Evendale

Chapter 1

I don't know how long its been. Days and nights have gone by, one after another. I don't even know what year it is anymore, my calendar ran out of the days long ago. People stopped coming by long before the days had stopped. I've been alone for so long, I'm lucky I still remember my name.

I was brought here when I was 9, when my heart starting failing. I remember it so clearly, the memory so vivid to me. My mom crying and my dad trying to comfort her. The tubes they shoved in my nose, all the pain in my chest, my body swelling in some places, the dizziness, everything. My dad would read stories to me every night while my mom played with my hair until I feel asleep for months. I never left this place again. A few months after my 10th birthday, I got the surgery me and my family had been waiting for. I was put in recovery for hours, and when I woke, a nice lady in green told me my parents had to go to another emergency, but that they would be back soon.

They never did.

The people here took care of me for a long time, I couldn't leave yet. I wasn't healthy. They had to call in a really nice women who told me she'd find me a new home when I was better, and every time I asked about my current home, she said I couldn't go there anymore, but never said why.

Then one day, the entire city started shaking viciously. I hear horrible sounds of things breaking, and people screaming, and cries of pain, and the sound in the movies of the world ripping in half. That was when people stopped coming to see me. I barely leave this room. I'm always too scared. And when I do, the hallways are abandoned. I look out the window nearly everyday. There is no one, that's the only thing that's different. There are no more people.

I don't hear or see cars on the street anymore. I don't watch tv anymore. Planes don't fly above the city anymore. It has been silent for so long. I've become accustomed to the only sound being my own humming or snoring, and other noises my body can make in different ways. I've grown a lot, my old clothes don't actually fit anymore. I found a closet a few doors down from mine that had old clothes in it. The people who used to come here said other kids wore them before me, but they are gone now.

I spend my days doing nothing but thinking of the life I've missed on because no one came back for me. I've become certain I'll live here forever, die in this bed. All the dreams I had are now nothing. And although the walls I sit in are the colors of rainbow and more, I see everything in black and white.

I sigh and look around. There are old children's books I tire of reading and a few old toys I no longer touch scattered around the room I have become caged in. The light shines in through the large window by my side, causing the only light to light up the room, and I wonder what time of the day it is now.

I kick my feet off the side of the bed and push myself up. My bones have become a bit weaker, and I can't eat most days in attempt to save what light food this place still has. I slowly walk my way over to the window, feeling pain up and down my legs until I sit on the small cushion covered bench under my window. Every once in a while a bird comes and sits nearby or flies above, or a wild animal runs against the street below, but they only stay for a while, and they don't make very much noise.

When the shaking first happened, it shattered the mirror in my bathroom. I now use a piece of that mirror to look at my reflection, and with the help of the scissors my mom gave me so long ago, I make sure my hair doesn't get long. Last time it did, I had gotten trapped in a door I had just closed, and I don't want that to happen again.

I lift up the broken mirror piece and stare into it, but there isn't much to see. Just a lonely boy abandoned in an empty building. I set it back down and pull my knees to my chest, and leaning my head against the wall behind me to see the world outside. I want to go there, but I still don't know if my heart is strong enough. I've lived here for long, I don't even know what's out there anymore. I'm too scared. I'm too weak. But every picture I draw is the same. Every tune I hum is the same. Every book I read is the same, and nothing will ever change.

I close my eyes, soon death is too overtake me, I can't live forever, and soon I will join my uncle in whatever afterlife there is. The question is only when.

I'm truly ready for it. I have nothing to do, nothing to say, I've been abandoned by an entire city, I am nothing, and so is my life. I've given up on anything, and I should have. I only long for a single conversation to quench my thirst for speech. That is my last request.