Fists banged against the glass shield that had settled into place before her, knuckles white as paper. She might have been crying. Honestly, she felt detached from her own body — a ghost. All she could hear was the overwhelming silence of whatever room she had been thrown into and the echo of her fists hitting the glass.
"What about you?" She screamed at the person who stood on the other side of the glass, voice cracking and trembling, "You're going to die!"
The world was shifting around her, head light and heart pounding. She stared at the man before her, dressed to the nines in a black suit. At first, she had been angry at him, viewed him as the enemy. What was she supposed to think? He and a SWAT team had barged into her home and thrown her into the back of an armored car.
How things could change in the matter of a day.
"You'll find the things you've requested in your assigned room," He told her, voice even and calm. The only sign of fear was in the bead of sweat falling down a dark brow. "Should the others not reach you, you have enough food to last you for at least twenty years or more."
Panic set in, she began gasping. The man had been her handler for the past day. He hadn't given her his name.
"Complimentary," he had said. He liked that word a lot. She was only given the vaguest idea of why she was here. The world was ending. Revelations had come and Emily was one of the chosen few to survive.
When he looked upon her, he felt pity. Pulled from the east coast to the west, their only option was to transport her directly to the bunker. His pity could only go so far… she got to live, after all.
He continued as calmly as one could when faced with an immediate and horrible death, "The bunker is designed to withstand 2,000 feet of impact and could withstand the heat of the sun should things not go according to plan."
This all felt like a dream. Nuclear war… of course, it would be nuclear war. Anger was set ablaze in her belly. Those men at the seats of power. The corrupt scum that saw dollar signs and their own pride before they saw people. Selfish, irredeemable—
A metal door began to close on top of the glass one that separated her from her companion. It eclipsed the only light she had from the outside world.
"No," She begged, choking on the frog in her throat, "no, no, no, no, no, no—"
She yelped as a blast of air hit her from behind, hands going over her head as she quickly curled into a ball. When she finally looked up she could only see a sliver of light.
Her eyes nearly bulged from her head as the clear afternoon sky was taken up in colors of red and orange. It looked like blood was striking into her prison. It was but an instant, but it would be burned into her mind until the day she died.
Then her world was cast into shadow.
Trembling and sniveling, Emily pulled out her phone. Pushing short and curly brown hair out of her eyes, she turned it on and cast it upon the room she was in. It was small and round with dark wood walls.
On hands and knees, she began searching. The man had pressed something into her hands before pushing her in here, causing her to stumble and drop whatever it was in the process. It wasn't a hard or long search, finding it in the matter of a few seconds.
In quickly written script which had been slightly smudged read the words, "Room 6" accompanied by an iron key taped below.
Carefully, she took it in her hand and flipped it over, doing her best to keep the light steady enough to see. A picture of a sunny day was on the other side, blue skies with clouds that reminded her of those she had seen in oil paintings. The light shook even more as a low whine left her mouth, hot, salty tears falling down her face. Sobs turned into screams, partly out of fear and partly out of rage but either way deafening. The way the walls were formed made it sound like a hundred people were screaming into her ear but she couldn't stop. It felt like her body was caving into itself, back arching as she curled against the floor wishing for it all to be a dream. She wanted to ram her head into the floor until she was forced to wake up.
Finally, her voice went raw and she couldn't cry another tear. Everything was numb and heavy. Slowly, she rose to her feet, pocketing the picture and casting the light onto the rest of her surroundings.
On one half sat a control pad with numbers and familiar symbols — she was in an elevator. There were only a few floors to choose from, three or four. She pressed a level with a star etched beside it.
It didn't light up, didn't make a sound. Part of her was afraid it was busted and she'd spend the rest of her life in this small chamber like a vestal virgin sentenced to death to retain the balance.
"Damnit!" she croaked, slamming a fist into the wall.
"Damnit!" She shouted, voice like an old crone as she kicked out in frustration. The elevator lurched, making her fall back and land painfully on the floor with a grunt. She could hear mechanical whirring under her ear. Another lurch caused her to sit up and brace herself for a quick descent down a shaft possibly a mile deep. Instead, she was surprised by a slow descent.
It felt like a horror movie, but after being kidnapped and watching the world end right before her eyes she had grown accustomed to the feeling. Didn't convince her heart to stop pounding in her ears, however… or her palms from being covered in a cold sweat. Why couldn't they at least install lights?
She emerged at the bottom floor with caution and with her light hidden away. Just because that man said she was welcome didn't mean she was. That's how cults worked, right? What if she was a doomsday sacrifice?
Hands out to feel for her surroundings, Emily turned her head this way and that to listen for any sounds of life. The silence, as before, was deafening. Her ears couldn't stand it, ringing ever slightly in revolt.
Once she was certain of her solitude, she once again turned on the flashlight on her phone. It was an underground mansion with innumerable hallways and elaborate stairwells one would expect to see in a movie. She couldn't even begin to wonder where room 6 was. It took all her brainpower to remember how to get back to the elevator. Every step brought her further and further into an unending maze.
A rumbling beneath her feet made her pause. Were the bombs really that close? Would the walls cave in around her? She pushed herself forward until another, more intense shaking made her stop. Her body vibrated with anxiety and it took all her control not to fall into a panic attack.
"Keep moving," she muttered, a mantra to get her to focus on anything other than what was happening up above, "keep moving."
Another shake, strong enough to make her curl up on the floor with her hands over her head, made dust fall from the ceiling and bits of paint to the floor in front of her. Panic rose in her belly and she covered her mouth to keep herself from being sick. A chime made her yelp, her phone buzzing in her hand. Then another chime, then another. Her found sounded like it was screaming, multiple chimes and dings echoing through the halls.
Something had returned the signal to her phone, but when she looked at her lock screen she really wished it hadn't. Final messages poured in from her friends — shock, followed by fear and finally resignation. She cried as she got messages from people she hadn't heard from in years, apologizing for wrongs and reminding her of their love. A message popped up saying her voice-mail was full, asking her if it wanted to play what she missed.
Emily threw her phone to the side as the messages began to play, not even realizing she had hit the button to do so. There was screaming, there was crying, there was begging for salvation. She couldn't stand it, hands going to cover her ears to block out the world. The earth shook again and again, bombs falling somewhere above her head. All those people- all the people she cared about were gone.
"It's not real," She muttered, voice catching as she rocked back and forth, "it's not— it can't—"
The worst part of this wasn't that everything was gone. It was that she was alone.
