a quiet world

I breathed heavily in the dusty, dark, attic, my mind spinning all around. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t take the mask out. It was too dangerous, COVID was lingering all over this apartment. The stale air, the worn out posters peeling slowly by slowly and the especially large tree trunk jutting in from the broken window, just waiting to take me out. I sighed, adjusting the black oval veil on my face, reminding myself what I was here for. Cleaning up this dreadful attic, creating a somewhat livable space for me and the rest of my “friends”. And by friends, I mean the people who had lived and survived through the same epidemic as I had. Earlier, I would have been annoyed at the number of people I saw while walking the streets of England on a daily basis. Roads crowded, traffic nuances, bustling and intolerable long lines. Now? Now…I just felt an eerie sense while walking down the same streets.

It was strange, seeing rusted shops that were once so full of life and broken down cars that were once inhabited by families. Knowing that the same shops will never be filled or that the same cars would never be inhabited was a different kind of pain, but that was just my way of feeling empathetic.

At least the government was working now - determined as ever from the loss of their loved ones and from the pitiful state of the world to bring a vaccine to end COVID. Sometimes I wondered how far they’d gotten, but then again, I might not be alive to see the cure in all its glory. However, today was the day that an announcement was coming up on radios and I heard that it was going to be a somewhat good message

I shook my head roughly, looking around. This attic was seriously messing with my head. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up about the announcement because of someone’s unreliable whisper. I placed my gloved hands on the dust-ridden table in front of me, trying to ground myself back into the present. The cracked mirror stared back at me - watching as I took four deep breaths, trying desperately not to lose myself. There was one and a half hour left, before we all gathered round at Abbey road to hear about the announcement. Plenty of time for me to scourge out this alley and hopefully keep my sanity intact.

Avoiding the shards of rusted glass from the mirror and the spiky tendrils of the tree branch was quite hard. I finished all levels below this house, the first floor and the second floor. It was clear that whoever had lived here was quite rich, and it was surprising that the house was still intact, seven months after the final and most damaging wave of COVID.

Looking around and cleaning up was time consuming as most of the attic was a parade of dust mites. I paused, seeing something out of the corner of my eye - it was a book, but it wasn’t the type of book you’d throw away after one glance. It was a black-and-white striped book that had stickers on the cover. The sticker’s vibrant colour was greatly dulled due to the dust collecting around it, but I could tell that it had probably belonged to a child or a teenager. Brushing my glove through the cover of the book, leaving a clean swipe through the grime, was when I saw a sticker clearly. It was a sticker of a distorted face, much that of a fifteen or sixteen year old. I couldn’t make out much except for the fact that it was probably a girl due to the long hair which was in the shape of a braid. The strong urge to open the book was sudden. Leftover curiosity, perhaps, but I was intrigued to find out more about this family whose house I was currently trespassing on.

I hesitated.

Reading someone else’s words, thoughts, feelings felt wrong - but it was also interesting to see a kid’s point of view of the virus. Messed up? Probably. But would it harm anyone? Probably not, right? Plus it might give us some more information on this house and its former inhabitants. Anyways I needed a break, I had thirty minutes before reporting time.

I opened the diary and started reading.

26th March, 2020 -

i don’t know what my mother's plan was in getting me this book - whether to distract myself from the new virus that is “spreading” around the world, or just something to keep me busy at home (she said i could use it to “get things out”). this virus has been around since the end of last year, but apparently now more cases are coming and the government has issued a holiday for 2-3 weeks

i guess that's the only good thing about coronavirus - schools shutting down for a while. i heard that online school will start from this week onwards though, which could probably go well or it could be super boring. It’s like they’re caging us in and restricting us. we’re barely allowed to go outside now

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It was difficult to read, as the writing was fairly muddied and some parts after this excerpt were blocked out, but I continued.

