Doomsday Diary

Match. That’s what the children at the orphanage had called her.

There was probably a time where she had an actual name, but it was now lost to the tell of time and frankly, she didn’t care to know it. She’d grown up as Match, and nothing else, and she actively made sure there was never enough time to start asking questions. It typically resorted in the smothering of childhood curiosity.

So as Sebastian inquired her of her name, in the infuriating proper tone that made her insides curdle, she delivered without a breath of hesitation.

“The name’s Match, nice to meet ya!”

Maybe a toothy grin would make him unwind but his unnervingly distant stare held firm as he turned to her.

“I’m Sebastian. I help run this estate.”

“Oh? Do you fair nicely to it’s silverware of the finest engraving? Do you appreciate the wool clothing that keeps you warm in the winters?” She’d meant to remain joking but judgment had slithered into her tone.

“I don't necessarily want to be here.”

“Do tell…” Match leered, a mischievous expression wrinkling the skin around her eyes. With a finesse crafted of nomadic dwellings, her fingers coasted towards the column of a glass as a servant walked by. She sniffed the liquid before dousing the insides of her throat, reveling in that sweet burn. Her attention found the throne at the center of the ball, still empty and missing a certain Chief.

“I’m from The Void. I was brought here as a child because of what I can do. In a way, they saved me from what lurks beyond the walls, even if by selfish means. Regardless, they keep me locked up here.”

Match felt her playful side roar at his claim. “Have you ever been out there?”

“No.”

“Do you wanna hear about it?”

“No.”

Ignoring him entirely, Match fell into awe. “It’s a free for all, a glorious place that tests the confines of freedom!” Eyes shining in distinct fondness, her hands lurched forward and grabbed his, calloused skin near abrading his porcelain fingers. “You wanna see?”

“I can not leave,” Sebastian sighed, as if he were dealing with a nuisance, but in reality he was simply trying to drive down the wonder blooming in his heart.

“But you want to,” she nearly sang in reply, waving a finger in his face to try and prove a point. “We leave now. Back by the morning. Easy.”

“If I leave, then they will notice. Then I’ll be barricaded in my room as punishment.”

Match stilled, looking into his eyes with an intensity that rattled the shackles of dreariness that had been holding him down for years. Despite her pondering, there was a hint of adventure in the air that made him more unnerved than he’d ever been.

“What if… I started a distraction?” The random woman from nowhere leaned into his face, her faint breath warming his pale cheeks.

“Not necessary,” he mumbled, eyes casting downward to not have to bare her feral gaze. But his response didn’t matter and she ignored him once more.

“THE CHIEF IS DEAD! ASSASSINS ARE ON THE BALCONY! EVERY MAN FOR THEMSELVES!” If her hollering wasn’t impressive, her seemingly innate ability to stir trouble certainly was.

The previous room alight with chatter and blasting song was now an uproar, some soldiers moving towards the faux threat and another branch of them heading to the Chief’s quarters.

Match laughed so triumphantly, even as the flow of the crowd started to pummel her front. Sebastian tried to step in front of her, tried to be gentlemanly and block her from the onslaught, but she was this golden thing gleaming at the chaos.

He felt her hand wrap arounds his, a grip that was firm and unrelenting, as she pulled with an unnatural strength. Between that and the flow of the crowd pouring out of the ballroom, he felt himself being drawn towards her, his body a doll as they stumbled down the stairs.

As they exited the mansion, Sebastian blanched the entire time at the laugh vibrating from her lungs and unto the air, an untethered noise of pure excitement. It stirred a part of himself he didn’t know existed.

There was a thicket of trees behind the estate and that was the first place she hauled him through. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t protesting. Maybe he was still careening with her bellowing, perhaps the shock hadn't numbed and the spiral of events weren’t connecting with his brain.

As they cleared the trees that a small part of himself regretted not appreciating, Sebastian became numb to what he was presented with.

There had been life here, that much was certain, but the damning emptiness of everything made him feel impossibly cold. He’d heard bits and pieces from the servants in the estate, about how there had been a sickness that had robbed the Earth of excessive life. He hadn’t known what it was, just knew that it resulted in people rotting away without the confinements of time, children and adults alike. And while many populations died, there were very, very few that were immune to the disease. There was never any disclosure on whether they knew what enabled some to live, just that it was a blessing.

Leaves crunched beneath his slips, almost as if they were crying out like the people of this town once did. His long fingers came into contact with fragmented glass that had to still be in place by some magical power. There were books lining the shelves, but the shop had clearly been ransacked after everything went to hell.

“Reading is a pass time out here in The Void. There are so many great pieces of literature from before our time…” Match whispered, matching his hand on the pane and peering into the bookstore.

