The World Held Within your Heart

‘You hold the world within your heart’ was Alex's final words to Ever. A soft whisper like breath that would have been missed if she was not so desperately clutching his body to hers.

The silence that followed was finally disturbed by the loud earth shattered sobs emanating from the depth of Ever’s very being; She did not care that they may have been the very last people to exist on earth... her world was Alex, and he had died in her arms.

She stayed with the body much Longer than intended. Snuggled into Alex, breathing in his scent, it was easy to block out the world... or what was left of it. It was easy to ignore the hole in his chest, the blood that had flowed from his soft punctured skin, now turning brown and flaky on the yellow of his hazmat suit. It wasn’t just Alex's death the tears flowed for, it was also the many millions before him, the many to come... and the fact she was now alone.

How long had she been here? What day was it? She had stayed too long. They had been close to the base before... but they had been interrupted. She prised the heart shaped locket from his now ridged fist. He had pulled it as he fell, snapping its delicate silver chain. The bang of the gun had surprised them both, but it felt like she had watched him fall forever, the slow motion of shock as the life drained from his face. Looking at the blood encrusted locket, it was now all she had left of him, serving as a momentum from the time before all of what had come.

But she couldn’t think of that now...

Her mourning had been a chrysalis like form, it had rendered her incapable of life whilst she fought a storm of grief within. But like the butterfly gently emerging from its cocoon, she forced the life back into her traumatised body.

She herself had been hurt in it all, her condition then exasperated by her refusal to eat and drink, or function. Slowly breaking her daze, slowly edging back to the reality of things; Ever realised her stomach was concave, her lips dry and crusting. Her eyes felt like they were made of sand, despite the ocean of tears that had fallen from them over his death. The pain was intense, but it was the burning sign of infection that worried her the most, accompanied by the slight fever she felt crackling through her body.

I have to continue what we started, she mused as she devoured what was left of their supplies. They had been travelling on foot as everything else had failed. When the world first started going to shit, they weren't plan B, not even a plan... they were what was left, possibly the last that could help.

‘And now it falls to me... I have to finish this.’

Failing extraction, they had set off with a cart of supplies and Alex’s gun, both dressed in bright yellow hazmat's, not knowing what lay ahead. All forms of Communication had stopped, people had become sparse, when was the last time they had seen another person? The initial chaos had quickly led to an erie stillness of the dead left behind, but had anyone really been saved? She had no way of knowing; Was it just blind faith, or the desperation of primal survival in the face of extinction.

At dawn she slowly limped off to what she assumed was her final destination: The bunker.

The trek had taken her through the forest. Beyond the noise of the hazmat crinkling, she had heard birds singing. As she went on, she glanced up at every clearing of the canopy in the vain hope of spotting some sort of aircraft. But the sky was silent, left to nature now. She stopped to sip some water and catch her breath. The bandages she had applied had now soaked through, a bloody sodden mess squelching inside her suit. She could smell its distinctive metallic aroma wafting up, mixed with the musk of cold sweat that poured from her entire body. At that exact moment, a fox slipped out from a nearby bush. Momentary panic had made her raise her gun, but let it drop as the fox, only feet away starred back at her.

‘I might be the first and last human that creature ever sees’ What a depressing thought. The fox scurried off into the undergrowth and silently vanished.

On arrival, Ever was struck by how anticlimactical the building was, but soon realised that was intentional. No one would suspect this was the entrance to their base. The only tell was the few hurriedly parked card on the small dirt path leading up to this inconspicuous house in the woods. A dead body was propped up against one, a chauffeur maybe, bullet hole in his head. The trail of blood next to him led to another man in the same uniform just beyond the tree line, same fatal head shot. These sad souls were never meant to be saved, just pawns in a rich man's game, their expiry date came up, and were slaughtered like pigs when they fulfilled their purpose.

‘But of all the terrible things we have seen, that humans have done, is it really a world worth saving?’ She winced at Alex’s words, it was hard to disagree when stumbling along sights like this.

Gun in hand she pulled off the hood to her radiation suit. Fresh air stung her throat and ached her heaving lungs. Her whole body was trembling, she was getting weaker by the second. Lifting her sleeve, there, drawn in blood, Alex had gouge into her flesh the map of the base... Just in case, he had said.

‘Just in case...’ She repeated. Just in case I had to do this alone. Maybe he knew all along that neither of them had a chance.

She limped onward.