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5th April, 9PM -

my name is mabel, for the record. i have a younger brother, lucas, and his specialty is eating all the sweets at home in less than an hour from when they come. my mother is lilliana and my father’s james

tomorrow is the first day of online school, so I’m curious to see how it will work out. i’m in my eleventh year of school, a junior. my brother is a freshman, so ninth

year

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So my guess was correct - she was around her late teens

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6th April, 5:30PM -

online school is. it isn’t strictly bad. just kinda uncomfortable.

teachers try so hard to be normal while everyone is just really quiet so it feels off

lucas doesn’t think so, in fact he pulled funny faces in the background of my camera during school, which my teacher responded to by lecturing me on “going to places with less disturbances”. i didn’t really pay attention though and scrolled through tiktok while class was going on, only listening at selective timings

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Typical. I did the same thing when I was a senior in online school - never really paid attention (it did stop quite shortly after). I skipped through the next few pages as it was mostly about school and parents (and it was very grimy and pretty much destroyed), until I saw something that caught my eye.

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30th April 5:45PM -

online school hasn’t stopped after two to three weeks. the prime minister, boris johnson said that we have reached past the “peak” of COVID but that schools will remain closed until further notice. they say that the cure is effective, but i’m not so sure. i don’t really trust the vaccine. one of my friends is in the hospital right now due to, of course, COVID, even after getting the test done. doctors say that he may not last

9th May 2:30AM -

i went to his funeral today. it was online, my friend’s funeral. his name was romian. one of my first friends. i saw everyone on camera. they all looked so glum. some horrified, some sad, some disassociated. it was so quiet. even the kids in my neighbourhood stopped laughing, stopped playing.

i can no longer hear screams from under my window, can no longer see them playing around and living their childhood that they would never get back.

wow, what a sad thought.

15th May 2:06AM -

today I found out that hospitals aren’t taking anymore people, with how cramped they’re getting. there’s nothing new on the news except for the depressing overtake of COVID, and how many people have died from it. over two million people, and the worst part is that it’s spreading like wildfire in the uk. so, I’m taking the test tomorrow whether I like it or not

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This brought back memories. Painful ones, for sure. The screaming, the look in her eyes - my mothers eyes as she took her final breath in my arms. I probably should have put the book down and come to my senses instead of torturing myself, but no. Silence was more torturous at the moment, and curiosity killed the cat. So what did I do? Continued reading.

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23rd May 11:49PM -

the vaccine was uncomfortable…they put a q-tip far up in my nose and mouth, which left me coughing uncontrollably. i did not like it, and neither did Liam (he said that it felt as if a shot of pepper just burst up his nose)

update: we’re all negative

29th May

our neighbour living just a few blocks down from our house passed away last night. my mom is getting really scared, i heard her crying in the washroom a few hours later, at around 4AM or so. i pretended not to hear.

i’m trying really hard to make it seem like this doesn’t really affect me but it does. romain’s funeral was hard enough. the terror in his mother’s eyes watching as COVID took her only son. watching the streets, how fast they turned from upbeat and chatty to desolate and quiet. the news reports, clogged with statistics of the dead. and now the fact that the virus is spreading around our street, the chance that it can get me and my family?

that really, really terrifies me.

8th June

i found out that people can still get COVID after taking the vaccine, but the impact of the virus would be greatly muted. which is still something, i guess. today though, i heard my dad cough and i would be lying if i said i wasn’t a bit shaken. praying it’s nothing though

10th June

they fucking lied. my father is sick, sick to the core. his coughing is getting worse, his temperature has crossed a 100 degrees fahrenheit, and he can barely speak. mom forbade us from going near him, and it feels stuffy

i’m so so scared, what if it’s me next? what if it’s mom next? what if it’s Liam next? it might as well be the end of the world if the vaccines are failing

11th June

he’s not getting any better, and neither is anyone else. millions are dying every week, and even online classes have stopped. we tried calling to get someone to help him, but it’s no use as suddenly “we have other matters to attend to” and “we can’t take any more patients” becomes a frequent response. “for your own good”, my ass

