Soliloquy

Soliloquy

Day 113

8:39 pm

Today was a normal day. Same as the others, pretty much. I woke up. I drank some water. Foraged for some food. I gotta say, I’m getting real tired of granola bars and dried fruit. People couldn’t have kept hamburgers or sushi or something in their cellars instead? 

I took a walk after that. The forest seems to be getting smaller… or maybe it’s just in my head. 

I wish this was all in my head.

I had a good workout before lunch. I can hold a plank for six minutes now — isn’t that amazing? Six minutes. Yeah, Sadie, you’re the damn legend of your time. 

I’ve been getting better with sit-ups, too. I can do about sixty — I’d like to get up to a hundred, at the very least. I probably can, eventually. Lord knows I’ve got the time.

I’m writing, still. Lots. That’s what takes up most of my time, anyways. It’s keeping me going. It’s easier, pretending. All I have to do is focus on my stories. If I get lost in those worlds I can escape this one. 

I’ve kept up with That Was Then, This is Now, but it’s getting kind of tough now. Outsiders was easier, probably cause I know that story like the back of my hand. The sequel, not as well as I thought. I guess I should have expected some type of difficulty in writing down a whole book with nothing but my memory.

But I never really liked the ending much, anyway, so I’m thinking I might give it a little twist. Some of my own flair. Rewrite it my own way.

It’s funny how I can do everything and anything so long as it’s in a storybook. 

Day 126

I can't do it. That Was Then, This is Now, I can't do it. I can't rewrite it — I don't even remember half of it. It’s all blurring together, all of it.

I can barely remember why I started doing this in the first place. It’s not like anyone else is ever going to read it. For the future generations — ha! What future generations? 

What future?

Day 149 

I slept for three days. Can you believe that? Three days — what have I turned into, a damn bear? Hibernation. That’s the low I’ve stooped to. Goodbye record plank time. I don’t even remember dreaming — that’s the crazier part. I used to have nightmares when I slept. Especially of the incident. But then that got blurry, too, and I started dreaming up memories. But now those are blurry, now those are also going away. And so I dream of nothing. 

I don’t want to forget.

Oh, god, I don’t want to forget.

Day 156 or 157 

No, I really might be 158. I’m losing track — I lost my tally sheet. I was keeping track of all the days since the incident. I can’t believe I lost it. How the heck did I lose it — I own little to nothing now. 

Day 160/62/64/65

So… I jumped off a bridge today. Yeah, that’s right. I was walking and I just happened to cross over a bridge. It was pretty high, maybe twenty, thirty feet. I don’t know. But I stood on the edge and I looked down and I thought it might be worth a shot. So yeah, I jumped. F-ing cannonballed, I did. 

I landed on my shins and my face, smack dab in all the mud — that tasted phenomenal, by the way. It only hurt a little bit, though. 

But… I wasn’t scraped at all. No bruises, blood — nothing. 

A thirty foot jump.

What is wrong with me?

Day 170-something

I just remembered. It’s on a wall. I made my tallies on a wall. 

I found it this morning. The small brick wall at the edge of the forest.

It had collapsed.

In the 190s, I’m pretty sure

I am M&M. I’m seeing things. Spiders. I'm a hippie. The earth is all I have left. 

Hey, that’s damn good.

I should be a writer. 

I have no idea when

I tried again today. It didn’t work. 

It didn’t fricking work.

I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I found a knife and I stared at it. I stared and then suddenly it was grazing my wrist and there was blood and I think I was screaming, I’m not sure.

But it’s weird — I couldn’t actually feel any pain. I couldn’t even feel the blade of the knife. 

I think I’ve forgotten how to feel now.

Why won’t the universe let me kill myself?

I had a brother. I just remembered. He had freckles and blue eyes — his eyes were so damn bright. They were the type of blue that were almost repulsive to look at, the color was so startling. My mother had blue eyes, too, I think. 

I don’t remember what color mine are.

I woke up with something wet on my face. Specifically on my cheeks. It felt vaguely familiar, like I’d woken up that way before. 

I had a dream night, the first one in a long time. I was at a baby shower; it was at a big house packed with crowds of people. It must have been a girl — everything was decorated in pink frills. 

I was walking through the house for a while, just looking around. There were some pictures of me, oddly enough; on the fireplace mantle, in frames on the walls. The refrigerator. 

I had a small gift box with me. I don’t know what was inside it. It was wrapped with pink ribbon. I handed it to a large woman — well, large as in pregnant. She accepted the gift with a smile and hugged me, and when she drew back, I noticed the bright blue color of her eyes. 

She started saying something to me, but I never knew what it was; I couldn’t hear her. Her lips were moving but I couldn’t hear her.

And then I woke up.

Oh my god.

I was gonna have a sister.

I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know what time it is. I can't remember where I am and I can barely remember my own name. I don’t know why I keep writing in this stupid journal — no one will ever read this or any of my other stories. It’s no use pretending, it’s no damn use. 