Her words drew him from his trance, his body now whirling around the take in the street in full. This had been a place full of life, where people gathered to shop and gossip, ponder life over a cup of tea. All it screamed now were buildings crumbling and smashed windows. The pavement was uneven, uprooted by the ever so stubborn soil beneath them. Small roots had burst through the soil, trees and shrubbery trying to consume the entropy of the past.

As much horror the street attested to, Sebastian was keenly aware of the beautiful quiet that blanketed it. Ushered in by undisturbed roots and brilliant sunshine.

“It’s nice, right? Nobody barking up your butt about stupid things.” Crossing her arms, she shook her head from a memory of someone from the orphanage scolding her for eating too much bread.

Sebastian couldn’t help his response, even if it was selfish since he was still standing, alive. “It is… Why…?”

“Why did they hide you from this? Probably for some sick reasoning based on their own selfish wills. You were really locked up there, huh?”

He nodded dumbly, still awed by the oxygen entering his nose. If air had a flavor, this one was of pure nature. “What else is out there?”

“Let me show you my camp!” Match screamed out into the empty sky, voice seemingly echoing with the now pink expanse. She grabbed his hand again and they proceeded to dash down the street in childish frolic.

All sense of time became nonexistent, his focus dancing violently from one thing to the next as the wind whipped his curly hair. He was snapped out of his daze when Match slowed to a set of bones, dirtied and unattended. Leaning down, he tried to get a better view as she kneeled down and put her hands together.

“W...What are you doing?”

Match whipped her head to him, her mouth stretching wide. “I’m paying my respects!” Without warning, she galloped with her previous enthusiasm towards her camp. “Keep up!”

Biting his lip, he chanced one more look at the pile of bones before taking off after her. After minutes further of travel, she cleared a corner and let out an exasperated sigh. “Home sweet home.”

Sebastian wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but this made sense.

It was a shoddy home, probably once belonging to someone else, and it was wrecked of ill maintenance. “This is where you live?”

“For now! I travel from home to home. Wherever the wind takes me.”

She opened the front door and he couldn’t believe how the hinges were still intact. The creak it emanated made him gulp, the anxiety of being out in The Void now creeping up his spine.

“Come in, dork,” she quipped with a guffaw as she crossed the flooring without a hint of danger, as if she knew where it would cave. He watched nervously as she pulled out a bag from under a floorboard, unloading the contents before offering him a canister. “Want some water?”

“Thank you…” he began to take a sip, his eyes ghosting to the hunk of metal she’d hauled from her bag. “What’s that?”

“It’s a gun. It kills people.”

He sputtered the water across the room, coughing in alarm.

“Don’t waste my water like that,” Match grumbled, wrenching the canister from his grasp before taking a long pull. “I only kill when I need to.”

“Like in… self defense?”

“Something like that. People are ruthless sometimes. That’s why I travel alone.”

An exhaustion loomed over her face for a second but it was gone just as he took notice. Sighing, Sebastian tried to absorb the entirety of the room. Knickknacks lined the shelves, some having fallen and shattered years ago. Old furniture probably infiltrated with rats. A ceiling stained with unidentifiable liquids.

“This was amazing but…” He bit his lip, grateful as all hell that the path they took was simple enough to follow back home. “I need to go...”

Nodding, she dragged an old wooden chair from the dining room, spinning it on a leg to face him before plopping down into it. “Tell me what you thought before you leave.” Match was brimming with excitement, ready to hear what he had to say as she drew her knees and wrapped her arms around them.

They were so thin.

“From living in the estate, there is one thing I can undeniably believe. People are awful. All they do is talk, and betray, lie to one another. It almost feels like whatever happened to the people who lived here before, it was supposed to happen. I know that sounds terrible but I—”

“As sad as it once was, you can feel the truth in your bones, right? Humans were already in ruin.” An understanding haunted her features, as if she had witnessed the unkindness of the dwindling people far too many times before.

“The green, the air, the sky unconfined, it was all breathtaking. Being out here changed me… I don’t know how but it did.”

She nodded. “There are dangers that lurk in The Void, but there are no better and no worse than the people you live with.”

“Who are you?” Sebastian beseeched, knowing there was a layer to the woman in front of him she hadn’t disclosed. A side of her she kept from him because right now, it wasn’t important.

“It doesn’t matter. You better hurry up, it’s getting dark out there.” Match stood to her feet, face shadowed and unreadable.

He turned to leave. “Thank you. Will I ever see you again?”

Match’s face turned melancholy, a warped smile finding her lips as she turned towards a long table to her right. Her fingers found a small box, ripping the lid off urgently before she reached for a long, chained, heart locket. Crossing the threshold, she held it out expectantly.

Dipping his head, he let her grace him with the gold, his chest thundering.

“Just in case you don’t, this locket will be a reminder of me.”

She most definitely just stole it from a dead person.