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[yungreech]

You Read My Mind- 3

There was no optimism left as he made his way towards the stairwell to check the second floor when a soft noise echoed from upstairs. It sounded like someone had stepped on a pile of broken glass -- a soft crunch. Russell approached the stairs cautiously before creeping up the steps, one at a time. Before reaching the last step, he could feel sweat starting to form on his nose. He let out a sigh, “Hello?”, he called out. Silence. Upstairs was a corridor, equally trashed and decayed as the rest of the house. There was a large chunk of concrete missing at the end of the hallway that invited the sharp and bitter air inside. “I uh, I got your signal on the radio”, Russell stuttered. More silence. He was beginning to think he had imagined the noise; maybe the solidarity had finally caused his brain to play tricks on him, to give him false hope. Just then, another noise came through a doorway at the end of the hall. The same soft crunch of glass. Russell held his breath as he tiptoed down the length of the corridor. His hands were clenched around the rough leather grip of his knife, his knuckles bright red, shaking ever-so-slightly. When he was less than a meter from the doorframe, a violent static erupted from his walkie-talkie, causing Russell to jolt back in a mix of shock and panic. “Be careful up there”, the radio spat out. Before Russell could even react, a squirrel darted out scuttling from behind the doorframe. It bounced off the far wall before darting through the hole in the wall, escaping into the open air. “Fuck man, you almost got me killed”, Russell didn’t even speak into his radio, still, he got a response: “you’re scared of rodents now?”, he could make out the cheeky tone through the static. Russell brushed it off before passing through the doorframe; at one point, it must have been a bedroom, but now, it looked as if a tornado had passed through a brick wall. Glass from broken windows cluttered the floor, and the room was circulating with cold air. More importantly, it was empty. Minus a single black portable radio sitting on a chewed up desk. Static erupted from Russell’s walkie-talkie he had clipped around his waist, “That must be where that signal came from”. “You read my mind”, Russell responded as he made his way towards the device. He picked it up with both hands, “It’s fucking broken”, he grumbled. “Nobody is here”, he continued. “Nobody is here!”, this time shouting. “Nobody is fucking here!”, his frustration and anger had boiled over and he was no longer just talking about the abandoned house. “Just calm down, maybe they’re nearby”, the voice through his walkie-talkie rang. Russell pulled the device from his belt clip and launched it at the nearest wall, causing it to erupt and scatter into pieces on impact. “You said there would be someone here”, he cried out, tightroping between rage and despair. “I’m sorry. Just… Just keep looking”, the voice responded, this time there was no static or grain. It was coming right from within his own head. “There is nobody. Nobody here, nobody anywhere in the entire fucking world.”, tears had begun to clutter his vision. “There has to be, there has to be. Please just keep looking.”, the voice was pleading now. “We’ll find someone”, it continued, “I know we will”. After a long pause, Russell let out a deep sigh, “and how do you know that?”. “We can’t be the last person alive... no way”, the voice echoed through his head before tailing off, leaving Russell alone in the room. 

[yungreech]

You Read My Mind- 2

It couldn’t have been more than an hour since Russell stepped into the white forest when he noticed the edge of a a building hiding behind a cluster of trees. The red concrete stood out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of snow-covered greenery. Intrigued, Russell hurried over to it, the cracking of roots and branches echoing in the air as he rampaged over the forest floor. As he approached, he could make out a large grass plain covered in snow, and sitting in the middle was a decaying concrete building. It looked to be the size of a warehouse, lined with moss and spiralling vines as if the forest was slowly swallowing the building in a vengeful reclamation. Without yet getting an up-close look, Russell knew exactly what he was looking at. It was a relic from an old world; a kind of get-away house a young family would visit over a vacation. He unhooked the walkie-talkie from his belt loop, “How close am I?”. There was silence for a few seconds, as if the voice on the other end of the radio was making calculations. “Less than a kilometre. Look for a building or a watchtower possibly”, still grainy, but comprehensible. In a hushed, cautious tone, Russell responded, “Yeah, I think I found what we’re looking for, I’m gonna check inside”. He didn’t await a response before he slogged towards the building. Their conversations were always kept short; strictly business you could say. Russell could only speak for himself, but nowadays there wasn’t much to talk about anyways. Gone were the days of bickering over sports, politics, and crappy television dramas. Shit, he’d even begun to miss arguing over who'd pay the damn bill at a restaurant. But any of that didn’t matter anymore, the only importance now was finding whoever sent that signal. Alive, hopefully. As if his thoughts were being spoken aloud, Russell’s radio rang, “did you check it out yet?”. Annoyed, Russell shut down further conversation with a grumble, “I’m working on it”. 

Inside, the building reeked of a rotten smell. So much so that Russell had to pull the collar of his sweater above his nose to fend off the damp air. Puddles of ice and murky water lined the concrete floors, as did debris from fallen concrete and who knows what else. Russell was in the kitchen soon, or what was left of it at least. The counter had long crumbled apart, and the wooden cabinets were decayed, only the white fridge remained completely intact, albeit covered in moss and dirt. There was not any indication that anyone had been in the house at all, especially not as recently as a few days ago. He checked the living room, empty. Dining room, empty. Russell was alone, a feeling he had unfortunately gotten all too accommodated with.

[yungreech]

You Read My Mind- 1

The low hum of a car motor had begun to sound like a fucking jet engine. There couldn’t have been more than 150 horsepower crammed underneath that rusty hood, but when you’re on the roads so long— alone and with no music to boot— those soft engine whirs start to taunt your ears like a never-ending whistle. Russell couldn’t take it anymore, he took his foot off the gas pedal and let the car slow down before skidding a few meters atop the icy snow-covered asphalt. It came to a stop in the middle of the backroad. Russell pushed the door open and stepped out, placing one boot on the icy road and keeping the other inside the the car to find his balance. At least, that’s what he told himself. Truly, he didn’t exactly know what he planned on doing; he thought about sitting back behind the wheel for a second, then his eardrums cried out in protest and he placed his second boot on the asphalt, shutting the door behind him. “How far’s that signal?”, the words came out raspy and hushed, as if he hadn’t used his vocal cords in days. “Roughly 4 kilometres directly northwest of your position”, the grainy voice came through the speaker of his walkie-talkie with a robotic tone. Russell let out a heavy sigh as he stared down the endless road ahead of him; condensation escaped his mouth. It was cold, but nothing out of the ordinary for the midst of winter in the pacific northwest. What was out of the ordinary was just how quiet it was. The road was enclosed by forest on either side; looming snow-covered trees for miles and miles on end, glaring over Russell as if they were puzzled by his presence. No sounds of leaves rustling or birds chirping, or even car marching down the highway. In fact, the roads in front of Russell’s rust-covered pickup truck showed no tire tracks; just snow. A sort of uncomfortable peacefulness. “I hope someone is out there”, Russell uttered into his radio: an understatement. “That makes two of us”, once again the voice came through robotic and grainy. Russell could have hopped back into the truck and drove down the road to get closer, but the very idea of spending another second alone inside that metallic cage was worse than nails on a chalkboard. “Fuck it, I’ll walk”, he muttered. His radio wasn’t even on.