, but it would seem that it had died before everything else.

Was the flowing stream my personal hope? Was that the reason why I kept pushing forward? I had given up everything, there was nothing left, and still, I heard the voice pulling me with it, farther and farther into the unknown.

Somehow, the chill of air moisture and the cold leaking through my boots couldn’t compare to the cold of nothingness. Łezka was getting cold, so I carried her inside my oversized coat. Thanks to her I could feel the cold only in my extremities, subtle fluxes of numbness easily combatted by a few energetic movements.

Water.

Flowing water.

A voice...? That of Lis? A voice calling my name.

And there is nothing left, only a silent, ice cold and blackest void. And the dust on the streets turned to mud, and the snow mixed with the mud leaving a grey slush.

We stopped for a bit, just to rest. Never directly under a tree, that’s what they taught us during school workshops with search and rescue officers, so that you won’t fall into a tunnel of loose snow. I comforted myself time and time again that we will eventually emerge from the woods and the city will be right below us, but the trees only seem to grow thicker. My hands stiffen even in my fur mittens, my legs slowly refuse carrying me any longer.

And I can still hear the rumble of water. Or maybe... Maybe it’s the sound of our crumbling world.

From afar I can hear Lis talking to me. “Are you awake? Look at me. Say something” he calls. But I can no longer move.

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