I’ve spent the last few hours sitting in my room staring at the wall, memories going round and round my head. I intended to spend some time meditating, calming myself, bringing myself to a feeling of peace and serenity, but it wasn’t going to happen. Unwelcome thoughts kept clouding my mind; memories kept interfering with my relaxation process.

I decide to go out for a walk. Maybe that will clear out my head. I let my front door slam behind me and freeze for a moment as I’m not sure if I’ve got my keys.

Fortunately, I have. I let out the sharp breath I’d taken and try to centre myself, but I feel uneasy, on edge, almost panicky. It feels wrong to be “avoiding” him like this, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I need to be able to look at things in an objective manner — to calm down — and spending day after day in that place wasn’t helping. I am tired, I am depressed, I am lonely and I am getting poorer by the day. The inheritance money has almost dried up and I have absolutely nothing to show for it — a pokey little flat that I’m sure has rats and definitely has cockroaches; no car; no job; no prospects for the future beside some blinkered hope that I might be able to rebuild my shattered life into some semblance of normality after the worst possible thing that could have happened, happened.

No. It wasn’t that random, that clinical. I made the terrible thing happen, so it’s only right that I live through the consequences. I’m the one who set in motion the chain of events that led to where we are now. And I’m the one who will have to pick up the pieces.

Probably.

A few light flecks of rain hit my cheek as I walk down the street, and I look up. I hadn’t thought to look at the weather when I left the building, but it’s clear that these few flecks of rain are just a prelude to a gathering storm.

I see a flash of lightning, and hear a rumble of thunder off in the distance. I feel that strange feeling in the air when a heavy thunderstorm is coming, and wait for the inevitable torrent of rain to drench me as I continue walking.

I come to that grotty little park a short ways down from my building and walk into it. It’s deserted as usual — why would anyone want to spend time here, however many park benches they put in it? — but I decide to stop here and let the storm come to me.

As I stop, the heavens open. The lightning flashes and the thunder follows almost immediately. The light spattering of rain quickly builds to a full-on downpour, running down my hair, plastering it to my face and making my eyes sting.

I’m without a coat, without an umbrella. The rain is cold, but refreshing. I kneel on the floor and watch the ripples in the growing puddles and the tiny splashes that each droplet makes as it impacts the pavement. While I’m cold, my eyes hurt and the feeling of water running over my skin and sticking my clothes to my body is unpleasant, for some reason it has ceased to matter. This storm is the thing I’ve been waiting for, a feeling that I’m being cleansed, the slate wiped clean, to start again, refreshed. For a storm always passes, and its effect on life around it is noticeable. Grass grows back greener, once-dry ponds are full once again, and the world is refreshed. There’s no scent better than that of the natural world after a heavy storm.

Of course, such smells are far from the big city, where a rainstorm simply makes traffic heavier, but this pathetic little park is separated enough from the revving engines and the blaring horns that I’m only dimly aware of in the distance.

I remember one time when I was going to meet him, early in our relationship, and this kind of storm happened. I’d got to the restaurant early and it was closed, and there was no sign of him. I was underdressed for the occasion — “dressed to impress”, I liked to call it, with my shapeliest black dress and the most impractical heels I could find — and that became even more apparent when the rains started. But when he arrived — exactly on time, just as he always did — he didn’t mind that my hair I’d spent ages on looked ridiculous, that my makeup had run and I wore a thunderous expression on my face. He simply took off that long coat he always wore, wrapped it around my shoulders and led me back to his car. He drove me back to his place, lit his fire — a real fireplace! — and let me warm myself by it. He made me a hot cocoa and gave me a biscuit — a jammy dodger, I could never forget — and then put his arm around my shoulder. Then he kissed me softly and tenderly, but there was such intense feeling behind it that I immediately burst into tears.

Tears like those which are running down my face now, mingling with the worsening storm and plopping onto the pavement, a tiny splash with each one that falls. Everyone around me is too wrapped up in their own situation to care about me, as loud as my sobs are.

That means I have to make this right myself. I close my eyes, set my jaw and grit my teeth and try my best to stop crying. I am shaking, upset, anxious — but I feel a new sense of determination. This is it. This is what I needed. I can’t pin down exactly what has just happened, but I know that from here, I can move forward. I can make progress.

If I can’t save him, I can save myself.

I flipped past the first entry in the diary that I’d already read. The next one was a couple of days later.

“November 3, 2014,” began the entry. “Loneliness is getting the better of me. This world is not where I want to be. This world is a shadow of its former self. Evie’s mission might rebuild it, or it might doom it. I don’t know what the outcome will be.”

She’d mentioned the “mission” once before, but I had no idea what that could be. It sounded as if what Evie was up to had something to do with the state the world was in — or perhaps she was looking for a way to restore things to how they were. How could that be, though? Surely that was impossible. Everything lay in ruins; everyone was dead, turned to dust.

“November 10, 2014,” began the next entry, its handwriting noticeably more untidy. “I wish I had my sister’s stubbornness. Once she sets her mind on something, she sticks to it, commits to it wholeheartedly. I’ve only ever known one time that she didn’t. That’s what made her have to go away. That’s what made her set off on this insane mission. It’s over, I wanted to tell her. She should just give up. Like I have. There’s no hope.”

Annie, it seemed, hadn’t been handling the changes too well. Evidently she’d relied on Evie — for it had to be her; there was no other sister mentioned anywhere — a great deal over the years, and being suddenly without her had plunged her into a feeling of loneliness and despair. “There’s no hope,” she wrote. What a terrible way to feel. I’d felt my thoughts sliding in that direction on more than one occasion, but I’d managed to keep going somehow. I wasn’t sure how long I’d last.