12th June

mom keeps checking up on dad and he keeps getting worse as the days go by. i heard him begging mom to stop feeding him medicines and antibiotics so he could just die and not bear the pain anymore. he also told mom to stop checking up on him, in fear that she may contract the disease. i immediately left, not wanting to hear any more. i felt so shitty, even though it wasn’t my fault

29th June

i don’t know how to start this. we just finished cremating my dad. my father. james finnick, gone. i want to go back, I HAVE TO GO BACK! i can’t i

don’t want to be here anymore. why couldn’t it fucking be someone else? anyone else! my mother is going crazy, muttering to herself, hands shaking and as much as I want to hold her and tell her it’s fine, she always refuses it and goes back to her delusions. i’m so scared she’ll be next because COVID isn’t just a physical disease - it’s a mental one too.

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The next few entries were unreadable, just squiggles and dirt. These entries were the only ones I had read, including these last ones below:

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23rd August

the test came back positive. i have COVID. so does liam. i’m so scared, but at the same time, i wonder if it will be more peaceful to be dead rather than alive. At least we could see mom and dad again. if that is possible, because living right now is unbearable. nearly 200 million people have died and it pains me to think about how we’ll be a part of that number soon.

24th August

no one’s coming to help us, that much is clear. liam asked me if I thought the world was going to end. to be honest, i thought it would. or at least be left in shambles. i told him no, that there may be a cure out there, just maybe. i wish i could believe my own words

25th August

i wanted to become a doctor. liam wanted to study law. liam wanted to study in the united states, while i wanted to stay in england. we dreamed of having picnics, studying with friends, laughing so hard that milk would come out of our noses. i wish that was the case. instead, we’re waiting out our last days in this hell hole. at least we’re together though. if he goes, i go and if i go, he goes.

26th August

goodbye. this is the last entry i am writing. my hands hurt (too weak)

thank you for providing me a space to vent

imagine if someone finds this when everything gets better

i hope it gets better

mabel & liam (2020)

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I stared in shock for about five minutes at the last entry. I felt completely destroyed - yes, me, a 26yr old man. I don’t know how long I had been sitting there for, until I heard footsteps coming from below.

“Oi, Nate! Where the hell are you?”

I snapped back. Shit! I was supposed to meet them back at Abbey road, like, 20 minutes ago!

“Shit, dude, I am so sorry-”

“Yeah you better fucking be!” - said Sam, removing his own mask

“I got a little sidetracked.“

“By what? And why do you look like you’re…crying?” He paused, his voice faltering a bit

“I was reading this journal.”

“Oh.” A pause “Find anything useful…?”

“Not really. It’s a journal of the past inhabitants here though.”

He stayed silent, not really saying much.

“Are you okay?” He finally asked

“…Yeah. Just a bit shaken. This is the story of a seventeen year old girl who survived through so much shit. Gotta give her respect you know?”

“Oh, okay.” He paused, something like hesitance flickering in his gaze.

“Clean up and come downstairs to Abbey in 10. We’ll broadcast the announcement there.”

I lifted my head. I forgot about that. Wow. What a coincidence. Finding a horror journal on the same day that one good thing might happen to us

“Oh, right. I’ll be there.”

“Fine.” His jaw tightened “May be good news, may be bad. They won’t tell us yet.”

I slipped the book into the bag. “Okay.”

Twenty minutes later

We all gathered around the radio, waiting for it to start. It started crackling, at first. Then it steadied.

“This is a confirmed announcement,” the voice said. “Strong immunity has been found in trial subjects following the cure.”

Silence. Then someone laughed. Someone behind me cried. Someone beside me cheered, and the rest followed.

“It’s not the end,” the voice continued. “But it’s a new beginning.”

I was so shocked, I didn’t know how to react. But my mind thought back to the girl in the journal. The girl whose life was taken too soon along with her father, brother, and mother. The girl who thought that the world would end, but held hope that it wouldn’t.

And right there, I made a promise to myself that I would contribute as much as I could to make sure no one around the world ever felt the same way as Mabel Finnick did.

And for the first time in a long time - I felt my chest loosen and allowed myself a little smile as everyone else let out their emotions in a space that once felt too suffocated.