The Starless Night
By: Nathan Serna
The road stretches endlessly before him, an endless void swallowing the horizon in shadow. The night was without stars, the moon nothing but echoing memories in his mind. The road curved westward, the wheel of the van underhand buckling against his grip from the various potholes and cracks left from years without maintenance. To his left, he can see the canal of water separating the dead city in two. Memories struck him of when it was full of activity. Green with pollutants and algae, the waters were never allowed to settle due to the constant traffic of ships to and fro. Yet, that never stopped him and the boys from playing on its shores and swimming in the sludge-filled water. A bittersweet smile crossed his lips, his mind wandering to times his parents reprimanded him for swimming there, and all the times he waved off their concerns. He remembers when the roles were reversed, and he found himself telling the same to his own daughter. His smile dies and his eyes turn back to the road. He focuses his gaze away from the dead abyss that was once the canal, the waters of which now twisted upward into the sky unnaturally. Maybe the water also longs for the stars that had abandoned the night, and in its search for them, reality fractures.
He slows upon a sharp curve, reaching a stop at the dead traffic light ahead. All four lanes are blocked entirely by discarded cars, long rusted and twisted beyond recognition into a singular mass of twisted metal. Upon this amorphous rusted form, people can be seen in a wall of screams. Their faces frozen in time, maws agape in terror, hands pressed against the metal surface as if trapped under a smooth sheet and trying desperately to escape. The light poles overhead rust and lean downwards like dying willow trees, the metal stretching downwards and dividing like dying branches. He sighs and reaches into the glove department, producing an energy pistol. Flipping a switch upon the weapon’s side, he checks its charge, the glass screen illuminating with blinding light. It hums softly in his hand, the screen upon the handle booting up fully to display three numbers. 002. As he looks upon the display, the number flickers, now reading 001. A curse leaves his lips before flicking the pistol off and holstering it. He paws around the glove compartment and pulls out a 20th century metal pen and sticky notes made from real paper. He brings the pen to the surface of the topmost paper and begins writing a message upon its surface in German. Then he removes the page and writes the same message, now in French, and repeats the process one final time in English.
“Wenn Sie dieses Fahrzeug und die darin enthaltenen Vorräte in gutem Zustand vorfinden, seien Sie gesund und machen Sie sich keine Sorgen um mich. Ich bin schon lange weg. Mögen sie dich vor der endlosen Nacht retten.”
“Si vous trouvez ce véhicule et les fournitures qu'il transporte en bonne santé, portez-vous bien et ne vous inquiétez pas pour moi. Je suis parti depuis longtemps. Puissent-ils vous sauver de la nuit sans fin.”
“If you find this vehicle and the supplies it contains in good condition, be well and don't worry about me. I've been gone for a long time. May they save you from the endless night.”
Perhaps, if there are any other survivors still out there, these supplies should do them good. The food and water in the trunk, the gas in the tank, even these seats infinitely more comfortable than the hard ground will better serve someone who still has hope. He reads the three messages aloud to himself, hand resting in his chin, stubble poking against his fingers like a forest of tiny needles. The words sound foreign upon his lips, slurred as if spoken by a child learning each for the first time. Not one to talk to himself, his lips and tongue have grown sluggish in isolation, for without another to listen, what is the point of a voice? A bitter taste lingers in his mouth at the thought, but despite his voice each message reads well to him. It doesn’t sound distorted, it doesn’t echo like others he met early into the night’s fall, the reality of their very bodies broken.
Glancing to the empty buildings through the windshield of the van, he searches for any other signs of life. Each building is stretched and distorted, some curving inwards upon themselves akin to the shell of a snail, others stretch upwards past the atmosphere into a thin pillar. His eyes dart around, looking for a stray cat, a functioning automaton, another human… There!... Some movement catches his eye in a nearby store. He flips a small switch by the steering wheel, causing one of the head lights of the van to twist towards the store. It looks to be an ice cream parlor, or at least it was. In the light, the source of the movement is clearly visible, yet…
Instead of a sign of life, instead he watches the absence of it. Shadows of people cast upon the store, given shape by the headlight pointed upon them. They enter and leave the store, their voices echoes in his mind. Some discuss the last election before light’s death, debating which of the elderly in charge should decide the fate of the young. Others are families, children proclaiming it to be the best day of their lives to their mothers, all because they had gotten two scoops instead of one. He tries to recall the last time he saw another human. His daughter… she and he had found other survivors by the end of the first week of time spent in the night. They were kind to him, to his daughter, sharing their food and medicine and inviting any they found to join them till sunrise. His mind wanders away from these memories to shadows before him as two walk into view to order their own ice cream. A little girl no more than six years of age, and a man not unlike himse-
He immediately turns off the headlights and exits the van, leaving the keys to the vehicle on the driver seat and the three notes stuck upon the steering wheel. The man shifts his gaze towards the final barrier to his destination, a red suspension bridge so large and so long that it dwarfed the Americans’ San Fransisco Bridge. A chuckle escapes him, thinking on how angry such a comparison would make many of the Americans he knew before the sky turned black. As he climbs over the wreck of an ambulance, stepping over the robotic paramedic scattered across the road, he finds himself wondering if there are any Americans left to complain.