I flipped through the rest of the diary; similar sentiments were expressed throughout. Annie seemed to be suffering a gradual breakdown of her sanity in her involuntary isolation, until the last entry with anything written on it simply said “ALPHA OMEGA ALPHA OMEGA” over and over again.

I frowned. There had been an anonymous text message on Annie’s phone which had said something along similar lines, but it wasn’t clear what that might mean.

“Alpha and Omega.” Beginning and end, I thought. What could that mean? Could it be a reference to the end of the world? I screwed up my eyes as I tried to call to mind the reference — I knew it was from something but I couldn’t place it. The beginning of what? The end of what?

Every step I took seemed to be raising more questions than answering them. Nothing had yet explained the strange flashes of rage that seemed to leave a trail of devastation in my wake; nothing explained the flashes of memory that seemed real enough to touch; nothing explained–

Speak of the devil; nothing explained the dark place where I could hear the voices in the distance — the place where I once again found myself now. I was no longer holding the diary — no longer holding anything. I couldn’t feel my body. I couldn’t see anything but I got the strange feeling I was in the middle of a vast, empty room. I could once again hear the mumbled voices in the distance, but not what they were saying — their tones were hushed, urgent.

Their tone seemed to change abruptly, and I heard what sounded like someone approaching, but there was no-one.

Adam, came a male voice, reverberating around this strange, pitch-dark place, strange echoes distorting the purity of the sound. Adam, you have endured a great deal. And you are strong.

I knew this. In the time since I had awoken, my memories locked away somewhere in the darkest recesses of my mind — somewhere behind the wrathful beast that seemed to inhabit my body — I had travelled far, and to what end? To track down this mysterious person to whom I felt an inexplicable, indefinable connection?

You must gather your strength, continued the voice. For her sake. For without you, she weakens. Without you, her life is meaningless.

What was the voice talking about? Was it, too, talking about Evie? Or about someone else? Why did everything have to be in confused riddles?

A flash of light and a whoosh of air; then nothing again. I could hear swirling sounds; clouds of voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, so I tried to concentrate on one and pick out the words. The voice sounded familiar.

Adam, said the voice, female this time — was it the same one I’d heard speaking to me before? It hesitated; I heard a deep intake of breath. I felt tense. We need to talk.

The other voices swirling around crescendoed to a noise so terrible that I wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

Then, suddenly, silence; and a single voice in the void. Her.

It’s about… us.

The light flashed again, and I was back where I had been, the remnants of the diary held in my hand — though what had once been a legible book was now a barely-identifiable charred object.

I looked around. Still no-one.

The words I had heard chilled me. Were they a memory, or something else altogether? Whatever they were, and whatever might follow them, filled me with an enormous sense of dread. Those words had led to something terrible — or were about to lead to something terrible. I couldn’t tell if that terrible thing had already come to pass as yet, or if where I was sitting was the aftermath of the event.

I was beginning to have my own suspicions, but I was hesitant to explore them in too much detail for fear of unleashing another wave of anger and destruction. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my mind.

The darkness behind my eyelids was soothing for a moment, but before long I heard the words again, and they made me shiver.

I made camp in the endless fields in which I found myself. In hours of walking, I hadn’t seen any landmarks of note ever since the strange episode with the house. I’d kept walking after the sun had set, but to no avail, and now the light from the waning moon was making it difficult to proceed. Although the ground had been largely flat on my travels, I really didn’t want to fall over something in the dark and end up bleeding to death miles from anything. Not that there was anyone around to rescue me, even if I was to find some sign of “civilisation”, of course.

I reached into the pack and pulled out another tin of food, the label of which had been scorched so much it was illegible. The tin itself was all right, though, and the contents turned out to be a mixture of different beans. Rather bland, to be sure, but right now I didn’t care — anything was better than nothing.

I lay down on my back and gazed up at the clear, starry sky. Staring into the sky like this was enough to make you forget about the state the world was in. These twinkling spots of light, some of which were older than the planet I was viewing them from, had a calming influence.

I traced the familiar shapes of the constellations with my eyes. There was Orion. There was the Plough. There were the other arrangements that I didn’t know the names of.

“That’s Ursa Major,” came a voice beside me, a pale, slim arm and hand pointing in the rough area of the Plough. “I don’t know the rest.”

“Orion,” I said, pointing to the distinctive arrangement that supposedly formed the hunter’s belt. “And I’m out, too.”

The girl’s laugh was intoxicating. It filled me with joy to hear, and I didn’t want this moment to end. I felt her take my hand and intertwine her fingers with my own. Her hands were cold, and I knew that she was doing this to warm herself up just as much as to show affection, but I didn’t mind. We were together, and all was well.

I felt her lean over and kiss my cheek. The touch of her soft lips on my rough skin sent a shiver down my spine. I closed my eyes and smiled.

“I love you,” she whispered in my ear. “I wish this moment could last forever.”

I opened my eyes to see the familiar stars above me again — far, far away, further than humanity would ever go in my lifetime. I rolled my head to the side, the dry grass rough on my face, and there was no-one there.

She had gone. The moment had ended. The moment we had both wanted to last forever had passed, and time had moved on to a different and altogether unwelcome future.

I hadn’t seen the girl in my dream — for that was the only reasonable conclusion I could come to  for what had just happened — but I knew instinctively it had been the same girl I’d seen in the photographs; the same girl I’d seen in those repressed memories that desperately wanted to emerge, but always found themselves cut off. It had been the flame-haired woman, without a doubt.

