The Last Day In The Bronx

I’m Listening..

It was March 23rd 2019 when we heard the emergency horn blare through the cold winter air. There was already snow on the ground from weeks before. Storms brewed across the world, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and fires.The catastrophic events caused real destruction to the planet. Not only did we have storms causing havoc, we had Covid-19, a disease spreading across the world killing people by the thousands. Things were bad for almost two years. We weren’t sure if there’d be any people left on Earth. We were all told to go underground for our own safety. A lot of us chose Yankee Stadium because it had an underground shelter that could hold thousands of people. It was fully stocked with food, water, clothing, wifi etc. But that didn’t last. Manhattan began to sink from all the water. We’d been underground in the stadium, safe for almost two years and would've stayed if we weren’t forced out by the Earth. Once Manhattan began sinking, the governor became alarmed because it’s close to the stadium and feared we’d all die there so we had to come up. When we came up we didn’t know where we were. The destruction from all the storms hitting the city at once caused some kind of shift, and the land in the US moved around. We went down under Yankee Stadium in the Bronx but we came out under Barclays Stadium in Brooklyn, having never left the bronx. Everyone began to freak out and so did I. The subway system was gone. There were no traces of it as if it never was. There were no street lights, no tall buildings, no more bright city. Just piles and piles of dust.

Everyone wanted to go back inside because it was pouring rain on the outside but we couldn’t. We were told that there was shelter for us on the outside but there wasn’t. We started walking in the rain. After 5 hours we came across a sign that read “Welcome to The Georgia Aquarium”. How did we reach Georgia? That was the scariest part- not knowing where we were. The guy in front of me turned around in his oversized black North Face coat with yellow stripes and yelled, “Why don’t we go in?” We had no choice, so we all agreed. When we walked inside, the place was pitch black. The guy in the oversized coat found a generator and flipped it on. What we saw blew everyone's mind.

The aquarium wasn’t just an aquarium, it was more of a zoo filled with animals from present and past tense. We knew the dogs, cats, elephants, giraffes, there was even a whale under water. The others were huge and unrecognizable and we didn’t know what to do. Everyone stood frozen in place. The animals were as scared of us as we were of them. They all banded together and moved simultaneously to the far side of the room away from us. We did the same as the animals and stayed in the front door where we’d just entered, terrified. I was starving and this is why things went wrong. I reached in my backpack and pulled out a sandwich I’d packed at the stadium then I heard a loud roar and everything went black.

What happened next?

70 percent of the city was vaccinated for that disease that swept through during the apocalypse. NY state issued red heart shaped lockets that had your initials on it for the unvaccinated to be identified as a precaution and for the safety of those vaccinated to identify the unvaccinated and vice versa. They wanted people to be able to decide if they would congregate with one another. I was one of the non vaccinated people and I continued to wear a mask. The days to come were nothing like anyone had ever expected. People began to do really strange things. Stealing, shooting, killing their own families. I’d even heard a story of one guy cooking his family and serving them as dinner to his friends. It was pure pandemonium. The world as we knew it was over.

On Saturday, June 19, 2021. Everyone decided to have huge gatherings in light of the lifted restrictions. So many gatherings, bbq’s party’s etc took place that night. I’m not sure what caused everything, but shit got real really fast. It was a blistering hot morning. I was abruptly awakened by the banging from the construction site across the street. There was a lot that had been vacant for years finally being turned into a building. I’m not sure if it was the banging but something triggered anger and rage in the guys in the neighborhood. As I looked out my window I could see a bunch of chaos going on in front of the lot. People were fighting, yelling, screaming, the police were also out there trying to calm the crowd. Apparently there was a new strand of covid in the Bronx. People who contracted it would develop a black dot in the middle of the forehead and bloody red eyes. The new strand was so contagious and deadly that it mutated the entire body into something sorta like a monster and depleted your cells of all nutrients. Your face would droop, the eyes would bleed and the skeleton you have on the inside of the body holding you up would turn to dust leaving the person full of muscle and fat. There was no cure or treatment to help. It was straight out of a horror movie. The government ordered that whomever contracted it automatically had to be put down. Willie, one of the guys from the neighborhood was seen walking with red eyes and the black dot, a cop spotted him. He killed him and tried to cover it up by burying him in that lot. His friend saw the incident unfold and alerted the entire block. That was where all the chaos was coming from. This was the very beginning. What happened next is why I’m here.