I don’t understand any of this. Why can’t I die — why did I die? I’ve tried to kill myself multiple times — I jumped off a bridge, I slit my wrists, I stopped eating and drinking and I won’t die. The entire world was wiped out by a killer disease but I survived. I’m the last human. No, I’m the last living creature on the earth ever. There’s nothing left. There’s nothing left, except me. 

I don’t understand why. I don’t want to be. I can’t be anymore. Why me? Why anyone?

Why everyone? 

I can’t do this anymore.

I’m going to sleep.

And I swear, I better not wake up. 

“Excuse me? Excuse me, miss, are you alright?”

Sadie blinked her eyes open groggily. “Huh?” she murmured, still half-asleep. 

“What’s your name?”

“Um… Sadie.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken aloud. 

“I’m Frank.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard another voice, either. 

Something wasn’t right. 

“Who are you s’posed to be?” she asked, finally looking up at the boy. He was crouched down next to her, his shaggy brown hair falling into his deep brown eyes. He looked to be about eighteen, nineteen years old, somewhere around her age. 

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I haven’t seen you before, I don’t think,” she answered, studying him closely. He didn’t have any freckles. 

“Well –”

“In fact, I haven’t had a dream as vivid as this in a while.”

Frank’s frown deepened. “Dream?” he repeated.

“Um, yeah,” Sadie said. His eyes met hers, and they looked gazes for a moment. They were close enough so that she could see her own reflection through his eyes. 

She did have blue eyes.

Something was off.

“Can you feel this?” he asked.

“What –”

And suddenly he touched her. 

His palm was warm and soft against her bare hand. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched her, except in the baby shower dream. But even then, when she’d been hugged she hadn’t actually felt it.

Oh my god. 

“Get off of me,” she snapped. Frank retracted his hand as she stood up abruptly. 

“This is real, Sadie,” he said.

“Shut up.”

“Sadie, come back.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Sadie, just listen to me –”

“This is a dream! This is all in my head; you are just in my head! I’m going to pinch myself and I’m not going to feel anything, because none of this is real.”

But her hands were shaking. They shook so much. Then she realized it wasn’t just her hands, but her whole body reduced to tremors. Her heartbeat quickened as she stared at her hands, watching them tremble.

Then Frank reached out and pinched her.

“OW!” she yelped, leaping backwards. She rubbed her arm.

What a jerk! Why would he –

Holy crap.

“I told you.”

She’d felt it.

Pain.

She could feel again. 

But that means –

Sadie forced her gaze upon Frank. His expression was soft and sympathetic. “You’re not alone anymore,” he whispered. 

Her lip quivered. A million thoughts raced through her head, and a million emotions flooded her heart. Her gaze swiveled over to a small collapsed wall by the edge of the woods. It was her wall. She could just make out the faint scratches she’d engraved on the bricks, numbering her days.

After all this time…

The only thing she could manage to croak out over the thick layer that had formed in her throat was a singular word of disbelief:

“What?”

Frank gave her a sad smile. “I know it’s a lot to take in. It was hard for me, too, at first. We’d all spent hundreds of days since the incident isolated and alone, each of us thinking we were the last humans on earth. But – we’re not.”

She only heard one word. “We?”

“Hey, Frank!”

Suddenly a figure emerged from the woods – a human. A girl, accompanied by two other girls and three boys. 

People.

There were more people. 

“We were like a bunch of people makin’ up one big person, like we totaled up to somethin’ when we were together.”

It was coming back to her. That Was Then, This is Now – it was coming back to her.

“We were like brothers, not just you and me, but all of us together. We woulda died for each other then.”

She remembered. 

Maybe she hadn't ever forgotten.

“The difference is that was then, this is now.”

The group came to stand behind Frank. More and more of them kept emerging from the woods. He extended a hand out to her, inviting her in. 

Sadie stared at his hand. This isn’t how this is supposed to end. “Then” is supposed to be good, and “now” is supposed to be bad. 

She glanced over her shoulder to the dilapidated tent where her home had been for almost a year. Her diary lay shut on the ground. 

She had found she had no qualms about leaving it behind.

Her vision blurred slightly, and she realized her face was wet again. Tears.

She was crying. 

It was over.

She extended her own hand out shakily to Frank. He accepted, but instead of leading her away, he pulled her into a hug.

It's over.

Day 1

I got a new diary. I left the other one behind – I don't need those stories anymore. Those were a lifeline. I'm not attached to it anymore; I have new ones to write.

So it turns out I’m not the only one who wasn’t affected by the disease. There’s almost thirty of us here in Roanoke: people of all ages, too. Frank says there have got to be more people out there, not only in the States, but the whole rest of the world. He himself had been all the way down in Savannah – he’d walked across two states, hoping and searching for more survivors.

I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t found me. If we all hadn’t found each other. 

I guess… 

I ended up rewriting the ending after all.

We did.