Things were starting to fall into place. Although I wasn’t able to call on these memories at will, I was beginning to draw my own conclusions, and I was convinced that they had to be right. I longed for someone to talk to, to bounce these ideas off — perhaps even to be told they were stupid — but the only person around was me. So I’d have to do.

The flame-haired girl was important to me, that much was clear from the photograph album I’d seen — whether that had actually been real or not. When I’d seen her alone in that house, her head in her hands, crying, something terrible had happened. She’d suffered a dreadful loss. I didn’t know what, but she was devastated by it.

Then there was the matter of the little girl. She’d been at the same house — she must have been the same person. I knew her, too, because I remembered getting into the car with her and her parents and eating the sweets.

I fumbled around in my pack and pulled out the small tin of boiled sweets, putting one into my mouth and wincing at the slight sourness of the flavour.

We’d obviously known each other for a long time. And if the last dream was a memory of a time we’d spent together — a time we’d both wished had lasted for ever — it was clear that over the years, things had run deeper than simple friendship. Whatever had brought us together in childhood had laid down roots and blossomed into young love, our lives unfolding before us, stretching off into the future — times of difficulty seeming as far away as the stars we loved to gaze at together.

But if that was the case, where was she now? Why wasn’t she here beside me in this dry, barren wasteland? Had I truly loved her, I wouldn’t have wished this existence on her, but to be beside the one you love, particularly in times of adversity, is to know strength and support.

A thought which had been fluttering in and out of my conscious mind occurred to me again. This was “Evie”, the woman I was looking for. Something had separated us, and it was important that I found her. That was enough to know for now — figuring out the “why” would come later.

Then I remembered the diary I had pocketed back in the woman Annie’s apartment. Perhaps that had some answers. It was time to investigate.

I sit on the uncomfortable plastic chair they hastily shunted me in the direction of as soon as it started happening. I can’t see what’s going on in the room, but the old guy with the kindly face whom I see most times when I’m here is still in there doing something. I’d stand and look through the window in the door, but there’s no real point. I wouldn’t be able to see anything, anyway, and they’d probably just push me away again, saying I was getting in the way.

My heart is thumping and my hands are shaking. It’s the closest I’ve ever got to reaching him. I could tell that all those things I said, he heard. He didn’t respond or say anything — he couldn’t — but he heard. That I’m sure of. Otherwise why would that have happened?

I’m not an expert or anything on these things. All the others are, though. I just get under their feet when they’re trying to work. They put up with me but I’m sure they resent me under their cheery, understanding exterior. They don’t know how it came to this, of course, but I imagine they’d treat me differently if they knew.

The old guy is coming out. He’s got a grim look on his face. He sits down next to me and forces a smile, but I can tell that there’s no sincerity behind it.

“Evie,” he says, his voice cracking a little. He clears his throat. “Evie.”

“Yes?” I say quietly, almost a whisper.

“I understand your reasons for wanting to come here, but–”

He doesn’t. He really doesn’t. They all have this big romantic idea of what I’m doing here when in fact all I want to do is atone for my sin, turn back the clock, make everything all right again. But I can’t.

“Hey,” he breaks off, seeing my eyes filling with tears. “Look. You’re tired. Why don’t you come with me and get a coffee and we can talk, hm?”

I sniff but don’t trust myself to speak right now. I just nod. He stands and offers me his hand, helping me up. I don’t need the help but the gesture is a nice one, like old-fashioned chivalry, dead to most people nowadays. He leads me through a maze of corridors to the cafeteria, sits me down at a secluded table in the corner of the room and heads over to get the coffees. He returns a few moments later with two large mugs and a Belgian bun.

“You looked like you could do with eating something nice,” he says. “Go on. On me.”

I take a bite. After months of bland cup noodles and dry pasta, it’s delicious — so sweet and moist. I devour it in a matter of seconds. He looks at me, an eyebrow raised.

“Someone was hungry,” he says. I laugh weakly and he smiles.

“You wanted to say something,” I say eventually after a silence slightly too long to be comfortable. “You were going to say I should stop coming, weren’t you?”

“Well, not in so many words,” he said. “In fact, no, not at all. Like I say, I know why you keep coming here — you think you can reach him. And it’s quite possible that you can — today’s episode occurred during your visit, after all.”

“It could be a coincidence,” I say, my faithful pessimism gene kicking in.

“It could be,” he says. “But I think you could be on to something. However–”

Here it comes.

“However,” he says again, “I’m worried about you. Since we’ve started seeing you, you’ve lost a lot of weight, you look very pale, your eyes are dark and you look exhausted. You’re here most days. You need to take some time for yourself, relax, get your mind together. The way things have been going, a couple of days off from all this will do you good, and you can come back and try again afterwards.”

He has a point, I suppose. I do feel tired. I wake up every morning feeling like I haven’t slept, though I know I have because the time has passed in a heartbeat. Every day the same — wake up, get up, come here, go home, cry, sleep. My life. My parents would be so proud, particularly due to the fact that my not working is burning through my inheritance money at a rate of knots.

I feel a little sad as I picture the face my mother always gave me when I’d been naughty. Never angry, just disappointed — but it hurt to see that face. I hate disappointing her, and I hate that wherever she is right now, I must be disappointing her terribly.

I take a sip of my coffee and look at the old man.

“Perhaps you’re right,” I say. “I need a rest. To take a break. Life… hasn’t exactly been easy since ‘it’ happened.”

He nods.

