The Last One

"You're Not Real"

Milo laid there for what felt like an eternity. Contemplating life and death. Wondering if he will make it out of this hell. His mind buzzed like worker bees. Trying to make sense of all of this. 

"Am I in a simulation? Am I even real? Why can't I remember anymore? Where am I? What am I?" he asked himself. 

Sam sat down next to him and rubbed his head, "Where did you go, Milo? You know you're not going to find answers laying here sulking, right?" 

Milo closed his eyes and cried, "You're not real. Why do you haunt me?" 

Sam laughed in response, "Because, you need me to keep you sane. Why don't you watch the VHS tapes? They are bound to give you answers, right?" 

Milo cried heavily against the ground, "Just leave me alone. I don't want to be here anymore. Please, just leave me alone."

"So you can do what, Milo? Die? If you want to die so bad then why don't you just off yourself already? I know why, because you still have hope, don't you?" Sam scoffed. 

Milo opened his eyes and Sam was gone. Milo picked himself up and walked back to Sam's house where he grabbed his backpack and made his way back to his house. He placed the VHS tapes gently into the bag before falling to the floor, knocking the box full of recordings and photographs off the desk. Milo sobbed into his backpack. He felt as if he was going insane. Like, he couldn't do anything to save himself. Crying was all he could manage to do at the moment. He felt delirious and fragile. He was but a lonesome tree in the middle of the desert. His heartbreaking screams echoed off empty windows and walls. There is no more god, no more love, no more happiness, all he had left was the aching pains inside his head. His bones could rattle and break but his mind was a bowl of soup being tossed down an endless well. Hitting no bottom. Nothing to protect the impact of his life. 

"What can I do?" he asked himself before he smelled his mother's perfume. 

He looked behind himself to see her standing there but, he only caught glimpses of her. 

"Come on, Milo. Come be with us. We are all waiting for you." she whispered encouraging him to take his life. 

Milo shivered in fear as tears flooded his cheeks. 

"No, I can't." he cried. 

His mother walked over with his father and they pulled his bottle of pills from his bag. 

"Come on, son. It'll be easy and painless." his father encouraged. 

Milo sobbed loudly as he held his pills in his hand. He counted them and the thought of dying like this was satisfying yet caused a great deal of pain in his chest. 

"Why do you want me to take my life?" he asked them. 

They chuckled, "We aren't doing anything. You're the one holding the pills." 

Milo was thrown back into reality as he poured the pills into his own hand. He dropped the half-empty bottle and threw the pills. "No, I can't! I don't want to die!" he shouted as he got up and ran from the house. 

A mysterious timer continues to count down, "4,567,321"

Milo ran aimlessly through the neighborhood, "I can't stop running!" he told himself. 

He ran towards the main part of town where all the shops were. He felt like he was being chased. He could hear their voices calling to him and their footsteps following his. He cried uncontrollably as he tried his hardest to get away from them. 

"I can't let them catch me." he cried to himself in fear. He ran as fast as he could with the brace on his leg which hindered him. He finally slowed down to catch his breath, although, he could still hear them chasing him so he kept running. He kept running from all of them. 

They called to him, "Milo, come back!" 

He cut through a section of woods that lead into town. He tripped on a tree root causing him to tumble through the leaves and smash into another tree. His head swam around and he was too dizzy to do anything but sit there and puke. His past finally caught up to him and they consumed him. 

He was strapped to a chair as everyone walked around him. 

They all spoke in sync, "Why'd you leave us, Milo? Were we not good enough for you?" 

All of their faces were warped and bloodied. He screamed in horror as they leaned in close to him then began whispering in his ears. 

"You should've been the one to disappear. No one would have missed you. I hate you. Kill yourself. You deserve to die. Stop your suffering. End it. End it all." they whispered into his ears as clips of his past reeled through his mind like an old movie projector. 

He saw himself with all of them but each of their faces were smudged out. "YOU CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER US HOW WE WERE?" they growled at him. 

He closed his eyes shut tight and screamed, "I don't want to be here anymore!" 

He woke up in the leaves of the dead trees. The grass was dead. The earth was dead. The sky was cloudy and his body felt empty. 

"Why am I here? What am I doing here? Where am I? Who am I? What am I? Can anybody find me?" he thought to himself as he sat up. 

His memories faded like the sun over the horizon. Soon his mind became empty and dark. He thought of no one, nothing, just emptiness. He picked himself up and walked aimlessly through the woods. His mind boggled and distorted by everything that has happened. 

"I'm worried about him." he could hear the woman's voice say. 

"He is not like the others." her voice repeated. 

He continued walking through the dead trees. Everything was dead and gone. The plants stopped growing days ago. They were rotting. He came to the end of the dead forest where he was met by the rest of the town. He walked to the TV store where he found a VCR and a TV along with a backup generator. 

"You're not real." he said as he left the TV store and walked towards the power plant. 

"I have to find the answer. I have to find the answer." he repeated to himself over and over again like a broken record player. 

He had no more memories of his past and all of his thoughts were meaningless. He couldn't feel his skin anymore as he picked at a cut on his hand from when he fell. It bled and bled the more he picked at it. He was numb to the pain. Numb to the world. Nothing but numbness consumed him like a child to a bowl of warm milk. 

"Can't I remember who I am? Who I was?" he asked himself as his mind had finally been severed from reality. He was but a pair of eyes watching blindly as his legs moved in suit. "I must be dead. This must be hell." he whispered.