Last Chance

She remembers. She always remembers. Every hurt, every open wound. Every festering sore. She can’t help her immune system. Can’t help but to lash out at us.

That doesn’t help when you’re standing at the center of one of the worst storms of the millennium.

I clung to the flagpole, gasping for air through the torrential downpour soaking me to the bone. Leeching the last of the warmth out through my mottled skin, goosebumps forming another layer in an attempt to protect me. A failed attempt. Water ran in rivers down my face, flooding my mouth and nose with every attempt to breathe.

Water rushed around my feet, but I only noticed when I looked down. I couldn’t feel much anymore. Could see even less of what’s happening around me. I couldn’t even see the lights of the emergency vehicles anymore, and they were only a few yards away. They could have moved, I supposed. I wouldn’t have been able to see if they had.

The water around my feet was now an ominous gray-brown, full of candy wrappers, cigarette butts, crumpled soda cans, and scraps of forgotten papers. Homework, graded tests. Report cards that were never intended to make it home. Well, the students had likely not intended for them to make it home. Now they never would.

The sky flashed above me in warning, and I released the tall metal pole, staggering back and falling on my ass in the dirty water. A huge crack split my world into fractured pieces, blinding me for a moment. A series of smaller cracks and crashes followed. I scrambled up, racing for the nearest concrete wall that rose above the water level. The sky rumbled, then cracked, and the world lit up fluorescent white and electric blue as I pulled myself free of the freezing flood, climbing above the water level as the surface hummed, strands of electricity dancing over it. I didn’t recognize the noises rising from the crowds huddled just out of sight–past the curtain of rain. I didn’t want to.

A new, burnt smell mixed with the smell of rain and wet trash. I waited for a while, cautiously shifting along the concrete wall to the next surface rising above the surface. A tree. The branches bent precariously beneath my weight as I climbed, and the smaller ones whipped at me before snapping and flying off into the swirling curtain of rain.

I refuse to be next.

Light cut through the clouds above, briefly illuminating everything around me, slick with a silvery layer of liquid.

The edge of the storm. Or the eye.

Either way, it was headed my way.

I glanced down. I could see the grass through the water, which no longer sparked. The color had turned darker, more of a blackened red. My stomach churned.

Punishment.

Retaliation.

Pollution.

I had nowhere else to go. I slid carefully down the trunk and dipped my toes into the water, swallowing the bile that hit the back of my throat. I crept out towards the street, hopping from one patch of raised ground to the next. The silence crept up on me. No cars. No horns. No buses or trains rumbling by. No chatter of children. None of the warning cries of adults corralling unruly teenagers to safety.

I wandered down the street, following the curve of the hill towards the city center. Surely the firehouse or the police station would have something. The air gradually cleared around me, the sunlight heating up the soaked pavement and sending steam rising around me.

The hair on the back of my neck rose as I neared the last corner. Nothing. No sirens. No shouts for help. No voices at all. No movement. Not even birdsong. Just the steady drip, drip, drip of water.

I took a deep breath before rounding the corner.

Both buildings lay in scattered ruins across the central plaza. Smoke drifted lazily from the police station. One of the fire trucks lay overturned just outside the garage.

The mural on the side of the fire station lay in charred chunks across the parking lot. A mural depicting the history of this land–the natural, untamed wilds tamed by settlers from afar, bringing their drills and trains and explosives, reshaping the land to suit human needs. Draining it of everything it needed to sustain the thriving ecosystem that had once been.

It looked like a targeted, intentional strike. But the pattern of charring suggested another lightning strike. I didn’t dare look too closely at the rubble where scraps of clothing–or worse–had caught on the jagged edges of burnt concrete. I didn’t risk moving any closer. I stood there, staring for a long while. The sun began to sink. As a chill crept into the air, I turned to wade home.

The silence followed me everywhere. Uncanny. Eerie. Chilling.

The house still stood. No one was home. The water damage had not reached the upstairs. Nearly, but not quite. I sat on my bed and stared at the wall. Unseeing. Numb. The cold crept in after me. I stood, rummaging around for dry towels and blankets. Clean clothes. Dried myself off, changed into pajamas, and crawled into bed.

I didn’t sleep. Not really. Eventually, dawn’s light crept into the room. There had been no sound, all night. I rose with the sun, packing a bag of whatever I could salvage.

Not a single vehicle would work after this. So I set out on foot. To find someone. Anyone. I kept my phone unlocked, risking the drain on the battery as I waved it around, searching for a signal. Nothing.

I reached the highway. Swallowed. Turned towards the main city. More people meant more chances of survivors, right?

It took way longer on foot than by car. Especially while having to dodge smoking wrecks.

Where did all the water come from? Where did it go? Why did it happen?

Was this revenge?

Revenge, or a cleansing? Did it matter?

Day bled into night. I took shelter wherever I could. Night bled into day. I set out walking once more. Rinse and repeat.

I raided any building left standing that had a second or third story for food and bottled water. Tried to properly dispose of my trash, but there was no one left to collect the bins anyway.

The city was quiet, too. I camped out where I could, bleeding the resources of one hunting ground before moving to the next.

I finally reached the roof of the tallest building left standing, intending to plot out my next course of action from there.

I saw a woman standing at the edge of the roof. Her graying brown hair danced in the light breeze. My shadow fell across her feet, and she turned to face me.

“Last chance.” She rasped, as if her ability to speak had faded nearly entirely. I just stared at her. “Rebuild.”

“Rebuild where?” I asked. “Where do I go next?”

She pointed off the edge of the roof behind me, into the rising sun.