#oneaday Day 671: Wasteland Diaries, Part 19

I’d been hearing the words over and over and over again ever since they’d appeared in my mind that first time.

We need to talk, they said. It’s about… us.

The conversation — if you can call it that — never went any further. But I knew what followed in that locked memory was the key to what was going on now. But how would I access it without unleashing something terrible on the world — more terrible than what I had already done?

I didn’t know. But I had to find out, consequences or no. This was the key to everything, the door behind which lay my buried past, my memories, everything I once held dear.

I had been walking, but I stopped at this. Was this really a good idea? Right now, the concept of “everything I once held dear” was safely behind a vault door. I knew from my surroundings and from the fact that there were no other people anywhere to be seen that everyone everywhere had lost everything. Would coming to understand that which was once important to me and the fact it was all now turned to dust be too much to handle?

I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if I was already going insane or not, for there was no rational explanation for some of the phenomena which had come to pass in the recent days, weeks, months? I’d lost count, and I was beginning to lose hope that I’d ever find my way to my destination.

But that evening, after several days of trudging through the empty, featureless fields, I finally came to a road. Walking along it a short distance revealed a number of mostly-intact signs — enough to get my bearings using the battered book of maps, and enough for me to tell that I was a lot closer to the address I’d seen in Annie’s phone than I thought I was.

I fished the phone out of my pocket and tried to turn it on, but there was no response from the screen. The battery had obviously given out, and I wasn’t holding out too much hope to find somewhere with power any time soon. I’d had the foresight to mark where I was headed on the map, however, so I still have a rough idea of the direction I should be going.

By nightfall, I was starting to enter what was clearly once a built-up area. The houses and other buildings lie ruined and broken, just like they were at the start of my journey. But I knew that I was nearing the end of the road. I didn’t know what I’d find when I got to that mysterious “X” I’d drawn on the map to mark where I thought the address in the phone must be, but I was getting closer to finding out.

The road in question was in the middle of a burnt-out city block, and the address I thought it was looked like a dilapidated apartment building. Unlike many of its neighbours, however, the building looked mostly intact — quite similar to the building in which I’d found Annie, in fact. My spine tingled as I recalled the image of the woman’s body crumbling to dust at my touch. Would something similar happen here?

With a sense of trepidation, I pushed the front door. It was already open, and it gave a creak as it moved inwards — a sound that broke the surrounding silence so suddenly that it made me jump.

Inside, it was dark, and the light outside had faded so much that it was almost impossible to see where I was going. I felt my way along the walls and came to a staircase. I proceeded up the wooden stairs, each of which creaked unnervingly as I trod on them as lightly as possible, and made my way to the first landing.

My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark by now, and I could just make out that I was in a corridor, with doors on either side. There was nothing to tell me which was the right door, however — or even if I was in the right building at all. I let my instinct lead the way, and found myself in front of a door on the right at the end of the corridor. In the low light, I couldn’t read the number on it.

I knocked on it. The sound echoed down the empty hallway.

I waited for a moment, but there was no response. I wasn’t expecting there to be — or was I? I could feel my heart beating quickly now. Was Evie in there? If she was, why wouldn’t she answer?

I tried the handle on the door and to my surprise it opened for me. It had been left unlocked. This door creaked almost as much as the front, and I tried to control my increasing sense of unease, but there was no mistaking this feeling: I was frightened. Anything could happen in the next few moments, and I wanted to be ready for it. The trouble was, I didn’t know what I should be getting ready for.

As it happened, I soon found my answer. Of all the possibilities of what might be about to happen to me in that pitch-dark apartment, what I’d dismissed as the least-likely option was the one which occurred.

Pushing open another creaky wooden door, I found a bedroom. Unlike the other rooms, which I’d had to stumble around in the dark, I could tell this was a bedroom, because there was a dim light at one side of the room — enough to illuminate the area in a faint and eerie glow, casting disturbing shadows on the wall.

The most disturbing shadow of all was that of a human figure who stood looking out of the windows, her back to me, her flame-red hair tumbling down her back, the dim light making a halo around her head.

“Hello, Adam,” she said.

“Hello, Evie,” I replied, my voice cracking with the first words I’d spoken for some time.