The prompt was finding a flat in a metropolis, with the stipulation that it be an AU. My interpretation might not be exactly what they were looking for, oops.
Update: 2 years later I went back and edited a bit.
The crack splintering Alfred F Jone's cell phone gave the colours of his background jagged edges that sapped legibility from his contact list. Not that he really needed to read the names there; he'd erased all but two numbers during the bombing.
Sometimes he'd scroll up and down that tiny list from the bleeding letters of Arthur Kirkland to Matthew Williams. Always his thumb would crash down upon the first name- only to fidget until he could muster up the courage to push call—then he'd listen to the endless ringing and the eventual crackle of a phone unable to connect.
Still, morning after morning, he'd survey his makeshift camp before wedging the phone between shoulder and ear, rolling up his blanket, and stuffing it into his backpack along with his canteen and a tin plate he'd found in the wreckage of his old home.
And he'd walk, seeing no hope in a horizon choked by a yellowish haze or the lifeless husk of the sun. Grass crunched into silt beneath his feet-black, but better than splintered highways and steel rods jutting out where bridges had crumbled.
The skeletons sagging in the seats of cars studding the road scared him, but worse were the living peering from broken windows, breath fogging up the razor sharp edges of the glass as they leered at the boy who dared move place to place, as if he had a place to move to. They were survivors, just like him, only ones who were smart enough to know that there was no point but to stay put and wait for food to run out. America the beautiful—America the plentiful—was barren. All were free, but only to die.
But there was a point to keep moving, Alfred kept telling himself; the sound of his hoarse murmur into his phone comforted him. He shivered and staggered on like that for days, limping from shrapnel to his left calf, but always speaking into the cold crackle of his phone until it developed into a rhythm that carried him step by step.
"Going to make it to New York City," he'd often begin his conversation. "There are people still there and I can get a flat and find some real food and no more killing stray animals. Hear that Artie?" He let out a cold chuckle and shivered a bit. "I always get excited when I see that skyline. I know I'm a farm boy, but something about the city thrills me. S'the original plan, after all, get to New York City and get a flat and live the high life. Nothing's changed."
Somewhere in that time the static would cease as his phone shut down to conserve battery, but Alfred spoke on undeterred. "New York makes everything okay. Makes dreams come true. S'why so many flock there all the time and the streets are always teeming with life. It's safe. Nothing bad can happen to New York, Artie. Nothing. You should come visit me when I get my flat. Doesn't rain here like it does in England. You'd like it here a lot." He smiled into the silence and imagined what Arthur would reply.
He'd probably chide him for being so hopelessly optimistic—because surely he knew the dreadful state America was in. He'd heard about the gas leaking from the bombs that'd peppered the countryside and the fire that had ignited the darkness, right? He had to know that America had been attacked in the night, and that somehow Alfred F. Jones had made it through by the skin of his teeth.
"I survived it," he told Arthur. "I survived the bombs and the gas and the fire. I don't know if you realized it…but my brother is dead and my mom and my dad. A few other people survived, but only because they reached the underground shelter. There wasn't much time. I tried to get them to come to New York with me, but I couldn't get them to budge. They looked like premature corpses, like people who wanted to die." He sighed into the blistering wind and pulled his threadbare jacket tighter about him. The sting of the cold pricked at his wounded leg, then numbed it despite his own frenzied heartbeat.
And he walked onward.
"Hey, Artie, I see it. Only it looks wrong." Alfred halted long enough to stare at the skyline of his beloved New York City, blinking as if his vision was muddled in the substance of dreams. No, the silhouette of New York City was not supposed to look jagged; the windows once designed to gleam in the evening sun were not supposed to be nothing more than punched out spaces, empty hollow eyes. The Empire State Building was not supposed to be splayed out across the street as a mosaic of broken glass and metal beams that had ripped a chunk out of the road.
The American shook his head and allowed a deep sigh to ease the pressure of a heavy heart. "No, no, it's alright. It's alright. It's got to be alright; it's New York." He shook his head and wiped his eyes. "Nothing hurts New York. It's fine, it's fine. It has to be." He trembled with a pained laugh and looked back up.
"Nevermind, Artie, it's okay. I was just…the smoke was in my eyes and the long day really had me kind of out of it. You start seeing the worst when you're starving." He laughed again, hardly able to contain himself as blue eyes drank in the magnificent pulse of sunlight across silver windows and cars lined to enter the gates. The skyline was just as perfect as he'd remembered it, that conglomerate of eccentric buildings built to touch the heavens-as skyhigh as ambitions. "My mind just wanted to give up hope."
With fresh resolve, Alfred walked faster, until the skyscrapers towered up over him and beckoned him into the alleyways that offered protection from the winter winds. He kicked past dirt and old newspapers—yelping at the hiss of a startled cat—but slipped past corners and narrow passageways between overflowing trashbags. He adjusted the bag on his back, partially just to prod it to make sure he heard the crunch of wadded bills he'd collected over the years.
