Stifled

It is said that a single moment can take your breath away, but what about when it happens to the entire world?

March 15, 2025, is a day I’ll never forget. Instead of waking up that morning to the sound of my alarm, I woke up to the sounds of my entire neighborhood gasping for breath. By the time I made it to the living room, my mother and father had already suffocated. My sister too. I called the police, but my call went unanswered. That day, I saw cars drive off bridges and planes fall from the sky. By the time night fell, the streets had become a cemetery and the world had fallen into silence. 

I didn’t have anywhere to be or anything tying me to my house. I couldn’t stay there—eventually the stench of my town became too much. It wasn’t difficult to travel. There were plenty of cars on the road with plenty of gas, and all the convenience stores you could ever want were spaced out every few miles. I guess that was the perk of living in America. 

I traveled the world, quite literally. Two months into my trip, I found my way to the Florida coast. I was stockpiling a boat for a one-way journey. I didn’t have much else to look forward to, and I was ready to see where the current would take me. 

But then I found him. The first sound my throat made in two months was a scream. I didn’t know this unnamed young man, but he was my savior.

March 15, 2025, had changed him. He no longer had a name nor cared for the pleasantries of society. He didn’t want me to call him anything, but I never relented. Finally, he allowed me to call him something: One. 

Together we finished loading up my boat, and together we set sail. I have to admit, we were both suicidal, and dying somewhere not littered with bones or rotting corpses seemed appealing to us. 

Except we didn’t die on the journey. Favorable winds and currents carried us to Portugal—that’s where we picked up Two and Three. We found Four scavenging in Spain. In China, we found Five. He almost shot us with his bow. On the coast of Russia, we found Six. She was starved from her boat ride to escape the island cemetery once known as Japan, and she was happy to have the company. 

Together, we found a new purpose. At night we would teach each other our languages, and during the day we would scavenge for food. We never really settled down anywhere, and by now all the prepackaged foods were beginning to get mushy and stale. Our skirmishes with the rats began around this time. 

It was Five who suggested we all learn to hunt. Before the world suffocated, he had been proficient with a bow and urged all of us to learn how to wield one before we were forced into starvation from the rank packaged foods around us. 

While the rest of us learned, Two and Three put up a fight. They held a soft spot for animals, and while they would eat meat, they couldn’t bring themselves to end an animal’s life. This was tolerated because they had something we didn’t: knowledge. One was a dockhand, Four was a cook, Five was an accountant with an interesting history, and Six was a primary school teacher. 

While the rest of us worried about keeping the group alive, Two and Three set to work researching us. They decided we should travel back to France to the Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique. The journey was difficult, but with renewed purpose, we made it in one piece. 

Our little family began to develop specialized units. Six became Two and Three’s research assistant. Five and I were hunters, bringing down what animals we could. One became a gatherer and scavenger. Four was our cook, and a professional one at that. Our family did whatever it took to make sure Two and Three could continue their research. 

The first anniversary of March 15, 2025, was approaching. It was Six who informed us the night before that the coming day made it one year since the world had died. I don’t remember seeing much of the group that night. We all mourned in our own way. I think I remember hearing One crying himself to sleep, drunken and alone. 

March 15, 2026, was supposed to be a day of research. We all awoke with renewed motivation, more determined than ever to figure out what killed the world. But then we found Four slumped over in the stew he had been making. We tried to figure out what killed him, but then Five and Three began clawing at their throats. They couldn’t breathe. Two was our last hope of figuring this out. She tried to save her partner, but he suffocated within minutes. We were scared, then. Six tried to escape. Maybe something in the room was killing us? She fled outdoors, but from the window we watched her writhe on the ground until her heart stopped. 

Two clung to me, silently begging One and I to save her, but we all knew it was a lost cause. One and I put a piece of wood in her mouth to keep her from biting her tongue as her body convulsed. 

After Two joined the pile of bodies on the floor, One found some alcohol Four had been saving as a surprise for us, and together we cracked them open. We sat outside against the building, waiting for the oxygen to leave our lungs. We were halfway through our drinks when One choked on his beer. I had never felt any affection from One, but after his bottle fell to the ground, he wrapped his arms around me. I could see in his eyes that he knew he was dying, and as his last action, he wanted to show me some type of gratitude for saving him in that lowly port town in Florida. 

I held him tight, long after he ceased to move. 

That was last year. 

Yesterday was March 15, 2027. 

I’ve been alone for one year, wandering the earth in search of anyone not dead. 

But now, as I sit here drinking myself away, I can’t help but wonder to myself. Why do I hear people talking? And why do they sound angry?