That harsh and ashen wind couldn’t
reach him here. Huffing through his gas-mask, he crept down the cracked concrete
steps on tired, burning legs. He had been
expelled from the bunker with little notice and only had enough time to bring a
few essentials with him. Even so, his inventory gave him plenty of anxiety. A
shoddy gas-mask did nothing to protect him from the radiation that almost
certainly permeated everything around him. He didn’t see another living thing
in the entire time he had been walking from the bunker’s vault door.
Nearly 10 miles of dead city crawled past him, slow as the toxic clouds that
crawled above, the dusty earth beneath his feet crunched like grainy snow
beneath his heavy grey boots. If he had a weapon, he probably would have
drawn it as he peered around the corners of the entryway of the tunnel, searching for signs of anyone who might have made a home underground, only to find stark darkness. His hand-cranked lantern made things better, but its light only went so far in providing comfort. The six cans of beans in his bag were on his
mind. They weren’t going to be enough to survive on for very long. But food was
only a fleeting concern as he realized that he had forgotten to bring water.
He sat for some time in the abandoned subway station and wept. He
should have known that his time in the relative safety of the bunker was
limited, but he was naïve, and distracted by the perverse romance of the apocalypse. All those rich folks in the bunker clearly had plans, and many
had known each other before the disaster. He only ended up there because of his
sister, who he had been visiting, that let him join her and her friends in that
rich man’s survival fantasy. The one who called himself the Overseer did not like
them. New money, to be met with a raised brow and a sneer. One day, she
fell ill. The next she was too ‘resource heavy’ to take care of. Then she was
dead and he was detained in his room under the pretense of being potentially
infected. No one told him what was going on until it was far too late. Then the
Overseer came to visit him, wearing a hazmat suit as he sat
across from him. He concluded that the only thing he could do was to condemn
him to a summery banishment, saying it as though it was a merciful decision. He was given mere minutes to pack before being corralled to the entry of the
vault and thrown out.
Now, in this darkened tunnel, he
choked on his own tears and felt hot blood rushing under his cheeks. His mask
choked his sobs, making him dizzy as he let his situation get the best of him.
It was hopeless. He stood and walked on, blinded by tears and foggy lenses,
deeper into the old subway station, ignorant of any potential threats. What did
it matter anyway? With no water he’d be dead in a matter of days. Less if the
radiation is as bad as they had said it was in the bunker. He stumbled onto the
platform that once hosted crowds of commuters, but now was home to nothing but
dust and dead rats. He undid the straps of his mask, tired of it denying him a
fully-fledged breakdown. Free from the protective smother of his gas-mask, he
let out a mournful moan before once again collapsing into tears. It really was
the end. Humanity had finally done it. The air smelled like rotten eggs
floating in an over-chlorinated public pool. Not a single thing scurried in the
darkness of the station platform.
His sobbing would eventually give
way to silent weeping. When his lantern flickered and ran out of power, he sat
there in the dark for some time and listened. It hurt to breath, but he did
what he could to steady himself. Eyes closed, he tried to meditate. Instead, he
must have fallen asleep because the next thing he remembered was waking with a
start. When he woke he realized just how sore he was. His bones ached in ways
they hadn’t before. His fingers were tightly swollen in his gloves and his head
felt the same way. He could feel a ringing reverberation through his body. It was a
throbbing sort of feeling, pulsing across and into his skin. He was cold, but
he was sweating. He cranked his lantern until light once again poured from it.
When he stood, he stumbled, his legs buckling just slightly any time he put his
weight on one too zealously. Was he always this weak? He couldn’t help but wonder
to himself if taking the mask off had been a good idea, but he quickly reminded
himself that it didn’t matter. He was not meant to survive his banishment. He
hobbled his way down the platform to the end of the aisle, swinging his lantern
around to peek into the darkest corners of the station. It was empty. There was
still nothing but dust. Not even corpses to keep him company. Standing, he
again closed his eyes, feeling tears coming, but in a moment, the urge
subsided. There, with his eyes closed, he imagined that the light he could see
through the veil of his eyelids was the sun, and when he opened his eyes, he
would be home, sitting on his little porch, enjoying a sunny afternoon. He
stood this way, holding on to that hopeful memory, knowing that if he opened
his eyes, it would prove to be untrue. His sun was only his lantern. His porch
was only this doomed platform. Then came a cough, a cough that he did not
expect to come out of him, a whooping sort of dry cough that made him drop his
lantern and double over. As it subsided he picked up the lantern to see blood
on his gloves where he had covered his mouth.
He walked along the tracks for
quite some time, occasionally stopping either to cough, or to recharge his
lantern. He lost track of time in those dark tunnels, talking to the walls as
though they listened, telling them of how unfairly he had been treated, of how
much he missed his sister and how he wondered if there were other bunkers out
there. He walked until he reached another platform, just as derelict and empty
as the last. Climbing onto the platform winded him, his wheezing causing him
significant discomfort. Leaning against a support beam, he allowed his lantern
to fizzle out. Exhausted and hopeless, he once again fell into sleep. He woke
to a distant sound. In the dead quiet of the dark chamber, he poured what
little focus he could muster into the noise. It was something like a hum. As he
listened, he realized that it was coming closer! The closer the hum came, the
more it sounded like an engine, grumbling through the tunnel. Soon enough, he
could make out the clacking of wheels along steel tracks. Frantically he
stumbled to stand and snatched up his lantern from the floor, cranking to
revive the light. Then he heard it. A horn! Like the kind that signals the
arrival of a train! In no time at all, a piercing light appeared around the
bend of the dark tunnel that approached the stunned man who now stood feebly on
the station platform. The train pulled around the bend, slowing down as he
stared at the empty seats within the lit carriage. The train stopped with one
set of doors right in front of him. They opened, inviting the exile on board.
He stepped into the train and looked at all of the pristinely clean, empty
seats in the railcar.
A soft and crackly voice spoke over
the intercom and greeted him, “Welcome new passenger. Please take your seat.”
He stood there stunned for just a
moment before quietly shuffling to one of the seats by the window. Looking down
at his own hands, he realized that his gloves were clean, no longer bloodied by
his coughing. In fact, the urge to cough had died down entirely. He never
thought he could miss sitting in the notoriously uncomfortable seats of the
subway train, yet he here he was, overjoyed at the opportunity. The train’s
brakes squealed out of place and the locomotive began to slowly leave the
station. As he looked out of the window, he saw a ragged looking man staring
vacantly at the train. The man was holding a lantern, but as the train began to
depart, he dropped it. Pulling away from the station, the exile watched the
ragged man collapse to the ground at the edge of the platform, his gaunt and
familiar face lit by bluish light of the lantern. The train gained speed. The
air no longer smelled like a rotten swimming pool.
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