Happily ever Nevermore
After the world literally exploded before my eyes, I felt like a new Max. A better one. It seemed like every problem I've ever faced got ripped away from me, along with the rest of the world. It was a bitter-sweet feeling. However, the flock and I knew…we knew things would never ever be the same for us. We tried not to talk about it too much, but there isn't much else here apart from some water and mountains. Not really a good conversation starter.
It had been about four days since the apocalypse. Thankfully Doctor Martinez and Ella had managed to pack enough food and drink to last us a few months. It gave us enough time to figure out where we could get food naturally. Sadly, it meant we had to budget the amounts we ate. Some of us found these changes harder than others.
"I can't take this anymore!" Gazzy yelled in frustration, directed at me.
"There's nothing here… I'll never play on an Xbox, I'll never get to make a bomb again…" He started to weep. Drops of guilt soaked my clothes where Gazzy's face was buried into. This usually happened a couple of times a day, he'd cry, scream, fly and sleep. I couldn't blame him though. The flock all sat around the cave, absently drifting in their own little worlds. Worlds that hadn't been taken away from them.
"Did we make the right choice? " I asked fang, my voice sounding as deflated as one of my baking attempts. He shrugged casually, not seeming too bothered. I analysed his face, seeing something new than the fang from the old world. His face seemed baptised, a new clarity about him. It took the end of the world to make him seem happy. The thought of all those cliché lines like 'I'd give up the world for you' seemed sort of wrong now. I wouldn't suggest it as a pick up line.
"What's the plan from here, Max?" Nudge asked in a plain tone. For once, I didn't have a plan. I didn't even want a plan. I was officially retiring from planning ahead. Nudge interrupted my thinking process.
"I think the new world is going to be a lot better than the old one" She spoke, her voice sounding a lot more grown-up. The thought hurt my heart a bit.
"What do you mean the new world?" I asked her. The flock all seemed to sit up, exited that something was actually happening. Yep. We were so desperate for entertainment we were even listening to one of Nudge's motor-mouth presentations. God help us now.
"What I mean is… the world had to start somewhere. Now it's gonna have to start all over again, but different. Perhaps instead of dinosaurs there will be some giant octopuses or maybe instead of the Romans someone else might come along." The flock sat in silence, absorbing the information. It made us all start to think; the first ounce of motivation we'd all felt in days. Gazzy spoke up, now recovered from his tantrum.
"It'll be like a video game. The basic story line is still there, but you can play it differently every time." I could see his face light up, as the thought of a video game-like world filled his head. I let him keep that little piece of heaven for now.
"Different versions of the same thing…" Dylan spoke from the corner of the cave, his voice sounding partly energised.
"Maybe every couple of million years the world has to restart" Angel said sleepily from the blanket she was sleeping under. Her naïve mind made me smile.
"It's probably a lot longer than a couple of million, sweetheart" I said to her gently. She got up and came to sit on my lap and I wrapped my arms around her tiny body. After everything, a hug seemed like such a good idea now. Iggy's voice came from the floor, where he was sitting next to fang.
"Maybe that was the plan all along. To restart the world every so often to keep it safe in the long run." His words lit a spark in my head.
"The adults were the ones destroying it… all that green house gas and stuff. But then how do we know if this has ever happened before? There's no evidence right now to say there was anything before this apocalypse. Maybe we're just part of some big plan. Bigger than we thought." Now everyone was sitting up in interest. It was as if the world was like a distraction from us coming up with this idea. We always had to blame someone or something, but now there's nothing to blame. So…what is it? who is it?
"All this deep thinking is making me really hungry" the Gasman complained. Now that he mentioned it, I felt it too. Everyone's faces seemed to brighten up with the idea of eating something. It was about time, according to our budget timetable.
"Let's go for a fly afterwards. Sitting in this cave is starting to make me feel claustrophobic" Nudge said, jumping up and stretching her arms. We all stood up and began our walk over to the food supplies.