“I understand,” he says. “When this sort of thing happens — we see it a lot, too much for my liking — it can feel like the end of the world, I know. But I’ve seen your type before. You’re a fighter, you want to keep going, pushing onward. And you can do it. But you shouldn’t sacrifice yourself in the process. What good’s rebuilding a world if you can’t enjoy it yourself?”

He’s right. I should take some time, get myself together and figure out how I’m going to cope. Rationally — pessimistically? — speaking, I might never reach him, so I’ll need to figure out what I’m going to do if that does happen.

But on the other hand, I might actually reach him one day, and soon. And I’ll need to be ready for that, because it might not be the joyful reunion that the one tiny little optimistic piece of my mind that still survives is hoping for.

I’d had to sit down. The chairs in the living room were comfortable, if a little dusty, but comfort wasn’t the thing on my mind right now. The photograph album and the fact it was clearly me in the pictures was the fact that was bothering me, but every time I thought I caught a mental glimpse of the memory that explained all this, it seemed to dart out of sight, like someone was deliberately taunting me, baiting me, wanting me to perform for their amusement.

I wasn’t having any of it. I’d get to the bottom of things in time, if I could only find a few more clues. But I felt I needed a few moments to rest my weary legs and let everything I’d learned so far sink in. I closed my eyes for a moment and sat in my own self-imposed darkness.

Adam, came a now-familiar female voice. Adam, can you hear me?

“Yes,” I said out loud, knowing full well that I was talking to thin air.

Adam, came the voice again. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you to listen. I need you to hear me.

“I can hear you,” I said out loud, aware that my replies wouldn’t be heard but unable to stop myself.

I know that the reason for all this is me, came the voice. And I’m sorry. If I could have done things differently before all this, perhaps I could have saved you, saved everything. But I know it’s too late for that now. It’s too late. But I won’t give up.

This was the most I’d ever heard the voice say. I kept my eyes closed and remained perfectly still, as if any slight movement on my part might scare whoever was speaking away forever.

I won’t give up, the voice said again. I won’t. I will spend my life making this right if that’s what it takes. I need you. You need me. And I’m sorry for what I did. I know it was wrong. I knew it was wrong at the time. I have no excuses, and we’ve both seen the consequences. I’m just here to say that I’ll make it right. I’ll do everything I can to make it right. I promise. I promise. I love you.

A now-familiar feeling started to stir in my mind. I tried to force it away, but I felt like I was rooted to the spot, trapped in the chair, my eyes glued shut. I couldn’t move, and I could feel it building like a fire within me. So much anger, rage — and fear?

“Love,” I said, unable to control the words coming out of my mouth. “Love. You dare speak to me of love? There is no love, only pain. There is no ‘right’, only fury. There are no promises, save that of vengeance.”

I roared. The sound frightened me, but it was already clear to me that I was no longer in control of my body. This time, though, instead of passing out or feeling the strange dreamlike detachment I had before, I was all too aware of what I was doing. My eyes opened, and through my red-tinted vision I saw myself pick up the photograph album and tear it in half. It fell to the floor and burst into flames.

I looked up at the mirror but before I could comprehend my own monstrous reflection, it shattered into a million tiny fragments, showering the carpet with a crystal rain.

I roared again, and the earth shook, along with the house. Looking out from behind my eyes as a passive observer, I saw myself punch a wall and it collapse. I saw myself destroying this house, this haven of calm, perhaps the only safe place left in this desolate world.

And then, suddenly, nothing. Blackness. The rage and fury subsided quickly, and I was left in a lightless limbo once again.

There were whispering voices. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I tried to walk towards them but they never seemed to get any closer, and I couldn’t feel my body. There was another noise, too, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I sat in silence, trying in vain to hear what the whispering voices had to say, but they didn’t get any closer. The whispering sounded urgent, important, but I still couldn’t figure out any words.

Then another sound — footsteps? I couldn’t be sure.

Adam, said a different voice — a man, this time. You gave us quite a scare.

A brilliant white light flashed in my eyes, and I found myself sitting on the floor in a field of dry, dead grass, nothing to see in any direction but endless wasteland. Had the house been a figment of my own imagination, a hallucinogenic symptom of fatigue?

It had certainly seemed real at the time, and my aching body and throbbing head certainly testified to the fact that something had happened, but there was no sign of the house at all. All the previous times I’d felt the strange, destructive force unleash itself from within me, I’d emerged from the nightmare to find ruins, chaos, destruction. This time, though, there was just nothing, and now I had no idea where I was.

I got to my feet and started walking. Eventually, I figured, I’d come to some sort of landmark and be able to get myself back on track. At least, that’s what the optimistic side of me wanted to think — but the influence of that part of me was fading fast, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go on. This was beginning to feel like a fruitless quest, and I began to wonder if my life really mattered.

Right now, it didn’t matter to me. But I felt it mattered to someone else, and that I shouldn’t give up — not yet, anyway.

I trudged on silently as the sun set over the horizon. The beautiful shades of pink and gold in the sky as the light faded did little to lighten my mood.

The phone rings. The power may be out, but at least while I’ve still got a bit of battery life I have some contact with the outside world while I’m in my self-imposed exile.

I glance at the screen. Bless her. She’s phoned me every day this week so far. I’ve told her several times that I’m fine — even though I’m not really sure myself if I am — but still she worries. At least someone’s looking out for me.

I let it ring a few times before I answer. I don’t want her to think that I’ve been sitting here all alone waiting for someone to reach out to me, even if that is the case.

“Evie,” comes the excitable, breathy voice on the other end of the phone. “You all right?”

