CLEAR KEEP

There’s nobody left and there’s somebody watching me. I’ve got a heart shaped locket with a picture of the only woman I ever loved. The world is damned and everyone died. I am the last one left. I talk about the world as I talk about anything. The way a man who’s falling down a bottomless pit talks about how he’ll be fine. The world never gave me anything. All the world did was kill itself and left me to deal with the mess.

I’ve thought about killing myself. I think about it all the time actually. I can’t make it stop, but I know I have to keep on moving. Someday I may find someone else out there. For now I walk down a broken avenue that leads to an empty downtown scene.

The streets around here are filled with life. Ivy and wet moss cover the street lamps, poles, and crosswalks. Insects flying all around. That constant buzzing makes me sick. I come across some words on the ground that say “CLEAR KEEP”. I forgot what that means.

Up ahead there’s a row of tall buildings, twenty-two to twenty-five stories tall. I hear some sort of sound that I don’t know rolling through my mind. It feels like there are eyes all around me peeping out of every window.

There on a balcony thirteen stories up I can see the silhouette of a woman watching me from up above. She is just sitting there watching me. Doesn’t she know I’m the only man left? I call out to her, but no response. She is asleep in a void or cannot see and hear. I must go up and rescue her.

The building is an emerald dragon of a monstrosity. It’s thick metal doors are rusted closed and the first several stories are overgrown with plant life and run thick with insects. She must not be able to escape. I have to find a way up.

There’s a fire escape. Rusted and jagged metal wrapped in stringy black vines are punctured and blown out in a tangled mess of scrap. There’s no other way up. Across the alley there’s a pile of rubble leading up to a perched steppe just above the fifth floor. I’m able to climb past falling chunks of dusty concrete and pebbles to get to the top of that mound.

Across the broken ledge is an open window leading into the building where she resides. I kiss my heart shaped locket and say my goodbyes before I sprint at the monster. I leap into the air and crash through the plated glass and fall hard to the floor.

I wake up on the floor in a daze. Shards of dirty glass protrude from my body. I am bleeding on the floor. I need to find her. I stumble up to the stairwell and brace myself on the rusty railing. I need a moment to catch my breath. Her room is another eight stories up. I only hope these old metal stairs don’t give out on me.

Everything is turning blurry as I travel up these stairs. I feel my body swaying back and forth out of my control as I limp up the stairs grabbing onto the pole for dear life. It make a rusty cranking noise, catching itself on some small hook separating me from the ground.

I’m able to make it to the floor before hers, but that’s where the stairway gives out. It always feels like I get inches away from where I’m going before I’m stopped. Life is so unfair that way.

I make my way over to the elevator. I know it probably hasn’t worked since the incident, but I'm sure there’s a rope that can bring me up to the next level. It takes all my strength just to force open the elevator doors. Thank God it’s already open on the floor above.

I look down into the bottomless black pit. I think about if I fell. Would I die or slowly bleed out my broken bones in an insect infested poisonous nightmare? I can barely stand let alone see. I lean forward and grab onto the rusted rope.

I swing off above the bottomless pit. I wrap my legs around the rope. Without thinking I climb my way up that twisted coil. I remember doing this back in military school.

The light shining over the horizon braces my face. I can see the sun setting in the distance over a beautiful shimmering monster-infested swamp. I shimmy around the rope and stumble onto the very edge of the landing on the floor above. I fall forward, now I’ve made it.

I remember seeing this opening, but it looks so much better from this angle. She is only four doors down! As I hurry down the hall I don’t even realize I’m clutching the heart shaped locket in my hand. Tears are flying past my face. I burst open her door and my eyes show me the truth.

There is no girl. Just a straight away emptied out home with a goddamn mannequin sitting on a chair dressed in a pink dress. Just a sick joke that someone set up to fool me. Well I am the fool. Everyone can just go ahead and laugh at me. This locket doesn’t even have anyone in it. There’s no fucking picture.

You can all laugh at me. I've got thirteen stories to go. That will do it for sure. I look out over the horizon and see that sun setting one last time. Watch me as I run with my eyes closed. I stepped off that balcony somewhere along the way.