The wind moaned through the hollowed-out remains of skyscrapers, the bones of a world that had once thrived, now left to rot. My coat flapped against my skin, frayed at the edges, torn by time. Beneath my boots, the dust swirled like the ghost of civilization itself—grey, choking, lifeless. Alone. That's the word that sticks, isn't it? Alone, in the truest sense. They called it the Doomsday, World War III. Now? It's just… life. Or whatever's left of it. And I? I'm the last one standing.
How long has it been since the world ended? Decades, maybe. Feels like a lifetime. Since the bombs fell, since everything we once took for granted vanished into a cloud of smoke, since silence became the loudest sound. All that's left now is the wind's mournful cry and the creaking skeletons of buildings that were once proud.
Hunger's a constant companion, a hollow ache in my gut. Food's a rarity now, a fading memory of a time I don't even remember. I hunt, scavenge, picking off whatever twisted creatures dare venture into the city's decaying heart. I've learned to survive in this madness—what's safe to eat, what's deadly, what sounds might be the last thing I ever hear. Survival's a grim dance, a constant balancing act on the razor's edge of death.
Today, I pushed deeper into the city, further than I usually dared. A library, once magnificent, now a crumpled ruin of glass and steel. I picked my way through the wreckage, the crunch of broken glass underfoot, the air thick with the stink of rot. There was a heaviness to the place, an eerie weight that pressed in from all sides.
And then, I heard it. Not the usual skittering of mutated rats, not the whistle of wind through shattered windows. This was different. A low hum, a vibration that made my chest tighten. My heart started to race, the beat echoing in my ears.
I followed the sound, drawn toward it, deeper into the ruins. And there, in the heart of the collapsed building, stood something I couldn't quite comprehend—a massive tree, its roots burrowing into the broken floors, its branches stretching toward the shattered ceiling. It wasn't like any tree I'd seen before. Its bark shimmered, black like obsidian, its leaves catching what little light filtered through the wreckage, glowing with a strange, iridescent sheen. A soft, rhythmic hum pulsed from its trunk, like a song only the wind could carry.
I reached out, fingers trembling, and touched the bark. The moment my skin made contact, something shifted. Energy—alive, electric—surged through my fingertips, crawling up my arm. This tree, this thing, wasn't just some oddity. It felt… conscious. A force of life, in the middle of all this death. A new kind of life, one that had sprouted from the ashes of humanity's hubris.
I sat down at its base, letting the hum wash over me. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't completely alone. I was still solitary, yes—but in the company of this strange, alien life, the weight of my isolation seemed to lift, just for a moment. The world's not gone. It's changed. And maybe that's all there is left to cling to.
In the quiet, in the ruins, even in the silence of my solitude, there's still something here, still something to connect to. Dead men may have their stories, but the living… we're still telling ours. Mine's just beginning.