“Yes,” I say. “Fine.”

“You took a while to answer. I wondered if you were all right.”

“I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry.”

“I just miss you, Evie. I wish you hadn’t had to go away. I wish all this hadn’t happened.”

She says this every day. I think it, too, but I gave up giving voice to those thoughts some time ago, because they don’t help anything.

“It did. It happened. And there’s no way to turn back from it now. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault, you know that. You don’t have to tiptoe around it. I know it was my fault.”

“I know, but–”

I cut her off in mid-sentence.

“Did you want something?”

“No, not really,” she says, sounding a little put out. “I just wanted to see how you were.”

I take a breath and close my eyes for a moment. I sniff and wipe away some of the tears that are still dampening my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment. “It’s just… It’s just all been getting to me a bit, recently. I… I miss him.”

There’s a pause at the other end. She never knows quite what to say when I bring him up directly.

“I know,” she says after a brief silence. “We all do. So why don’t you go see him?”

I flop backwards dejectedly on the bed, the phone still pressed to my ear.

“I’ve tried to reach him,” I say. “I’ve tried. Over and over. But I just can’t. And just trying is exhausting. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.”

She pauses again.

“Don’t give up,” she says weakly. “Please don’t give up.”

The weakness and fragility in her voice makes me melt inside, and I feel the tears springing to my eyes again. While she’s looking out for me, I can’t give up.

“I won’t,” I say. “I won’t give up. It’s just difficult.”

“I know,” she says. “I wish I could help you more.”

“You do help,” I say. “You do.”

My battery is starting to die and there’s still no sign of the power coming back, so I make my excuses and end the call. There’s nothing else to say.

She’s right, of course. I shouldn’t give up. Giving up is the worst thing to do. Amid all this chaos and devastation that “it” wrought, the one thing still standing is… me. I’m still here. I’m still alive. And that’s something. I intend to keep it that way.

I decide to go out to clear my head. It’s a bright, sunny day, but the cheerful weather does little to lighten my mood. It’s as if black clouds have gathered around my soul to drain the colour from the world, making it a joyless place.

The street is almost silent as I walk down it. The dilapidated buildings tower over me on either side, oppressive, looming. I walk the familiar path through the streets and pick my way through the discarded rubbish bags and detritus that clutter the pavements. I’ve been this way many times, but the outcome has always been the same. I don’t know if anything will be different this time, but I feel I should keep trying. Eventually, I will reach him. Eventually things will be resolved. And while it’s clear to me that things have gone too far for them to ever be the same again, perhaps at least some of the damage can be repaired.

It’s a hopeful thought, but the black clouds around my heart prevent me from dwelling on the possibilities too much. I’ve always been one for overthinking things, the pessimist of the family, my mother used to call me. I’d always be the one wondering “what would happen if…” and coming up with some implausible combination of dire consequences that we might have to deal with, and none of them ever happening.

Except the one time. The consequences that set in motion the end of everything. With that one time when my pessimism, paranoia — whatever you want to call it — was proven right, everything fell into chaos. And the only person I had to blame was myself. I knew the possibilities that might stem from what I did, and still I pursued it, uncontrollable. I was drawn — or pushed? — ever onwards towards the one inevitable conclusion to everything — this. And here I am now, struggling to pick up the pieces of something which shattered into grains of sand.

I shake my head. No, says her voice in my head. You can’t give up. Never give up.

She always was the positive one. Without her support, I’m not sure what I’d do. With her strength and belief in me, perhaps things can change for the better. Perhaps the scenes I’d seen in my dream — the apple tree coming to life before me — were showing that I really was starting to believe that.

Time would tell, I guessed. For now, there was only one thing to do. I had to try and reach him again. I didn’t hold out hope for any more success than I’d had in the past, but I had to try.

I pushed open the familiar doors now I’d reached my destination, and walked inside.

When I regained my senses, I was crouched on the floor, curled up in a ball, my hands clasped over the back of my head. My body was panicking. My heart was racing. Breathing was difficult. But I was alive.

All was silent in the area, so I tentatively looked up and saw what I expected — most of the building in ruins. This was becoming an all too familiar sight now, but it was still faintly horrifying every time it happened. I now had no doubt in my mind: the destruction everywhere was something to do with me. I was causing it. I didn’t understand this power that I had, but evidently using it I had left a trail of death and destruction across the world, with no memory of how it happened or even why.

Memories were starting to creep back, but any time I felt myself getting closer to the truth, something terrible like this happened again, and I was back to square one. Was this journey even worth it? If and when I ever found this “Evie” woman, would whatever dark force caused this chaos not just strike out and destroy her?

It didn’t bear thinking about. Although I still didn’t know why she was important, I felt a fondness in my heart for this woman when I thought of her. I guessed that she must have been the flame-haired woman I saw in the house, and also the little girl. And if they were both “her,” then that must mean that I’d known her for a long time. Perhaps she was–

I stopped myself thinking any further, not wanting to provoke the frightening sense of rage once again by probing too deep into the memories. Scavenging for supplies in the building hadn’t been too successful, so I couldn’t afford to waste more time. I decided that the time had come to move on.

I glanced at the map and decided to rejoin the main road. If I was where I thought I was, I was making good progress. But what would I find when I eventually got there?

After another hour or two of walking, my mind had fell into a trance, and I found myself veering off the road into dry, featureless fields of dead grass. Before long, I’d left the road far behind and was surrounded on all sides by almost identical scenery. But still I kept walking, with a strange sense of purpose. There was something I had to do.