The officer called for backup because the crowd began to assault him. His gun was taken away from him along with his badge. The crowd also stripped the cop of his clothing leaving him with just his walkie talkie. He stood naked screaming to the unreasonable angry crowd trying to plead his case and explain what happened but no one even cared to listen. As more and more people arrived on the scene some wearing the red heart shaped locket some without, things got worse. People were posting on the citizens app. The app alerted the entire Bronx to what was presently happening. Then news reporters showed up. They were also harassed by the angry crowd. The people in the neighborhood didn’t like that they were reporting a story on Willie showing his limp body all over. I decided to get dressed and walk over to try to calm the crowd. I crossed the street and discovered why that wasn’t going to be possible. I walked through the crowd and stood on the other side of the lot in the back. I saw a lone tree sticking out the ground with what looked like red dots all over it. I found that really strange being that there were no other trees in the lot. The crowd blocked the police and reporters from getting on the lot. They formed a huge human barricade right in the entrance of the lot locking me and the naked officer in. I couldn’t help but stare at the tree. I began walking towards it. I got close and lost my mind. I fell to my knees and let out a loud wail. Everyone turned towards me. The dots I thought were on the tree were actually a bunch of heart shaped lockets. So many lockets that half the tree was full with them. The crowd ran towards me vaccinated and the unvaccinated to see what was going on.

I pointed to the tree with heart shaped lockets and the crowd went wild posting it to the app. The Bronx was in an uproar. There’d been vacant lots with one lone tree with heart shaped lockets throughout the Bronx. People weren’t aware that the police were shooting and burying people with the new covid virus right in their backyards. There were rumors about people in the neighborhood going missing. Never would I fathom anything like this was going on. Not only were they shooting the sick, they killed anyone who lived with the sick or associated with them out of fear they’d contract it and pass it on. There were also initials carved in the back of the tree for the vaccinated people who’d been killed. I was so scared. I ran as fast as I could through the crowd back inside my apartment. I didn’t get a chance to speak to my family. I was too busy throwing up. The thought of me standing on top of bodies buried in that lot freaked me out. I took all my clothes off and hopped in the shower. I was crying and shaking. I got out, caught my breath, got dressed and explained to my family what happened. We decided to leave the state. The story about the lots and the lockets was all over televisions around the world.

This was a different apocalypse, the end of human civilization. People began digging up the lot and fighting the cops. The national guard was deployed throughout the country in every state. Well, what was left of them that is. Many US soldiers were the first to catch the new virus and had to put entire platoons down. People packed up to leave but there was nowhere to run too.

We got in the car and just drove listening to the radio. We reached the George Washington Bridge and the national guard stopped us. My name was on the list of people who’s supposed to wear the locket. I’d taken mine off trying to flee with my family. They informed us that we would not be able to cross the bridge because of me. I fought with the troopers. Then we heard the President of the United States speaking “In light of the recent events unfolding throughout the world and the massive loss of life taking place I’m resigning”. His youngest son was also unvaccinated and wearing a heart shaped locket. He ordered the national guard to step down. The guards blocking us stepped back and we sped off.

And..

The next announcement came from the director of the CDC. She claimed the lockets were actually safety measures. If you keep it on the new virus couldn’t touch you. Those who took it off were the reason they’d gotten sick and infected others. My family turned around with their mouths wide open. I’d developed a black dot on my forehead. My father put his foot on the gas, turned the car around driving like a bat out of hell. I began to sweat profusely and my head started hurting. My body felt limp and I fainted twice. My Dad shook me to wake me up the second time. I opened red eyes that looked like they were saturated in blood. He pulled up to the house as I could no longer see or move. He carried me inside. I felt myself slowly slipping away. They ran through the house looking for my locket tearing the place apart. I tried to catch my breath then heard “I found it”. That was the last thing I remember before the banging and yelling. The banging was ferocious. It seemed to get closer and closer and louder and louder. I was terrified. I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t move. Then it seemed to have gotten up close to my face in my ear. Then you woke me up. I’m not sure how I got here.

Rest, we’ll continue later..