“You’re there,” she said, turning to me, her long hair whipping around as she span round to look at me. “You’re really there, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am.”

“Oh, God, Adam, I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long. And now it’s here, I don’t know what to say. Just please tell me you’re not going to go away. Please tell me that.”

She’d stepped towards me, and I could see the tears in her eyes, sparkling in the dim light of the room. It was oddly beautiful.

“I’m not going to go away,” I said. “I’ve spent all this time trying to find you, and here I am.”

I reached out to touch her, but suddenly she was just out of reach. I hadn’t seen her move, but she was beyond my grasp. It was almost as if the room had extended to put some distance between us, but I knew that couldn’t be possible.

“Oh, Adam,” she said again, her voice quavering. “You have no idea how this feels. My heart is in my mouth. I don’t want to let this moment end. I don’t want to…”

She trailed off. What didn’t she want?

“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m scared, Adam,” she said. “Because if you come back to me, it means I’ll have to face up to things… things that are difficult to deal with. And so will you.”

We need to talk about us, I thought grimly. But what followed those unnerving words?

“I know,” I said, trying to reach out to her once more but again finding her just out of reach. “I know, Evie. I can’t remember what’s happened, what led to this point. But it must have been something awful. But we’ll get through it, together. That’s what this has all been about, hasn’t it? Us.”

She was silent for a moment, then gives a choked sob. She bowed her head slightly, her hair casting a shadow over her face. The faint light seemed to be dimming a little. Perhaps the power was failing, or the bulb was going.

“Adam, I don’t know if you’re even aware of this, what might be going through your mind right now, but I need you to know something,” she said, her voice quavering as she said it. “I love you. I always have. I always will. I don’t expect that to mean anything after my moment of weakness, my betrayal that led to everything collapsing around us, but I needed to say it.”

Betrayal? That was a strong word. Was this something to do with her “mission”?

“What are you talking about, Evie?” I asked. “What… what did you do?”

She was silent again. It was obviously tough for her to talk about. The light flickered a little, then returned to stability. She turned away from me to face the light again. The halo around her hair was still fading as the light lost what little life it had left. But I could still see her — and she was still out of reach. I didn’t understand it. The room seemed to defy the laws of physics. She was right there, yet I couldn’t reach her to touch her, and I so longed to touch her. Fragments of memories floated through my mind, unorganised, telling me that I loved this woman deeply, that she was my everything. My world.

“Adam,” she said again. Every time she said my name I felt a shiver down my spine. “Adam, I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know you are, Evie,” I said. “But… look, this is going to sound strange but… I know you’re important to me, and I know we were together, but my memories, they…”

I stopped. She was full-on sobbing, taking big gulps of air and gasping for breath as the tears flowed freely. I wanted to take her in my arms, to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be all right, but I couldn’t. I  felt like I was rooted to the spot, like someone had stuck superglue to my shoes, or like I was trapped inside an invisible casing, too heavy to move. It was a disconcerting feeling — no, frightening. Over the course of my journey, I’d come to discover how terrifying it was to lose control of yourself and just be able to watch as a passive observer as terrible things happened. I didn’t want that to happen now. I didn’t want that to happen ever again. But I knew that terrible power lay inside me, and right now I had a feeling I was more at risk of unleashing its terrible fury than ever.

“Adam,” she said again, her words punctuated with sobs. “Please forgive me. Please, please forgive me. We can try again. Start again. It’s not… it wasn’t… it wasn’t your fault. It was me. I was weak. I couldn’t… I can’t. I don’t. I… never meant to… I…”

I felt a knot in my stomach and I hoped something terrible wasn’t going to happen again. The feeling of unease and fear was turning into dread, and I knew that I had to keep a firm grasp on my sanity, to hold on, to be strong. My heart was thumping so hard I could hear it and feel it in my chest. I breathed deeply to try and control myself, but it was getting difficult.

There was a sparking, buzzing sound and the light spluttered a few times, plunging the room into total darkness for a split second. When it came back on again, she was still standing there. It flicked off again, and stayed off this time.

“Evie,” I said. “Evie!”

There was no response. The light flickered on for a moment, and she was gone. Then it died, and I was left in silent darkness once more to contemplate what had just happened.

Something seemed to click in my mind, like a thief suddenly finding the right combination to a safe.

And I remembered.

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.

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.