As I’d been half-expecting, before long I saw the familiar sight of the house. To my surprise, though, it looked alive. It was surrounded by green grass and trees, which slowly faded into the yellow of the dead wilderness around it. But there, like a beacon, it stood as a defiant symbol that not everything had perished.

I broke into a run as I approached it. It was a familiar and welcome sight. I knew that I was letting my mental defences weaken, and that this strange, euphoric feeling I was experiencing right now would doubtless cause problems — but I didn’t care. Here was something I recognised, something I could latch onto, something which might have some answers.

Despite the fact it was intact and surrounded by life, the house itself was strangely quiet and empty. The door had been left ajar, so I had let myself in to take a look around — I figured the occupants probably weren’t something I needed to worry about.

This was definitely familiar. As in the dream, still fresh in my mind, this house felt like a “home away from home.” I had no memories of my actual home or my family, but this house had been important to me, I knew that much.

I walked through into the living room and examined the shelves thoughtfully. There were a range of unmarked, leather-bound books on them; I picked one up curiously and opened it.

It was a photograph album. The photographs looked like they’d been taken a good few years ago now, but I instantly recognised the people in them — the mother, father and little girl I’d seen in my most recent chaotic recollection.

I felt a twinge in the back of my mind, but grit my teeth and tried to remain in control. My grasp on reality held for the moment as I pored over the old photographs.

There was a young boy in many of these pictures, too. I wasn’t sure who he was, but he seemed on good terms with the little girl. He didn’t seem to be part of the family, though, for in many of the highly-posed family photographs scattered throughout the album, he was nowhere to be seen.

I replaced the album and picked up another from further along the shelf. I assumed that these had been filed in chronological order, so perhaps a later one would offer some more recent clues?

The first picture was instantly familiar from another repressed memory — the flame-haired woman. She looked as beautiful as I remembered, and her smile was enchanting. She looked much happier than when I had seen her in that memory, her head in her hands — crying? I couldn’t be sure — the chaos that ensued the last time I had remembered this had meant I had no idea if the memory went any further.

I felt strangely calm. I’d been uneasy since I started looking at the pictures, expecting the now-familiar rumbling, pain and destruction. But it had not come.

I continued to flip through these photographs, which looked quite recent. There were a few of the flame-haired woman with a man of a similar age. They looked happy together — I felt a pang of jealousy as I guessed that they were a couple from the way they stood together and looked at one another.

I glanced around the room to give my eyes a break from looking at the photographs and my gaze happened to catch an attractive oval mirror on one wall of the room. I gave a start as I noticed my own reflection.

I looked at myself, then down to the photographs, then back to the reflection again.

I blinked.

Underneath my unkempt hair; my dirty, scarred face; my unwashed, overgrown beard — the man in the mirror was, without doubt, the man in the photographs.

I get to my feet, the apple in my hand, and look at the tree in bewilderment. What was clearly long-dead a few minutes ago is now in the prime of life, its branches filled with lush green leaves and a number of tasty-looking apples like the one that hit me on the head.

I eye the apple suspiciously. It looks like a regular old apple, even if its origin is currently unexplainable. I lift it in front of my face and examine it closely. It is flawless — no dirt, no rot, no holes, no bruises. It is quite possibly the most delicious looking apple I have ever seen, and my growling stomach refuses to allow me not to eat it.

I bite into it, my teeth breaking through the hard skin and into the soft flesh within, and the juice — just the right balance of sweet and tart — explodes into my mouth. It’s as delicious as it looks, and I’m glad. This strange situation in which I find myself right now is filled with unexplained mysteries and unpredictable phenomena, but it’s good to know that a delicious-looking apple is still delicious.

Or is it? Something feels wrong. My vision feels like it’s fading — a creeping darkness slowly encroaching on my peripheral vision. I feel it closing in. It’s oppressive, claustrophobic — and just plain scary. I don’t like it, but wherever I turn, there it is, like a dark mist slowly fogging my vision until eventually it engulfs me completely.

Darkness and silence for a moment. No, not quite silence — I can hear my heartbeat. But that’s all. The air is still here in the dark place, and there’s no light of any kind.

A flash, and then I see “it” happening before me, projected into the blackness in front of me like an old movie. There’s no trace of colour in the scene, and no sound, but I remember it all too well. It was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life, and there isn’t a single day that has gone by since then that I don’t regret what I did in the lead-up to it — and what I did afterwards.

It was a terrible event, for sure, and one which turned the world upside-down and inside-out. It ruined everything, destroyed everything, tore us apart — and it was my fault. I couldn’t handle what I was getting into, couldn’t control myself — and that brought about everything which followed. I wish it hadn’t.

I miss him so much. I call out to him often, though I know he can’t answer — and likely wouldn’t want to. But I have to keep trying. It was my actions that caused this — the consequences of which I am now watching before me, over and over. I can’t look away. My eyes are locked on the sight of the projection — or perhaps it’s following my gaze around. It’s impossible to tell here. All I know is that I want to escape.

In the distance, a strange soun–

My eyes snap open. I’m disoriented. It’s still dark, but I can make out faint shapes now. It takes a moment for my brain to register the fact that I’m lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, and my alarm is bleeping. I’m covered in sweat and my heart is racing. That must have been some dream, but the detail of it is already fading. I remember something about… my old home? I haven’t thought about that place for years. It must be the stress of everything which has been going on — life hasn’t exactly been easy since “it” happened, but I cope.

I groggily sit up, thump the small, battery-powered alarm clock on top to stop its noise, and swing my legs out of the bed, then with some effort, stand up. My bare feet are silent on the floor as I walk to the bathroom. It’s not a long walk, stuck in this pokey little hovel as I am, and before long I’ve reached my destination.

