Alone

I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I can post this in a million different places, it won’t matter. There’s still nobody there to read it. Nobody left to hear my story. Yet this might be my last chance to do this, so I will. The feeling won’t go away. They’re watching. They’re watching and getting closer every second. They can feel my terror. And I know they’re enjoying it.

It has been about four months since everyone disappeared. And I mean everyone. I woke up one morning for school. I immediately noticed the time. School started three hours ago. Must have just hit the alarm clock still half-asleep, and fallen right back to sleep. It happens to me sometimes. Why hadn’t my parents woken me up? Probably just went to work early.

The first time I started to notice was at the station. I usually take a train to school, since it’s the fastest way to get there. I hadn’t seen anyone on my way to the station, but I lived in a rather quiet area of the town, so going was slow at this time of the day. It happened, so I didn’t think much of it. When I arrived at the station, I noticed there was nobody there. It was odd. There should have been at least a few people waiting for the train, even at this time of the day. I shrugged it off as an exceptionally slow day. It happened sometimes, too.

I waited for a good while, but the train didn’t come. I don’t remember how long I stood there, but I grew increasingly frustrated. I decided to walk to school. After all, it was only a twenty-minute walk if I did it fast enough, and I was late for the next lesson anyways.

I didn’t see anyone on my way to school. Nor was there anyone in school. The school building was open, and lit. I still didn’t think much of it, the lessons were on anyways. But the classrooms were empty. Every single classroom in the whole building. Some doors were open, some closed. But there was nobody there. I tried the teacher’s lounge, and it was empty.

I even recall the smell of fresh coffee in the room. I tried calling one of my friends to ask what was going on. No answer. The phone rang, but there just wasn’t any answer. I tried another. Same thing. I ended up going through every single person I know from school. No answer.

I rushed to the shopping mall nearby. It was empty. The entire building, normally bustling with life, totally empty. The shops were open, the lights were on, the music was playing, the info screens were on. There just wasn’t anyone strolling around the mall, searching through the stores, manning the counters.

It was like everyone had vanished entirely.

I tried calling my parents. No answer. The whole day, I did not see a single living person. The only cars I saw were parked ones. There were no animals either. Everything was just dead quiet. But everything still worked. The shops were open, the lights were on, the TVs worked, there just wasn’t any program. Even the internet was there. Every site worked, every chatroom was open, there just wasn’t anyone there.

I went nuts. I don’t remember much of the first days, what it was like. Just the feeling of unimaginable terror, loneliness. I didn’t sleep much, I didn’t eat at all. I just sat around my house, waiting for someone to come home, for someone to call me, to hear a car drive past, waiting for the dream to end. It never did.

I eventually gathered myself. I told myself nobody was coming, and I had to get up and at least eat. And eat I did. I ate everything I could find, had the date expired or not. I ate and ate. And cried. I was alone. There was no sign, anywhere, that there’d be a single living person anywhere else in the world. No TV-channels showed any program. Some just showed the same news screens over and over. Nothing in the internet updated. Nobody ever logged in anywhere. Nobody answered the phone.

Yet, everything just kept working. The power never went out. The lights were always on. The traffic lights worked. The stores were open. Music played where it had always played.

But everything was still empty.

I eventually grew accustomed to it. It took a while, but I started going out. At first I tried visiting friends, look for people, anyone. I soon gave it up. Before long, I realized that I need more food than what we have at home. I started looting grocery stores. Just what I needed at first, then went to home, and ate it. Before long, I started looting other goodies. Candy. Drinks.

Maybe a month was gone, and I had come to terms with my life, and the fact that there was nobody else in the world. So I made the most of my life. I started having fun, the kind of fun you’d imagine doing if you had the whole world for yourself for one day. I pillaged through every store I could think of, stole everything I could get my hands on. I slept at beds in furniture stores, I played games with the biggest screens electronic stores had. I broke every fine piece of china I came across. I rampaged through malls, leaving behind a trail of destruction. I missed my old life, but made the best of this one.

It was maybe a month ago that he appeared.

I was relaxing back home, listening through some albums I had brought home with me, when I suddenly heard a strange noise from outside. I can’t really describe it well. It was like something called for me. I’m not even sure I really heard it. I just felt it. What I saw outside scared the life out of me. Someone- something. It was the shape of a man, yet it was somehow… wrong. It was entirely black. No, not just black. It seemed to suck the very light from the air around it.

There were no features to be seen. No clothing, no hair, no facial features. It was just a black mass I somehow knew was something like a man. I couldn’t stare directly at it, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Every second I stared at it, it came closer, yet it didn’t move. Every second I felt I got dragged closer to it, yet I stayed where I was. The only feature I could recognize was it’s eyes. Two green, shiny dots I knew were it’s eyes. I knew it, because no stare has ever been so piercing, so paralyzing, so dreadful. It felt like the stare itself sucked the very life out of me.

It spoke to me. Not with words. Not with signs or gestures. I just looked at it and I knew what it said.

“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.”

I woke up. A day had passed, maybe two. I can’t remember for certain. I woke up, screaming, sweating, from my own bed. It was a dream. It had to be. I was alone. There was nobody else in the world, how could it have been anything other than a dream?

I went on. At first, the dream kept bothering me. It felt so real. Was it? No, it couldn’t have been. With the days, the memory started to fade. The moment started feeling more and more dreamlike, so I thought nothing of it. I even laughed at myself for thinking it was anything else.

Yet, there was a constant feeling of pressure in the air. It was like a coming storm that never came. Sometimes I barely noticed it, sometimes I couldn’t even think properly because of it. Yet, I went on living.

Today it happened again. The feeling. It called to me, while I was drifting to sleep. It called to me, told me to come to the window. I was too afraid to move. Yet still, my legs slowly took me there. An unimaginable feeling of dread and despair came over me. Tears flowed from my eyes as my feet unwillingly took me to the window. There was nobody there. The street was as empty as always. Yet the feeling did not go away. I felt like there were a million eyes focused on me alone. They were there. They were staring.

They spoke.

“WE HAVE COME FOR YOU.”

That was two hours ago. The calling stopped. The staring didn’t. I’m writing this now, because I know it’s the last time I can. They’re drawing closer by the second.

I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. Maybe there’s someone else like me in some corner of the world. Maybe someone can read this. I don’t care. I have to tell someone.

They’re here.