Realising I couldn't delay it any longer, I trudged with abnormally heavy legs to where the ominous flat block stood over me.
Already, I picked out several differences of the normally familiar building, like one of those stupid spot-the-difference games you got on the back of kid's menus at restaurants. With my finger, I circled the differences in the air.
Number One: the floor-to-ceiling windows on this side of the building had been mercilessly demolished. I wondered with slight apprehension whether the windows had been blown inwards, turning glass into deadly daggers. If that was the case, I doubted there would be survivors. Yet, didn't that exact thing happen to me? There I was, living and breathing. I guess I was giving myself false hope, trying to convince myself that my family might've survived.
Number Two: the grey cement of the building was covered in a thick layer of soot and dripping with some sort of odd-looking matter. Some bricks were slightly chipped away, leaving a layer of rubble at my feet. It was as if a sculptor was trying to make a statue out of the building, chipping away at the edges to construct some sort of object. Apart from what lay before me definitely couldn't be called art. Maybe modern art at a stretch. I remember being dragged to modern art displays by my mum as a child. She would point to what looked like a mess to me and comment on how artistically genius it was. I would nod along, pretending I saw what she saw. It was strange how some people could see the world with a filter, seeing what they wanted. I wondered slightly sardonically if my mother would see our home as art now. I conjured an image in my head, her holding her DIY hand-camera up to the wrecked building and saying in a whimsical voice: "Look how artistically the goo drips down the bricks! Magnifique!"
Number Three: it was completely silent. That's what I noticed about the apocalypse, how heart-wrenchingly silent it was. Usually, I would hear the goings-on of at least five doors down from me thanks to paper thin walls. If I stood in my apartment on the 30th floor, I would hear deaf Mrs Krank talking to her cat almost deafeningly loudly on the 28th. Every morning, I was awoken by Mrs Krank saying things like: "How's the food, Mr Mittens? Tasty I hope?"
I took a deep breath, as if that would prepare me for ascending the stairs into my home. Breathing exercises were stupid in this case really. As soon as I stepped into the foyer, my breath caught in my throat.
Before the foyer wasn't exactly grand. It was a ramshackle mess of cleaning storage and makeshift management desks with an ancient computer from what looked to be the 21st century. Banks, the self-named fraud of a building manager, would often sit at his desk as if the swivel chair was a throne and his battered fedora was a crown. Because he thought he owned the place, he would often smoke e-cigarettes, the sickly blueberry scented smoke filling the cramped foyer until it became a permanently lingering haze.
After, the ceiling had partially collapsed in. Beams of charred wood, scraps of carpet and bent, melted metal now took up the entire foyer. I almost missed seeing the mop tucked away in the corner, almost missed the ancient computer which was peeking beneath the damage. I carefully stepped over rubble and peered through the hole in the ceiling. Since the electricity had gone, the entire room was pitch black. Not much there then.
I began to ascend the stairs cautiously, as if afraid they'd give way even though they were solid concrete. At one point, I reached out for the bannister and almost fell over ten feet down the spiral staircase. I found out the hard way that the bannister had collapsed.
I continued to venture through the darkness, my heart thrumming a frantic rhythm in my chest. Maybe I should've just been grateful that it was still beating. I counted the floors out loud. 13… 14… 15… Fear crawled beneath my skin every second I got closer to my floor.
27… 28… 29…
30.
I began to feel along the walls, hoping my five years of living in this apartment block would be enough to find my way to my apartment in the darkness. I scrunched my eyes closed in focus. I was apartment number 3010, so it should have been the fifth door on the left. Which way was left again? The darkness disorientated me, my mind playing tricks on me. The dark seemed to move, to swarm around me and smother me further. I could feel the dark pressing on me like a physical thing.
The dark pushed me into a protective crouching position. I buried my head in my arms, trying to come to my senses. I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth. But, like I said, breathing exercises don't really do anything in this situation. I kept telling myself, be strong, be strong. But how could I? As far as I knew in that moment, I was the only one who had survived the apocalypse. In that moment, I was the loneliest I'd ever felt, with the claustrophobic presence of the dark my only company.
It took me a while to regain my senses.
I forced myself to my feet, my legs wobbling and my feet rooted to the spot in fear. I stretched my arms out and felt the weirdly reassuring solidarity of the wall. I stepped forward like a toddler learning to walk, each step an excruciating effort.
When I thought I'd reached apartment 3010, I felt for the door handle. With a jolt of shock, I realised that it was already slightly open.
My eyes snapped open. "Dad?" I asked into the darkness of the open apartment. "Dad are you alive in there?" No answer. "Jess? It's me, Cato." No answer. "Selena?" No answer.
I dared to venture in, my heart thrumming even faster now.
In the apartment, a faint light from still raging fires outside illuminated the walls ever so slightly. The orange light danced this way and that, seemingly the only source of life in the apartment.
"Kai?" I tried. But no, it hit me like a ten-tonne force. I'd murdered Kai before this disaster happened. He wouldn't be here, he would be on the street where I left him to bleed out. I tried to keep myself together but the thoughts were already flooding in. If my dad and Selena did survive, what would they say when they found out that I'd stabbed Kai? Selena would never forgive me and dad would look at me with the sad knowledge in his eyes that he'd raised a monster. I would agree with him. What would Jess say? Jess who was barely old enough to understand what death was would have to hear about how her step-brother had killed her brother.
I began to back away. For some reason, this thing that I'd done was more overwhelming than any apocalypse could ever be. The weight of guilt, the force of despair pressing down on me, was the final straw.
Decidedly, I turned to leave the apartment.
I felt something sharp press into my scarred throat.
Then I felt the presence. The sense that someone was standing behind me.
The voice was eerily deep, using a police voice changing mask.
"Human or mutant?"