I pull the cord hanging from the ceiling and there’s a click, but nothing happens. Power’s out again. I mutter a curse under my breath and try to do my best in the little moonlight coming in through the tiny window.

I splash my face with some water — at least that’s still working — and feel a little more alert. I give myself a cursory scrub with the tiny bit of soap I have left but don’t really feel it’s worth making much of an effort. Today will be a day much like any other, I’m sure — it has been ever since “it” happened. There’s no sense complaining, though — I had my part to play in things coming to this point, and I’ve accepted my punishment. I don’t know how long I’ll be doomed to this existence — perhaps forever? — but I resolved once the worst had passed that I would try my best to make things right, to make up for what I’d done.

I didn’t know if it would be enough. Somehow I doubted it. Some things you just can’t take back, some damage you just can’t undo. The world certainly wasn’t built in a day, but it can certainly be destroyed in a heartbeat. Can it be fixed, though? Will things ever go back the way they were?

Images from my dream float through my mind. I recall the apple tree springing to life — one moment a bare, dead tree, the next exploding with life. Perhaps deep down I believe that all can be healed, that all can be made all right again.

Those feelings must be buried pretty deep in my subconscious, however, because all I feel right now is a lingering sense of hopelessness and guilt.

I sit back down on the side of my bed, put my head in my hands and weep. It’s a familiar feeling — almost comforting. To let the emotions out, almost as if the tears running freely down my face are little fragments of pain flowing from my body — it’s painful, but it’s also a relief. I know this feeling will pass, but as I sob and gulp, my mind filling with familiar, dark thoughts, I surrender to it once again.

When I awoke again, my body ached all over, like I’d been running for miles and then stopped to lift some heavy weights. Of course, my long journey had been taxing my body somewhat, but I had been making a point of stopping to rest on a regular basis. This was different. I knew I’d slept deeply, but I felt almost as exhausted now that I’d woken up as when I succumbed to sleep.

I’d left the area shortly afterwards. I had no desire to be around the wreckage that had resulted from my… episode. Seeing the cracked earth and the charred surroundings only served to remind me that I had no idea how I was causing these incidents — and it must have been me, for there was no other explanation occurring to me at this time.

As I walked, my mind wandered off in a completely different direction. The monotonous scenery around me ceased to matter. The hypnotic sound of my footsteps on the broken concrete distracted me, and my attention faltered.

I tripped and fell on a loose fragment of road surface. I felt myself going — it was as if everything was suddenly depicted in slow motion. I saw the ground coming up to meet my face and braced myself for an impact, screwing my eyes up tight so as not to see the spray of blood from whichever part of my face hit the floor first.

It never came. I opened my eyes — at least, I thought I did — and found myself in total blackness. Was I dead? I didn’t think so, because I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be able to have this conversation with myself if I was truly dead. But I certainly wasn’t where I should be — lying face down on the road, possibly bleeding quite badly.

I reached up and touched my face with my hand. It was still there. I was still human. It was just pitch black.

I reached out with my hands to feel in all directions and work out where I was, but there were no clues. It was just an apparently huge, lightless, silent, empty space.

No, not silent, for there was some sound off in the distance. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it sounded almost like… people talking? That couldn’t be right, could it?

I tried to determine where the sound was coming from, and started walking towards it. My feet made no sounds on the floor — if indeed there was one — but a slight breeze as I walked convinced me that I was, in fact, moving somewhere. But where?

The voices didn’t seem to get any closer. They just sounded like mumbling, like they were discussing something behind a wall. The tone of them was very low and, I assumed, serious, for there was no sound of anything like laughter. I picked out at least three different people — two male, one female, but try as I might, there was no way to make the sound any clearer. It was so frustrating — here, potentially, was the answers I’d been seeking, and I couldn’t reach them.

There was a sudden flash of light and a loud sound of rushing wind, and suddenly I was back where I had been on the road. I stumbled over the crack again, but this time managed to catch myself before I fell, breaking briefly into a comical half-controlled jog.

I looked around at the dry wastes all around me, at the sun high in the sky and the road steadfastly extending off into the distance. I wasn’t sure I was actually going anywhere — the scenery had been nigh-on identical for the past few hours, and it felt like I was just walking along the same stretch of road over and over again.

As the sun passed overhead and started its inexorable descent down towards the opposite horizon, I saw something ahead. Buildings. There was what looked like a bridge over the road in the distance, and an intact, blue sign before it. “Services,” it said, along with a series of symbols which looked familiar but which my mind couldn’t decode at this time. A narrow track led off the wide road I was following, and I assumed that this led to the “services” mentioned on the sign, though I wasn’t sure what I’d find there.

What I discovered appeared to be a large car parking area, with a large number of burnt-out vehicles. The concrete floor seemed to be covered with patches of familiar-looking dust, and I tried not to think about what had happened to Annie, because I had the sneaking suspicion that these dust piles had once been people, just like her.

At the far end of the car park was a large, boxy building. Its windows were smashed, but it looked otherwise structurally reasonably sound. Its front doors had obviously once been made from glass, but now they were nothing but large frames with a few shards in the corners. I stepped through one of them, taking care not to cut myself on the sharp spikes, and entered the building.

It was dark inside, and smelled musty. I’d entered a large, open indoor plaza which had been divided into several areas — almost like smaller buildings inside the larger one. The ceiling in one corner of the plaza had collapsed, but the rest looked safe enough for now.

