Part 2
My tired footsteps carry me into an apartment building that remains standing. Before the world went to Hell (with a capital H, that was another one of the dozen unmentioned disasters) I used to dream of places like these.
The middle class vanished long before the trees. I was born on the streets to a mother who didn’t want me and a father I never knew. Every day since birth was a struggle. I learned to swindle, steal, rob, and murder as easily as those in the walled cities did math and social studies.
In those days, four walls with a roof over your head was the stuff of luxury. I guess that’s one good thing about the apocalypse. It puts everyone on equal footing, like radioactive socialism. My nightmare childhood prepared me for the end of the world better than any survivalist blog.
It wasn’t without a cost, though. The decades of raiding and killing to survive only made me feel like the king of beggars. They used to say a man’s home is his castle. Is it so much to ask to feel like a king, just for one day?
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The lobby is nothing but battered glass and corpses long bleached into skeletons. Everything of value that wasn’t bolted down was looted and robbed decades ago. But other than the scattered bullet holes and the cracks in the foundation, the staircase looks pretty solid. It manages to support my weight pretty—
A loud groan bellows from the bottom step. Splintering wood is soon joined by the telltale groan and then scream of seared metal. I rush up the last remaining steps and leap into the air as the steps crumble beneath me. I hold my breath as I feel gravity let me go and close my eyes tight, seeing if my luck holds out. The breath rushes out my lungs as I land on the hallway, my feet dangling over the edge. I quickly scrape along my stomach, losing one of my shoes in the process.
Landing on my back, I gasp for breath and inventory of damages. There are a few more tears in my radiation suit and a bit more bile collected in the gas mask. The shoes are going to be hard to replace. You have no idea how it is to find a matching set of size 12s. I’m battered and bruised but breathing and alive. Looks like my shitty brand of luck has remained true.
Convinced that humanity isn’t extinct yet, I pull myself up. Even though it’s probably pointless, I unholster my gun and look down at the ruins of the staircase. If you can’t go down, the only other option is forward. I turn down the hall and start castle hunting.