"Saved up for this flat for ages, Arthur," Alfred murmured as he stepped out into the street. "I'm going to find the perfect place so that you can visit me soon. Hey, I'll call you back. I just walked into a crowd. Damn, more people than I remembered."
Alfred slipped the dying phone into his pocket and grinned eagerly at the hordes that engulfed him in their chaos. He stood a moment, a small island parting the stream of people around him who seemed destined to march and halt at the whim of traffic lights and a tangle of to-do lists and obligations.
And he listened.
He listened to the cacophony of honking horns and thrumming engines challenging a counterpoint of pounding feet.
He listened to the shrill siren of an ambulance echoing some streets away.
He listened to the click of heels, the barking of dogs, the men eating bagels near a construction site, pigeons cooing—the sounds unlike the plaintive howl of wind through empty towns or his own raspy voice sinking into the crackle of a dying phone.
These sounds were the opposite of empty-the opposite of death and war and bombs and cracks in a cell phone screen.
"Thank God for New York." And Alfred F. Jones turned on his heel and waded through the crowd, ignoring the pain of hunger coming from the familiar smell of street vendors in favour of tall apartment buildings and revolving doors. He needed his money for the first month's rent of his flat. Alfred had already waited so long for real food and—though hollow cheekbones and sallow skin pleaded otherwise—he could wait just a bit longer.
The man who showed Alfred the series of flats in the first building was hauntingly familiar, though the boy could not quite place him. The second man who toured him elicited the same eerie feeling, and only a deep breath of urban air could soothe the goosebumps that erupted along his flesh once he'd left.
The man who met him at the bottom of the third building that Alfred tried was cheerful enough and spoke with just the hint of a lilt in his voice. Though, as spooked as Alfred still was, he elected to buy the first flat that this man showed him and was pleased with the low rate that he'd received.
"I'll be able to afford a hotdog after all," Alfred said to the empty room. "But maybe not furniture until I get a steady job…" All the same, he was content with the flat that he'd found for himself, a room wedged in the corner of the apartment building, bordered by wide windows overlooking a bustling street below. He grinned and lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the fiery glow of a setting sun that swathed the room in oranges and gold. He'd need curtains, he decided. Curtains, a couch, and a table, but all that would come in time.
Wrapping his hand about his phone, Alfred unshouldered his rucksack, left it in a corner, and went to sit by the window and peer down below. Food would have to wait after all, he told himself, as the floor looked ever inviting. He shivered a bit—surely he'd have to call the landlord about fixing the heat-then placed the phone by the window and curled up next to it, eyes falling shut to a lullaby of distant horns.
The phone lit up as one bar of service ticked onto the cracked screen, catching the far off signal of a distant satellite with the help of the 14 floors beneath Alfred's new flat. It lay dormant like that, still caught on the contact list with bleeding and blurred names and the 10% battery sign that slowly seeped empty.
Until it started to vibrate, finally within reach of a name too garbled to recognize. A name who churned the dying machine back to life time and time again that night, able to connect to Alfred's phone from London for the first time since the bombing.
But the phone's insistent buzz cut short when Arthur Kirkland finally pressed end call after the fifteenth try, when the sound of Alfred's voicemail recorded message proved too much for him. Sniffing, the boy took a long sip of tea, hastening the warmth of the liquid to burn his throat and soothe tears that prickled his eyes. The drone of a tv in the background murmured details of the attack on the United States, but all was lost on him save for snippets that cut through the running of his thoughts.
-No major city has been spared along the East Coast. Those who survived have evacuated to what's left of the countryside where shortage of food and the likelihood of poison gas and disease are taking their toll on those remaining—
"Alfred," Arthur said to his blank phone screen.
-Among the cities hit the hardest are New York City and the areas within a 100 mile radius-
Trembling fingers hammered a text message. Arthur's heart pounded in his ears and his skin felt too hot but too cold as lungs struggled with air that became too thick. Ripples exploded from the first of Arthur's tears that landed in his tea.
'Alfred. If you're alive. Call me. Please. I know it's not the same as New York, but we can get a flat in London. Just please be alive.'
Alfred's phone lit up one last time then cut first to white then faded to black, the battery finally completely drained.
And Alfred slept on, his slowing breaths barely forcing plumes of white into the chilled air creeping through broken window panes. Below him the great, once magnificent metropolis lay silent in the embrace of cold sleep, for the bodies crammed into underground train stations and basements or strewn across alleyways or streets could no longer bring life to buildings, roads, and hopes and dreams shattered by war.
And one boy lying alone in an abandoned apartment building could not change that, no matter what his heart had yearned to see.