I walked through the open area of the plaza, which was filled with upturned tables and chairs, scattered around the area haphazardly. I headed towards one of the “building within a building” areas which looked like it might once have been some kind of shop — there were shelves, certainly, and some of them looked like they might still be stocked. With what, though, I didn’t know until I got there.

Inside, it was a mess, but it did look like I might be able to scavenge some supplies at least. While a great deal of the food that had been scattered from a tipped-over cabinet looked like it was inedible and mouldy, my mind was drawn to a few gold-coloured tins which, although dented, looked like they might contain something which could survive a little longer.

I picked one up and fiddled with the plastic fastening until the lid came off. Inside were a number of brightly-colored, hard crystals with some sort of white powder over them. A pleasant smell was emanating from them, so I picked one up and eyed it curiously. The scent of fruit drifted into my nostrils, so I put the sweet into my mouth.

The strong flavour started at the tip of my tongue and worked its way all through my taste buds. My mouth filled with saliva at the sweetness of it. It tasted good. I rolled it around in my mouth for some time — its hardness suggested that attempting to bite into it might not be a great idea — and suddenly I found myself remembering something.

There was the house again. The girl — younger, this time, and with two older people — was getting into a car, and she was motioning for me to join her. I did so — I didn’t have a choice in the matter — and the two older people in the front — her parents? — drove out of the driveway to the house and started down the road. The girl pulled out a small, golden tin much like the one I’d been holding in my hands a moment before and–

I felt the pain starting again. If I didn’t get out of here right now, I was likely to be in big trouble.

I’d continued walking down the long, wide road. According to the map, it looked like the most direct route to get where I was going, though there weren’t many places to hide if the weather were to turn unpleasant. Fortunately, in the days I’d been travelling — I’d lost count — it hadn’t as yet, but it was always a possibility.

The road extended off into the distance, mostly straight, veering a little to the right as it approached the horizon. This part of the world was quite flat, and the scenery was becoming rather monotonous. I decided to take a short break and get something to eat.

I sat down and rummaged in my pack for what supplies I had left. The tinned food I had had been in perfectly edible condition so far, but I was starting to get a little low on it. I’d need to resupply soon.

I cracked open an unmarked can which turned out to be filled with baked beans. While eating them cold wasn’t the most pleasant thing, I didn’t have the means of easily making a fire with me — and besides, over the course of this journey, I’d become accustomed to eating food just “as is”. With a smile, I wondered if I’d ever been a fussy eater in the past — if so, this situation would be working wonders for it. If the only thing you have to eat is that which is right in front of you, that’s what you eat.

As I sat by the edge of the road, watching the few wisps of cloud in the otherwise blue sky passing by, my thoughts turned inward, as they often did when I stopped and contemplated. I was no closer to understanding who I was or why I was making this journey, but I still had a lingering sense that the truth was being wilfully withheld from me.

That was ridiculous, of course, since there was no-one around to “withhold” anything except me. Perhaps I was repressing a memory, and doing so had become such second nature that it was now automatic, instinctive.

I didn’t want to repress it any longer, however. I wanted to know. My mind evidently had other ideas.

I sighed and finished off the last of the beans. The most basic of foods tasted great while out on the road, though I wondered if I’d ever eat a full meal again. I tossed the can aside and gazed into the middle distance. The light breeze in the air was relaxing.

I closed my eyes for a moment and attempted to clear my mind of all distractions — to sit down and have a quiet chat with myself over what it was that was really going on.

All was darkness for a short while, the only sound the wind rustling the dry grass beside the road. As I concentrated deeply, inwardly, however, it was as if a plume of smoke was slowly clearing and gradually coming into focus.

There was the house again, but this time it was different. I couldn’t hear anything this time, there was no colour, and I didn’t feel like I was in control like I was in the dream. I felt myself drawn towards the door of the house, saw my hand reach out and open it and enter a small but homely living room. Sitting on the floor, her elbows on a coffee table and her head in her hands, was a woman. She had long, flame-red hair — the only colour in this otherwise monochromatic image — and was beautiful. I knew her. I knew her well. I reached out and touched her on the shoulder and–

My eyes snapped open. I felt a pain in my head as if someone had jammed a poker through it. I screamed, and it felt like the earth shook. The pain didn’t subside, even as my cries of anguish echoed through the empty landscape. My thoughts were confused, jumbled, mangled, as if someone had grabbed my brain and was wringing it out. I had no control over myself, save to cry out and scream.

My vision blurred and I couldn’t see what was happening. I tried to get to my feet, but couldn’t move. I felt the ground cracking beneath me, the earth shaking and shattering. I gritted my teeth and tried to break through the pain, but I couldn’t. It was too much. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and was in no hurry to ever experience again afterwards. There was such power behind the pain, such fury. But it didn’t want to kill me. It wanted me to hurt.

I fell prone on the floor and passed out from the horrific sensations. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke, it was dark. I knew before I looked up from the floor that it had happened again — destruction, devastation, chaos born from anger. But why?

It had happened as soon as the memory — for that must have been one — was making itself clear. Answers lay within that memory, but I was convinced now, more than ever, that there was something beyond my control, powerful beyond my wildest imagination, stopping me from accessing it.

But what? And how? I didn’t know, but even as the throbbing in my skull slowly subsided, I resolved to get to the bottom of this — to solve the mystery of my memories and figure out just what it was that had occurred to turn this world of ours into a wasteland, devoid of human life — and what it had to do with me.

I closed my eyes again and sank into sleep. This time, dreams did not come as slumber claimed me, only much-needed peace.