I wrote this short story after watching the animated comic, Death as a Gift, on the movie I am Legend. It just seemed like such a sad situation, I wanted to give it a background. I might create a longer fanfic about Jinghua using the diaries I mentioned, but I'm not sure it would be very good; I'd love feedback (love it or hate it). And yes, I DO like semicolons, lol.
"The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." -- James Branch Cabell
Jinghua Xu sat at her desk, pictures of her family and boyfriend still in their places on its finely lacquered surface. There were no more tears, only resolution. Only an unshakable inner stillness. Nothing that had happened had been her fault; nothing had been under her control. This was the one thing she could do now that would be her own choosing. They say fate is a predetermined value, but had she not written her own? She picked up a pen and began to pen a note, unsure of the words until they were written on the paper. She had never seen her own handwriting so neat and clear.
She had dressed herself in her best kept clothes, a soft, almost transparent white, empire-style dress that fell just below the knees. Her long, soft black hair had been brushed free of tangles and she left it straight and hanging loose on her shoulders. Her dark brown eyes were clear and calm. She had applied the last of her make-up. She went barefoot, feeling connected as never before to the solid ground. The wooden bead bracelets her boyfriend had given her years ago for her birthday dangled delicately from her starved wrists. Jinghua sat for a long time staring at the words she'd written, her mind far away. She reached out and grasped the metal handle of a desk drawer, pulling it open. Reaching in, she pulled out three small, leather bound notebooks and stacked them on the desk; diaries. She had never intended for anyone to read them. She had found them in a bookstore a couple months after the outbreak and had brought them home with her. Originally they had been an outlet for her to keep notes on her daily activities, but eventually they had transformed into something much more valuable. They had been the medium through which she had communicated to readers unknown, the only communication she had left with a world she wasn't sure still existed. Jinghua traced a finger across the top of a picture frame on her desk, the one of her mother and herself, smiling softly. She wouldn't have to wait another day for her. Eventually, she quietly pushed the chair back. Standing she picked up the page and walked out of her room, flicking off the light as she went and embracing the darkness. She lived in a modest corner apartment on the fifth floor of her building. She had been here alone for just over three years now. Everything was as it had always been with an added layer of dust over the surfaces of objects without immediate use. Lamps sat idle, the TV was black as night, the doors to bedrooms where family members once resided were closed and locked.
Jinghua glanced up at the clock. It had quit years ago, the hands locked in place; it had stopped working at 3:40 on an unknown date. She wondered if it had been night or day. Picture frames were here as well, the only objects in the living room that she had consistently maintained. She passed the kitchen, not glancing in. There was nothing there. She hadn't eaten in weeks. As she entered the small entry hallway of her family's home, she grabbed a key off of a table that sat against the wall, ignoring the mirror above it. Stepping up to the door, she paused, her hands on the top of three pieces of wood she had used to bar it closed. She removed them one by one and then unlocked the set of locks she had installed to the side. Hesitantly, she turned the handle, pulling the heavy wood door open just a crack. Peeking outside, she looked up and down the dark, silent hallway outside her door. As always, it was empty and there was no sign of a disturbance. Her neighbor's doors were all shut; the numbers of several were crooked or broken off. She stepped out into the hall gingerly, her bare feet brushed over the rough, cheap green carpets her mother had railed against when they had first moved in. So long ago…
She closed the door quietly behind her, slipping the key into the key hole and locking it. Then, bending down, she laid the key on top of the family's plain, black doormat. With the paper she had written clutched in her hands, she walked down the hallway to the building's stair well. She glanced at the doors of the elevators, there was a sign still hanging over the front that read "Out of order". The doors had closed slightly ajar so a little strip of black permanently ran between them. She slowed as she came to a corner, tiptoeing to the edge and peeking around. It was empty and silent… As always. Jinghua gripped the railing as she began the walk down the stairs, listening to her feet slapping against the cold steps in the darkness. Each flight she descended, she would stop, listening for sounds. Only the sound of her own breathing came back to her.
She stepped into the empty lobby of the building. It had once been nicely furbished, but the contents had been looted long ago, the couches where she would wait to greet her father after work when she was younger were gone. The coffee table was broken and lying on the floor, the legs, strangely, had been ripped off and taken. The giant mirror on one wall had broken, pieces of glass were scattered all over the floor around it. There had been photos of landscapes that had once hung on the walls that were long-missing. Another blackened hallway jutted off to the left leading to more apartments. A large desk on one side of the room was littered with papers and the call bell had fallen on the floor, an empty chair behind it sat facing the wall. The light of the setting sun shone through the glass windows and door in the front, riddled with cracks. She didn't bat an eye as she walked to the doors, pulling one open and walking out onto the street.
