Apocalypse

There was no warning.

Not so much as a smidgeon.

The first we knew of it was it crawling out of its lair – scaled, snakelike, winged – and rearing into the sky, angry, scared – and determined to destroy.

I called it Apocalypse right from the start; after a while, everyone else did too. If it so much as glanced at any living thing, that thing died; not immediately, but after a slow withering. And its power extended beyond mere life – this creature possessed the ability to kill even that which had been dead from the start. It seared the sea and ruined buildings, laid waste to mountainous beauty, scorched the sun from the sky.

After a while, the whole world was a wasteland of grey rock. Even the sky, the beautiful sky, was covered in a monotone of grey, like a winter’s day when it will not rain. There was nothing in the world.

Humans had no chance. Nothing had a chance; but humans even less so. Most of the animals ran and ran and ran, or gave up hope and lay waiting to die. But humans…the humans went mad.

They bowed and prayed, spending day after day rocking back and forth with rosary beads tumbling through their fingers. They spent hours with their foreheads pressed to the ground, chanting mantras as if the words were a mile-high wall. They screamed passages from their holy books to the sky. Strange sects and cults rose; from the time before Apocalypse, gaining followers by the day, or newly-generated from pure fear. They worked themselves into frenzies through dances, chants, sacrificing themselves or others.

There was an abandonment of restraint. Rape became commonplace, brawls more so. In this world there was no punishment, only a desperate bid for survival; and everyone knew it was a bid ultimately destined to fail.

At the same time racism, homophobia, every sort of hate, grew exponentially. People were scared and confused, looking for anything, anything at all, that might explain Apocalypse. There were cases of mass lynchings, people beaten to death for looking wrong, acting strange. It was not a time to be different.

I avoided it all. I integrated myself into the crowds where necessary – followed the chanting zealots, bayed for the blood of whatever poor soul had been marked as different and therefore the cause of Apocalypse. But I was never drawn in; though at times I felt the hysteria of crowds surge through me, I fought it down, kept my head. I taught myself to wake at night and scavenge on the remains of those that had died or been killed, pulling the lynched down and swallowing them raw. There was no other option. In this infinity of inhospitable grey the only sustenance was my own species; and if that was the only way, then that would be the way.

When Apocalypse came I hid in a small cave I had found, blocking the entrance with stones I pulled up from the ground. I heard the screams and pleas of the remaining humans; once a priest stood just outside my cave and excommunicated Apocalypse where it stood. A few days later that priest was dead, withered by Apocalypse’s gaze, and I ate his remains.

Bit by bit the humans died, until there was only me. In a vast expanse of grey, littered by the corpses of all that had died – not rotting, for even the bacteria had been killed – only I survived. I, who had refused to listen to the masses, I, who had abandoned morality for survival, I, who had no boundaries and no borders when it came to living day by day.

One day, a day that blurred into the masses of other days, I looked over my kingdom from my cave, gazing over the wasteland, and I was proved wrong. In the vast expanse there was something moving.

It turned out to be a boy by the name of Luke. He told me that Apocalypse had come from another dimension, and that in its lair there would be the gateway to that dimension. It would be possible to pass through the gateway and emerge into a whole new universe.

I considered him insane. But I had nothing to lose; my life consisted of scavenging from mankind’s remains. The decision was not hard.

I followed him up the slope to Apocalypse’s lair.

Inside it was deathly dark. Luke led the way down the tunnel, trailing a hand across the wall, I resting my hand on his shoulder. I could hear his breathing, my breathing; and far ahead, a grating rasp that made my bones shiver.

The floor was littered with stones, and I had to high-step to prevent a sprained ankle. Beneath my fingers, the wall was cool and rough; occasionally the whisper of my touch loosened a trickle of dirt, which tinkled onto the floor.

After an unspecified length of time the tunnel twisted sharply. For a time now I had been noticing the rasp growing in volume, and I had begun to suspect. When we stepped round the corner, and I felt space open up ahead of me, the rasp echoing round us, I was certain.

“Apocalypse is here.”

“I know,” Luke said quietly.

