Her Apocolypse.

• Jemima Carver, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

It was 7006.

She stood, waiting. The old broken watch on her sickly pale wrist, ticking repetitively on the same spot. There in the small alleyway, covered in dust and grime: the air was stale, smoggy and condensed. She stood slightly hunched against the cold metal window frame. Her pale, lightly freckled, fourteen year old face, blank. But her mind was alert, cautious. She was thinking about the tall dark boy she’d made friends with a few months previous. She knew it was amazing that she knew him that long at all but she still craved his company. She knew he was different though: never ending, robotic. He was mechanical made by metal. But she tried not to think about that.
Many minutes passed, in time hollow echoing footsteps rang through the almost empty alley, towards Luna. Around a bend walking steadily, came a tall figure. Luna gasped; she trotted weakly toward him, then stretching up to give him awkward but warm, one armed hug.
“I never believed you would come,” she whispered breathlessly in his ear. He grew stiff.
“They are after me; apparently I’m out of date, too old.” His voice broke. And then he continued. In barely a whisper he said;
“I am leaving from here, its too dangerous; I may put you- all of you in danger. They will find me here, and they will take you too.”
Luna sighed.
A mix of pity, sadness and longing crossed her face. Her strong blazing eyes met his, not crying determined. Before a wisp of smoke filtered down toward the pair separating them. He was going, gone. Luna coughed harder than ever, wheezing to the floor, her blackened hands pulled across her face as if to stop the fumes. A choking bird faltered, swaying to the earth. Luna fought back coughs, and grabbed at the opportunity. She tenderly lifted the dying creature to her pounding heart and gently cracked its fragile neck. Then softly stuffed it into her mouldy pocket. As she stood a tear dropped from her eye, slowly towards her chin and silently to the earth.
Fourteen years old she was hit with pounding understanding, they were mid apocalypse. The earth was dead. It was as dead as it was when she was born into it. Pestilence, war, famine and death fly through the streets destroying any life. She stood waiting for death to seek her out to find her.