The perfect after

Quiet.

It was quiet.

That’s what I remembered most about the end. About the day the entire world snapped, and everything vanished within its scorching depths. Nothing was left. All was destroyed. Everything was changed. Never again would I hear a wail of a bird, a hum of an engine, or a piercing scream within the darkness.

That was ten years ago. I was eight, now eighteen. My heart-shaped locket was all that remained of my sanity, of my past life. A life that was supposed to be faultless, and grand and thrilling. With a future that was already planned out to be perfect. A lifetime lived in privilege.

As I looked out over the top of the tallest skyscraper, I saw nothing, but towers magnified like beckoning guardians within the toxic wasteland, shrouded in dust and nature and debris. Nothing but endless view of green, of grey, of shadow.

The world went crazy. Everyone for themselves. Brother turned on brother, father against daughter, families at war. The Earth buckled. Unable to withstand human greed any longer.

It fractured, froze.

If you looked close enough, you could see the crack. Hear the terror. Witness the end. My memory never allowed me to forget that, nor did I ever want it to.

Now, the world was silent. Enchanting, devastating, pure silence. The planet didn’t spin, the sun didn’t set, bathed forever in a ray of light that should’ve radiated hope. It was now only a constant reminder of wrath, gluttony, vanity. Of all the sins of human beings that ultimately led to the end. To the mighty shove of nature that forced humankind to its knees.

I was the only one left. The only human lifeforce to withstand the end, and the aftermath of destruction that followed suit.

I used to fear the end. Think it was dangerous. Now I lived each never-ending day within it. I had my routine, my home, my own continuous thoughts that swirled through my skull endlessly. My own perfect world. Built like a videogame. Designed to be infinite.

I was enraged by humankind – I had been my whole life. I wished for the end so bad it happened. I caused Armageddon with only my thoughts. Each day daring the world to fight back. I drove each human to their eluding end. I wished for the worlds freeing, its deliverance, its liberation. I wished for a world where humans didn’t exist. For a perfect world without cruelty, pollution, greed. A world anew. A world unharmed. A world free of parasites.

My mind imploded. The world exploded.

I grinned and laughed, bellowing the sound against the silence. It boomed within the vast, empty hollowed out shells of once bustling streets and congested structures. This world was mine.

The world was free, and I was its creator.

My entire life I had seen the endless evil of humankind. Observed all the actions they thought could never be punished. Witnessed my own parents silence those with their money and charm and lies.

I was taught to turn my head and close my eyes to the brutality I didn’t wish to see. Day after day. I felt isolated, angry, and determined to create a better tomorrow, but all they did was laugh when I stood atop that balcony and bellowed their cruel and unkind actions against our dying world. I tried to warn them, tried to save this land from the doomed legacy humankind birthed, seemingly unaffected.

It could’ve been a perfect world for all of us. A fair, just world. A world in harmony. A world in unison. A world connected.

It was now only my perfect, quiet, isolated world. Filled with fires that burned hot within me, nature that grew into each crevice freely, and waves that lashed the shore with vengeful fierceness out of no obligation to anyone.

My faultless vision. My flawless dream. My perfect after.

I ripped the heart-shaped locket from my neck and threw it into the air, watching as it plummeted down the 30-storey building. Awaiting its forceful end against a fractured, but beautifully altered world.