At this affirmation I felt my breath catch in my throat, and a great fear surged through me. Of course, I fought it down, and stooped, scrabbling for small, sharp stones.

“Where are you?” Luke said suddenly, and I could hear the terror in his voice. He must have felt my hand fall from his shoulder.

“I’m here,” I murmured, reaching out to touch his ankle.

Luke screamed and I heard him stumble back; a thud ran through the cave, and the rasp suddenly changed, becoming quicker, shallower, more…

Awake.

Instantly I turned and started to scramble up the slope, while behind me I felt Apocalypse rise up and thrash. Luke was screaming, shrieking, wailing his terror, shouting over and over again: “Don’t leave me! Please don’t leave me!”

He was going to die. Why should I sacrifice my life for him?

Suddenly his voice was cut off, and I knew that Apocalypse had crushed him under its weight. I was almost out of the cave now and back in the tunnel – I had fallen on the loose scree – when I felt a blunt snake-snout bump into the back of my legs.

I am proud to say that I did not scream. I merely turned with the sharp stones in my hands and shoved my arms outwards.

Apocalypse screeched. It screamed and yelled in agony, worse than Luke had in its clutches, worse than anything I had ever heard. And beneath my hands I could feel the jelly of its eyes contort under my fingers, but after all I had seen nothing on earth could revolt me. I ground my stones into its eyes and felt its sight fall over my hands, and all the time it screeched and screeched, a horrible grating noise like, but worse than, fingernails on a blackboard.

And, oh God, it felt good. Those eyes; I had never seen them, but I had heard people, people condemned to death, talk about them – black, emotionless, bulging orbs with no pupil or iris. To see them was to die; there was no escape.

I destroyed its greatest weapon, the weapon that had ravaged my world, and I had never been happier – never happier than with gore dripping over my hands and a living creature howling with agony in front of me. Pain-maddened it reared back, and in my bloodlust I threw my stones after it, one, two, three, four.

This fourth landed with a slight plopping sound, as if in water, and there was a golden flash, which quickly subsided into a dim gold glow, hardly enough to see by.

It startled me, this glow, and I retreated to the tunnel

For a bit I crouched, and wiped its eyeballs off my hands. I could still hear it breathing, quieter now, and lower. But above this there was a slight keening sound, the sound of an animal in great pain.

After a while I returned. The golden glow belonged to the strangest thing I have ever seen in my life; something like a half-egg, but sculpted into what could be described as a chair shape, and raised off the ground on a slight dais. It was filled with a golden liquid – proper gold, a deep, rich yellow – that glowed very slightly.

By its light I saw Apocalypse lying defeated on the ground, keening his harsh cry of pain. His eyes were little more than blood-stained sockets; but I could see little apart from that. The light was so dim that his body faded into shadow – it was only because his head was lying by the half-egg that I could see his eyes.

I regarded him warily, but he made no further move. After a while I deduced that he was out of the pain-mad stage, and waiting to die.

But he wouldn’t die. As far as I knew, and I had made it my business to know everything about Apocalypse there is to know, he didn’t eat or drink. He hadn’t lost enough blood to die of that; he would just lie there, in utter agony, until something happened. And nothing would happen. There was nothing left in the world, thanks to him. For all eternity, lying in this dim light, blind and in pain.

Somehow, I was glad.

I turned my attention to the half-egg. Was this the gateway that Luke had talked about, the gateway to a new dimension?

I supposed it must be.

As I stepped over Apocalypse I deliberately trod on him, and enjoyed the rattle of pain.

When I placed a hand in the half-egg it tingled, and I saw the tips of my fingers begin to dissolve. I snatched my hand out.

But there was no choice.

I could have lived for a long time on humankind’s corpses, but that was no life; more a sort of living death. And anyway, Apocalypse had seen me now. In a few hours I would feel the creeping weakness…

I aimed a last kick at him, and sneered as he squealed and jerked away. How the mighty fall.

Then I climbed inside the half-egg and curled inside it. I felt my body begin to dissolve.

In just a few minutes the only living creature left on the whole planet would be Apocalypse – endlessly waiting to die, in agony every second. 1