Inside, the long corridor slowly descended downwards into the belly of the base. The quiet was concerning, but not alarming. They had lost contact with them many days before. Ever was grateful for the downward motion that helped propel her along. Everything was becoming a struggle; A new trickle of blood ran down her leg, pooling in the ankle of her suit, seeping into her sock and boot.

Coming up on the first door, it was slightly ajar. Cautiously raising her gun but in no fit state to fight, Ever peered in. It was the sweet rotten smell that greeted her first, then she saw the bodies. Neatly lined up on the floor, all covered with white sheet from the adjacent bunks, were some of the designated survivors. Anonymous in their makeshift death shawls, she could see that some were small, like children. Others had bloody holes, most lay in puddles of blood that now looked like black tar in the dim emergency lighting underground. Slumped in the corner was an agent, the contents of his skull now fanning red up the wall behind him, gun still in hand.

Each room contained the same fate and with each room the despair grew heavier in Ever’s heart. They had all chosen to die; Collectively they had agreed how hopeless this world was, and accepted it was better to die than go on living in it. These were people chosen to survive, these were the ones being saved, yet the bunker had become their tomb instead.

Taking a moment steadying herself on the corner before attempting the finale furlough; She knew up ahead was her goal, the control room. Every inch of her being ached, unsure if her sobs now made any sound as the ringing in her ears deafened them out. She had to keep going. Pushing her lead like body, she swayed against the momentum of her limp to move ahead.

Slowly the heavy steel door opened with her full weight against it. A red flashing light above was accompanied by the blinding fluorescent lights of this makeshift nerve centre. Papers and laptops were scattered across a large central table, mobile phones stacked next to radios, all redundant. Beyond that, the back wall was all monitors, and the control desk. Most of the screens showed static, some only showing the security footage from inside the base, the gently sway of the cameras capturing the empty corridors.

Ever struggled onto the chair in front of the main computer. Gently placed on the keyboard was a piece of paper:

‘I hope you are reading this. I hope you made it, because we did not. Sorry’

No signature, no reasoning. An anonymous goodbye.

Navigating the system, she clicked through password after password, she knew them all, she had recited them over and over as she walked with Alex. Eventually she got to the last one, but after hitting enter something unexpected popped up on the screen.

Please enter the master code to confirm.

She slumped back in her chair staring blankly in disbelief at the screen. Of everything she had endured, she felt the final snap of her spirit being broken. She had failed.

‘Hey,’ the voice made her heart leap, she had not heard another human voice for weeks. But suddenly Alex was by her side. Not the blood-soaked corpse she had left behind, but her Alex, full of colour and life, the Alex he was before.

‘Am I dead?’ Ever breathed.

‘Not yet’ he replied

‘But It was all for nothing...’

‘Remember the last thing I said to you?’ He smiled

She snapped back to the room, the warmth of Alex had gone. She could see the empty room behind her on the camera monitor. He was never really here. No one was. She was dying, completely alone. Her thoughts went to Alex, of their life before the end of everything, his smile, his smell, him standing in front of her gently looping the necklace over her head...

Like a lightning strike, the adrenaline kicked in. Breathing laboured now, barely able to hold her head up, she fumbled at her heart shaped locket. Inside, nestled between their pictures she had so often looked at sat a tiny rolled up piece of paper. On it, in Alex’s handwriting was scrawled the words ‘You truly hold our world in your heart’ followed by a string of unfamiliar numbers.

Vision Blurred, Ever used one finger to type, as she steadied one hand with the other to enter the code.

Permission granted- protocol commencing

A slight laugh escaped her lips. She had had the code all along, he had put it in there at some point, as a fail safe? He couldn’t have predicted this outcome. She held up the Heart-shaped locket and gazed at his face.

Ever winced against their last memory: How they had argued, how he had given up on life, their mission. How he had given up on the world, how she had begged and pleaded for the unknown number of lives that may yet survive this. That they needed to continue, just in case it helped even one other person.

He was pointing the gun; He pulled the trigger. Struck in the side she staggered forward. In the struggle the trigger was pulled again, and Alex was dead.

‘I’m so sorry Alex.’ she whimpered ‘I am so sorry that I shot you...’

Ever put the gun to her head. The numb nothingness that followed released her of her pain. She gave into the weight of her head, dropping it forward onto her arm. Everything swam and faded around the edges of her vision. She focused on the open-heart shape locket, now sitting open on the desk. Her blood gently edged towards it, soaking through the hand written note in its path.

Ever had held the world within her heart.