The Day the World Stopped

Slowly I got up from my position on the floor, how long had I been out? My clothes were dyed dark red from blood. It wasn't my own. Looking around, the sight broke my heart, before filling it with fire that I'd never before known could be there.

Blood coated the walls and ceiling dripping down with a sickening and taunting sound. Pieces of flesh were strewn throughout the room without any clues as to who it belonged too and what organ it was a part of.

Lying around the room were four new human corpses, now joining their killer in death on the floor, my fellow survivors, those whom I had faced calamity with.

The death of humanity had never before stared me so firmly in the face, I bent over feeling sick, and like I'd puke, but after retching once or twice nothing came out, except for the water that now found its home in my eyes. 

I stood up, pausing before clenching my fists, nails digging into my palms. "WHY!?" I yelled in anger and desperation.

 'Why' I thought again inside my head despairing and despising 'We'd done nothing wrong, we stayed in our home, so why did these alien bastards and whatever the rest of this is come and kill most of us, why are they hunting us down to the last!?

Now we're even turning on ourselves and betraying our own fellow humanity.' I thought, my mind turning to that hateful image of Allison's betrayal.

 "WHY" I screamed again, my voice unstable.

'I'll find the answer to that why,' I swore. 'And I'll make those responsible regret ever coming to earth, that's an oath!' I cast a final glance around at the tragedy before me, fixing it in my mind before starting to head to the surface and fulfil my oath when a strange sound stopped me in my tracks. *Tweet* it sounded.

I thought my mind was playing tricks on me before again *Tweet*. Strangely that sound seemed to resonate with me, as though a close friend was extending a hand, asking for some help.

Was there a bird around here? How? It shouldn't be able to reach this room in the first place, and even if it could it would've died from the alien's attack, and what was that strange feeling it was giving me? Surprised and curious at the turn of events I went towards the source of the sound and feeling.

It took me to a corpse, Rebbacca's from its position in the room. Again my stomach and anger churned. I then noticed something, a small part of the corpse was twitching, and again the short bird song rang out.

Was the bird somehow underneath Rebbecca? I was confused for a moment before having a shocking realisation, Rain was being protected by Rebbecca before the wave of 4th dimension energy, could it be that he survived? But then, was he the one making bird noises, and giving me that strange feeling? 

I carefully rolled Rebbecca's corpse over, staining my hands red, and there right underneath her lay a small chirping robin. 

It was on the floor, pushed down by the weight, but after it was free it stood up and looked at me.

There was no child sized body lying in Rebbecca's protective embrace and the flesh couldn't have disappeared. Was the thought going through my head truly correct?

"Are you, are you Rain?" I tentatively asked. The robin nodded.

I didn't quite know what to think, joy, confusion, and worry joined my heart's mourning pain. Was this strange turn of events caused by that 4th dimension energy? It must have been, that could be the only explanation for it. At the very least someone else was alive, I was no longer in solitude with my grief.

"Can you turn back, or speak?" I questioned the tiny thing. All it did was shake its head. It seemed like he was stuck staying as a bird, was this what this new energy did?

It was then that I noticed Rain start to look at the carnage around him, and I was reminded that this was no place for a child to be. 

I quickly picked him up and covered his eyes gently. "It's best that you don't see this." I said in as calm a tone I could muster, which wasn't very convincing. I looked around one last time, setting my jaw in determination. We would make it, humanity would, no matter what lies in our path.

With that I made my way towards the staircase, past the alien body, past what was left of Andrew, and towards the sun that now hangs stationary in the sky. 

The stairs were cold unfeeling metal, but that was better than the bloodiness of before. The ominous ringing of my steps no longer seemed so scary. 

Halfway up the stairs, I came across it, the thing we'd all been searching for, the thing they'd all died for. A small supply cupboard with some emergency equipment, food, and water lay inside. I took some of the water, and used a bit to clean the blood that stuck to my hands and Rain's feathers, cleaning the clothes would have to wait. There wasn't enough water to clean that.

I packed the remaining water and food into my bag, after me and Rain took a small nibble, and took an axe that lay in the equipment. Nothing else seemed worth taking, it all looked worthless. 

Closing the door to that small space that we'd searched for and hailed as our saving grace left a hollow feeling in me. It seemed so pointless now.

Why had we searched so hard for this. I looked at the small creature that lay in my hands, a human child who'd become even more fragile. I had to stay strong, too look after him, the remaining drop of civilization, of a time before all this death.

Though I felt hollow, no tears arose when I looked upon him. 

Again we continued the climb up the winding steel staircase, eventually reaching the peak of our trek. The door had an emergency sign above it saying exit, though that could only barely be made out, as the bulb was no longer lit.

It had a push bar to open, and was all in all a normal exit door, but to me it felt far heavier.

With one hand on the bar, and the other holding Rain, I heaved it open to see the world of the apocalypse. I saw far more than that. The sun, as expected, still lay up in the sky, but beyond that I saw something I never expected the world that I longed for in my dreams. 

Stars, constellations, the bodies of heaven and space, the things I had longed to study and know were now in front of me, clearer than a cloudless night at the earth's birth, but I witnessed even more than that. I watched not just the stars and planets appear, but the way that they moved, influencing and changing the world, pulling, shifting, giving, taking, like the eyes of an array of Gods staring down at me. 

I felt my heart almost stop beating. What on earth was all of this?