A slight breeze tousled her hair; the sun light showered her face and seemed to welcome her outside. How long had it been since she'd actually watched a sunset? Looking up, Jinghua saw birds wheeling through the air. Were they seagulls? Doves? She didn't know. Animals had dealt much better with the infection than humans had. The street was silent, apartment and condo buildings rising in every direction. She looked sadly up at the windows, wondering as she always did if anyone was looking back down at her. Of course no one was, but she always wondered anyways. The buildings were bathed in shades of pinks, yellows, and oranges as she walked through the empty parking lots between them. There were only a couple of cars remaining; most of them looked like they had been looted. One was on blocks and had no tires. Once she would have been afraid to get too close to them, but not now. They were as empty as everything else was.
Jinghua crossed a small tree-lined divider between the street and the parking lot. Her feet skimmed the unruly grass that had grown several inches tall and was riddled with weeds and mushrooms. The trees were changing color, the leaves littered the ground and the breeze blew them into the street. It was autumn, a season beautiful for its death. The buildings were a blur of destruction; all of them had been broken into at one point or another. She smiled and noted that it was autumn for them as well, there was glass crumpled about their foundations as plentiful as the leaves around the trees. She headed for the middle of the street, noting several deserted cars along the sidewalk. You could never be too sure there was nothing lurking in the shadows so she avoided proximity with the buildings as well. She watched for driving signs as she walked, following their directions even though she knew the way step for step.
She passed a street lined with shops and restaurants. Someone had created a blockade with several derelict cars. Ripped, sun bleached and dirty signs adorned the tops of buildings, the only testament that anyone had ever really been there. An unfinished building shrouded in clear plastic loomed on the corner; the wind tossing it's covering in every direction offering glimpses of the metal framework underneath. She looked up and was greeted with flapping wings. The birds seemed to be following her. She turned and spotted a car nearby seeing that something was dangling out of the open window. Squinting, she realized it was a human arm, fingers clutching lifelessly at nothing. She shut her eyes, taking a deep breath, heart pounding in her ears. After a moment, she forced herself to stare straight ahead, taking each step carefully, one foot firmly planted ahead of the next. She could feel the rough, grainy surface of the asphalt between her toes with each step.
She crossed onto a highway. The asphalt had crumbled and weeds poked through the cracks. A car had crashed into a cement barricade and lay in a motionless wreck. The car lanes were laced with dry blood and the divider's paint was fading in the sun. She looked down the street towards the reddened sky; the sun was starting to slip below the horizon. She could see cars littering the lanes farther down the street in a fatal traffic jam. Jinghua crossed the four lanes of the highway, giving a wide berth to empty cars and stepping over the cement litter on the ground. She headed toward the exit ramp of an over pass. She stared at the unscathed guard rails along the side; they looked so out of place next to the destruction around them. She walked up a steep incline to the pass above. It was guarded on each side by tall chain link fences that bent inward at the top to prevent people from climbing over them. She walked down the pavement to the ends of the guards and climbed onto the ledge jutting free of them. Gripping the fence, she shimmied her way across, heading to the middle. She stood staring down at the street, the wind behind her blowing her hair into her face and the sun casting a long shadow over the highway. She could survey the city from here. Hong Kong, a city with a population of almost 7 million people was dead. The world had been so loud before, Jinghua had often wished for silence. Now it was more deafening than all of the noise had been. She placed her hands on her thighs, holding her dress still as she peered over the edge downwards. It wasn't that high, the street looked closer than she had imagined, but it was enough. She looked down at the bangles around her wrists, tears finally stinging her eyes. She felt crushed her future had been stolen from her, but relieved there would be a conclusion. She had felt so powerless of the circumstances life had given her for so long, it was important that she could decide her own death. It was an inevitability she would have to face either way. She would have been afraid before; death was a thing to avoid in the past. Now it was a goal to attain that could only prove her salvation.
Clouds drifted lazily in the wind above, and the birds hung effortlessly in the space between heaven and earth. She would have to join them. She gripped the paper tightly in one hand and stepped to the edge. Closing her eyes, she spread her arms wide as if she really were a bird about to take flight. And then, she leaned forward, letting herself fall.
She felt no pain and was gone in a single breath. It had all been so effortless. Her hand lay atop the simple note she had written as they both lay on the pavement, the wind gently pulling at the corners of the page. Blood seeped onto the paper, spreading upwards but it never clouded her words. The sun slipped just beneath the horizon blanketing the now empty city in darkness.
"My name is Jinghua Xu. I am immune. Beside the infected, I am the only survivor in Hong Kong."