The Last

Jake stepped out of the hatch.

As far the eye could see: Destruction. The houses of men were reduced to rubble. Tines of lumber and metal thrust out of the ground like sharp spikes, and holes and craters littered the dry earth.

The air was dusted with a brown tinge, and the sun was blotted out by the thick black clouds. Everywhere was dark, and gray, and bleak.

"Hello?" Jake cried out. "Hey! Anyone out there?!"

The silence was the loudest sound. Not even the whisper of wind, or the rustling of leaves. In fact, the trees were all gone, as was any other living thing. Only Jake. Alone.

He lowered himself to the ground. The hatch stuck out of the ground like some sort of vile insect, the metal coating flaking in the harsh air. Rusted pieces fell to the ground like red snow. The sound of his shoes against the cold earth thundered like drumbeats through the hollows of the city.

As he walked, Jake remembered. The loud bang, the bright flash from outside the kitchen window. Ma dropping the onion she was mincing, father pushing him into the hatch, and then silence. Silence for the longest time, days upon days, until he finally gathered up the courage to open that door, the hatch to hell.

The wreckage of skyscrapers towered around him like vast alien structures, and the forms of ruined cars and vehicles came out of the mist-like dust. No bodies, no animals, no living being for miles and miles. No sound. It was a silent world: the silence of death.

Jake felt something touch his shoulder, and he ran for cover as rain poured down from the sky. Pools of water collected in the basins and craters of the earth as he ducked under the tilted edge of a skyscraper. Thunder crashed, and lightning streaked across the sky, heralds to death and destruction.

Jake huddled in the cold, cold world, pulling his coat close to his body. Alone, while the hiss of acid rain corroded and discolored the metal city. The overhang above his head creaked, and he shivered in fear and cold as the storm raged above.

A piece of metal made a decent cover as he headed out in the storm. With one hand, he held his coat closed, and with the other, he held the steel sheet above his hunched head. Rain slammed into the pane, pattering with a thousand hits as Jake made his way through the city.

The dust had subsided, by the acidic rain choked his lungs and blurred his vision. Thunder had deafened him, and lightning had blinded him. The smell of ozone filled the air as a bolt struck the wreckage of a distant tower.

Jake walked, and walked, not knowing what he was searching for. The rain drummed against his head and his feet matched the rhythm, as he plodded through the broken city. Eventually, his foot touched an edge, and he looked up.

The ocean. A distant horizon, and grey waters. Unpassable, lashing out with tongues of mist and spray in the violent storm, crashing against the shore with the clash of a thousand cymbals. A broken statue of justice and liberty, her crown and head long destroyed, and her book sunken, and her torch extinguised. Only her feet still stood, a testament to Ozymandias, and the horror of humanity.

Jake looked down. Rainwater collected at his feet as he bent over. He sobbed, and choked, as he reached out his hand. His fingers strained, his knees shaking, and tears running down his wet face. And then, at that instant, his life fled his body, the strain and shock greater than his body could withstand, tumbling him onto his side, his eyes wide-open and blank as the rain fell in pools around him.

At his fingertips, just out of his grasp, sat a single white rose, growing out of the broken concrete and pools of acid rain, shining in the grey world, under the black skies and weathered wreckage: a symbol of innocence gone awry - and a fitting memorial over the grave of mankind.