Pure white surrounded me. With frost that fell. With the chill in my bones. Through the eyes of a window that saw everything, I now peered into the endless abyss of the city of nothing. Dark were the days of a world now collapsed. And deafening was its silence. I waited for a sign of his death, but not even that came.
* * *
“Good morning Bison County! Another chilly day awaits us this early morning! Currently -12 degrees here in Fallfield with highs up to -2 around noon. Blizzard alerts are still in effect so keep those pipes dripping and stay bundled up! But good news for the week! We forecast these winds from the north will soon be at an end and the temperatures will rise to about 13 degrees tomorrow that steadily rise throughout the week. As always, don’t travel if not necessary, stay indoors, keep your—” click.
Every day was the same on the news. More cold. The square windows above my garage door were frosted but I could see the tiny shadows of drifting snowflakes outside. I wished for summer but I knew once it started, I’d be wishing to be wrapped in blankets sipping hot chocolate while the cold crawled under my doors again.
My shag rugs, cloth couch, and small heater had defended me so far from the freeze, but the air turned stale and stuffy. Don always irritated and berated me about staying in the garage whilst he spent all day in his office playing games. He didn’t understand that tinkering with old electronics was my form of entertainment.
I picked up my screwdriver and looked for the screws to reassemble an old radio I found in the dumpster of a Hardware Hovel. A chipped mug with faded text that said World’s Best Sister was filled to the brim with a pile of screws. While searching for ones long enough to put the plastic shell of the radio together, three consecutive bangs echoed through my garage. Startled, I accidentally dropped the mug. Its handle shattered into a multitude of pieces against the concrete floor.
I rushed to the window and saw someone knocking on my front door while another stared at his phone. When I flicked the switch to raise the garage door I knew it must’ve been my brother’s imbecilic friends.
“The hell do you want!?” I yelled.
“We’re waiting on your dumbass brother!” he yelled back. He then had the audacity to tell me to go fetch my brother when I was obviously in the middle of something. I told him to do it himself before Don greeted him at the door. He stepped outside, dressed to brave the blizzard.
“Where are you going?” I asked while shivering. “Are those my old gloves!?”
He pulled the pink gloves down his palm with his teeth and wiggled his overstretched fingers. “Thanks for letting me use them,” he smirked. “Didn’t I tell you the other day that I was going to the movies with them?”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Oh… well… now you know. I’ll pick up something for us to eat after the movie ends. Should be around 6 p.m. or so. We’re already late so I gotta go catch up with the boys. Shit—feed Freddy won’t you? I forgot. See you in a few! Love you, ciao!”
Before I could utter another word he was already knee-deep in the snow on the sidewalk. “Fucking Freddy,” I muttered to myself as the gusts of freezing wind blew against my legs. I hastily shut my door and watched Don and his two nerd-necked friends disappear into the white mist.
After sweeping up the remains of the mug, I wandered the empty house in search of anything to stave off my hunger. It felt odd whenever Don left; I was so used to his screams directed at his friends when he played competitive games or the music he’d blast out loud. But now all was quiet except for the raging winds that resonated down the chimney.
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“Hmm. Cereal, soup, or ramen.” I groaned and took hold of the instant ramen from the near-empty pantry. This storm was draining our food supplies since neither one of us wanted to walk down to the grocery store. My phone was on the fritz all this morning but I tried sending Don a message anyway.
“You should go to Fraums and bring me a #10 w/ a hot chocolate :^)”
I noticed the message went through after I was boiling water for my meager lunch. In the meantime, I went into my brother’s room and peered at his fish tank. The damn betta fish, Freddy, was already flaring his gills at me. Like the skin of a dragon, his white scales shimmered with the LED lights above him while his red halfmoon fins waved in the water.
“What’s your problem, huh? Starving?” I gave the bastard a pinch of his pellet food and watched as he swam up to the surface to take one bite after another. He flared his gills at me again and hid behind a sunken pirate ship. I seldom went inside Don’s room. RGB lights dazzled from his PC and keyboard while a plasma ball danced on the corner of his desk. Purple beams of ionized neon arced from one finger to the next as I enveloped my hand over it.
I turned on the TV after almost boiling out all the water from the pot on the stove. “Good morning Bison County! Another chilly day awaits us this early morning! Currently -12 degrees here in—”
“The same segment from earlier?” I switched the channel and half of them were black screens while the others continued a normal broadcast of reruns. I finished making my ramen and spent the rest of the day fighting the spotty internet on my phone and going in and out of my workshop. I’d stare at my unfinished projects and scribbled schematics, pick up a tool, and then immediately place it back down. I couldn’t tell if I was bored or frustrated in the confines of my home. If it was bright and beautiful outside I’d willingly stay in here, but I’ve been trapped here for over two weeks now without a say in the matter. I sighed and spun around in Don’s office chair. I was tempted to roll it off the stairs to gather an ounce of energy but I figured it wouldn’t make Don too happy to find his sister with a broken neck at the bottom of the foyer.
* * *
It was getting late. The digital clock showed a vibrant blue 7 p.m. and no word from Don had arrived.
“You still out with your boyfriends? LMK when you’re on way plz.”
7 turned to 8 and I called him only to be met with the 15 seconds of ringing before it went to voicemail. “Asshole! Where are you!? I’m starving to death over here! If you don’t come over soon I’m going to have to fry-up Freddy!” I laughed to myself but Freddy didn’t look too amused. “I know the internet and cell has been fucked all week but let me know whenever you get this. Thanks, love ya’.”
With a sigh, I looked at the clock and prepared for an early snooze. “I’m going to take a shower, Freddy. Don’t go anywhere.” Water fell down the drain. Steam filled the bathroom. I was scrolling on my phone looking at old forum posts and seeing if Don responded until my screen fogged up. We were lucky that the water still ran. Pipes were bursting from the cold a couple neighborhoods over.
I threw my Artificer band shirt into a wrinkled ball along the tile floor before I entered the shower. Blue globs of New Herb Body Wash streamed down my ghostly legs. It claimed to be a ‘5-in-1’ but I barely trusted it as is. I would never know why my brother used this crap. Courtly Shampoo ran through my long brown hair and fell to the porcelain below. It was past my shoulders now, and I was in dire need of a trim. Morning Bird Conditioner slipped between my fingers to make my hair shine while LauraKi face wash flowed to the pipes beneath.
Before I could rinse all the product out of my hair I heard a shrilling BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEP come from the living room. It sounded like the warning system of a missing child or that severe weather was inbound. I thought it was a blizzard alert but as it continued for another minute and a male robotic voice echoed throughout my house, I wrapped a towel around myself and rushed downstairs. There on the black television screen with bold red text could only be described as the beginning of the downfall of man.
THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS NOT A TEST.
A CATASTROPHIC EVENT HAS OCCURRED ACROSS THE GLOBE.
ALL MILITARY AND FEDERAL AGENCIES HAVE CEASED OPERATIONS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. PLEASE REMAIN CALM AND SHELTER IN PLACE.
EFFECTIVE UNTIL 09/09/9999.
PRODUCED BY REMNANTS OF FEMA AND THE FCC.
IN GOD WE TRUST.