Camren One Shots

Rising And Setting... Living And Dying

Its eerie when I think about how the world ended. People started getting deathly ill, doctors would attempt to cure them, then they'd die. This would all take place within a few hours, and over a span of a year. Its five years later, and the population of the world is down to, at the most, a thousand. We are all spread apart. Those that remain believe we can stay healthy if we just keep our distance. Our own species is the death of us. Ironic, isn't it? Was it God's intention to do this to us? Considering the way to transfer some diseases or sicknesses requires making contact with someone infected, it makes sense that this pandemic wiped out the entire population, leaving only a small amount of individuals that are probably all introverts like myself.

See, I was part of the lucky few that took online classes for college, and when I wasn't working on that, I paid my rent by being a cam girl and gaming live on streams. I had food delivered to my door whenever I got hungry, since everything is available on the apps nowadays. To think people get so desperate to go out into the world? Not me. Not when I know I only have bad experiences.

I am Camila Cabello, the girl that is extremely quiet and is labeled as a hermit crab. I take that name in with pride, and I never make anyone doubt that that is who I truly am. I don't think a person should be ashamed for wanting to stay indoors their whole life and never interact with anyone on the outside. That's how you keep your heart safe. You can love yourself best when you are your only friend. And you may be thinking, "well Camila, what about your family?" and sure, you'd be right to think that, but I left home pretty early. You see, my mother left a box full of cash on her dresser for when she wanted to buy drugs. She filled it every Friday, and at the end of the month, she'd use it to buy a shitload of cocaine, and she'd snort her entire purchase throughout the weekend. By Monday, she was back to work and acting like any other normal human being. As for my father, I never knew the poor bastard. No siblings, no uncles or aunts, no grandparents - I had no one to begin with. So I took all of that money at the end of the month on my sixteenth birthday, and I was out of there. I already had a fake ID at that point, so I used that to get myself an apartment. I had money leftover, so I bought the necessities to be able to record quality videos, and I made a living like that for a good while.

It seemed like it happened overnight; the world-ending pandemic. They called it, "The Phenomenon Disease". It claimed the lives of four million people in just a month. Medical professionals were stunned. I can remember waking up in the morning with some hot coffee and checking the death toll. Although I had no interest in caring for people, it was definitely unnerving to see how easy this pandemic was wiping out the world in one full swoop. It was unstoppable, and will remain so.

Because of video games, I learned a few things about survival. Of course, sitting in my apartment with nothing much to do tends to leave the mind wandering, so I decided to do some light research about anything I could find valid facts on. I wanted to know how to take care of myself more than just living in an apartment and ordering takeout every night. I wanted to be able to be like one of those characters in a book or a movie that builds a giant bunker, stocks it with all kinds of crazy shit people wouldn't even think they'd need for survival, and end up taking others in so they wouldn't have to suffer whatever fate was sealed for humanity if it were to ever come down to something that crazy.

Of course, that was only a filed away thought of mine. I didn't think I'd actually have to bring it out and use it in my lifetime, but I guess life is just full of surprises.

And here I am. I am sitting on a roof top in a mossy lawn chair, eating an expired bag of potato chips, and sipping on a bottle of spring water that I boiled the night before. I ended up developing a fascination for sunsets and sunrises. They happen to be the most peaceful times of the day. I find myself watching the clouds turn all sorts of colors around the sun, then watch the sky do the same thing in layers that blend perfectly like a watercolor painting. It always leaves me so amazed that the Earth can be so beautiful at times. I'm truly grateful to still be existing, even when the population is in jeopardy, because I get to witness beautiful moments when the sun makes wonderful, vibrant colors, or when a bird lands on a branch of a tree nearby and just watches everything around it, or when a usually timid animal comes up to me slowly, then eats from my hand and allows me to pet it for a few minutes.