It is good that he already abandoned the van, for the bridge is covered in all lanes by more discarded vehicles. Peeking into many of the windows, there isn’t any sign of activity from before the night. No signs of looting, no signs of the dead, no signs of humanity. Stepping away from one vehicle, he stubs his foot against something heavy on the ground. Yelping in pain, he hops away from the object, checking his bare foot for any cuts or bruises. Glancing to his assailant, he sees the source of his pain. A BD Spot Canine Companion, battery dead and joints rusted stiff. Memories come to mind of when these were first unveiled after the last of the dogs died during the nuclear sunset. So many people spent their money to purchase one, money that could have gone to food, water, weapons, anything that would have helped them survive. He remembers his daughter and the BD Spot Canine Companion he bought her, affectionately named Princess. It had a pink outer shell and was covered in stickers from her favorite animated shows. It proved invaluable in detecting reality breaks, barking in mimicry of true dogs whenever a threat was detected.
The one before him now is black where the plastic can be seen, its titanium legs rusted a deep red so very close to the black asphalt, and upon its back is a rattler with a Russian flag on its side. A railgun on legs, collecting kinetic energy to propel anything small enough to stuff in the barrel of the rattler outward in a ball of plasma, faster than any bullet. He brings his hand to his hip, resting it on the holster holding the plasma pistol. Even civilian weapons like his own from before the war can bring death upon many innocent lives, one could take a thousand shots before needing to change out the nuclear battery. What point is there in that? If such wonders could be achieved in the making of tools of death, why can it not with tools intent on saving life? Yet, so long as there are two humans alive, perhaps there will always be potential for war. War didn’t die with the light, not when humanity held the trigger. Perhaps it has died with the rest of the world, perhaps war only lives on in the memory of humanity’s last.
Intent on avoiding any more tripping hazards, he reaches into his backpack and produces a strange flashlight. It bears no battery holster like his pistol, but rather two surgical tubes with nanite automated IV needles at the end of each tube. He brings the needle of the left tube to his wrist, and it automatically pierces his skin looking for a vein. Repeating the process upon the same wrist with the other needle, this time aimed for an artery, the bloodlight slowly comes to life. He continues forward towards the end of the crimson bridge, barely able to see some 10ft ahead of him with his bloodlight. It intensifies and dims with each heartbeat, blood pumping through the surgical tubes connecting the light to his wrist. The bulb of his bloodlight is barely able to keep up with his ever-rising heart rate, near seizure inducing if it were able to shine at full strength, but the bulb is weak from overuse and in need of being replaced, barely functional.
With this limited vision provided by the bloodlight, he makes his way forward down the road, tracking his way past the skeletons of skyscrapers he once knew, now nothing but ruin to be eroded into dust. He passes by several reality breaks, each pulsing weakly with energy. First a mailbox twisted in place as if distorted by a swirling camera filter, only to be the reality before him... The next, a missile crashed into the ground, halfway through detonation yet frozen still, the flames glowing green with radiation and as still as a photograph. He turns past one final corner, finding his destination as the voice of his daughter echoes around him. She’s laughing, he can hear her playing just as she was that day. The grass of the park before him is black underfoot, its dry blades cutting against his heels with every step as he makes his way to a cleared mound at the center of the park near the swings. The swings themselves are twisted, the metal legs of the structure stretched high above, the chains attached to it twisting in the air around him as if they were serpents slithering through the sky. There is a rudimentary cross stuck into the ground at the head of the mound, merely two halves of one rifle tied together in a “+” with two zip ties. Next to the mound is the broken remains of another BD Spot, pink in color with long faded stickers. He falls to his knees before it, tears flowing down scarred cheeks and dripping down onto the soil. He produces the energy pistol from its holster and flips it on. 001. Only one shot left.
Daddy? Come play with me Daddy!
His eyes glance to the mound before him, then to the sky as he searches and searches for just one star, the laughter of his daughter echoing in his mind even as the noise turns to that of coughing and the sound of robotic barks. The break in reality swirled around him, the sounds of that faithful day haunting him both in memory and physically upon his senses. He can hear her laughter, only for it to distort into a scream as the barks of her BD Spot echoing with her dying cry. He can hear his own voice, muffled and distorted, he can hear his voice crying out for her, though he can’t tell if it’s his own voice or his pained scream upon that faithful day. What is the reality break and what is his own mind, his own tears? Does it matter?
He brings the barrel of the energy pistol to his temple. Minutes pass, his hand quivering, the hum of the weapon filling the air. His finger quivers on the trigger, his mind racing upon the past.
Click.
He checks the side of the pistol, looking desperately upon the ammo counter.
000.
He sits before the mound silently, shoulders slouched downward and chin to his chest. Hours pass in darkness, yet the cold begins to recede. He turns towards the east, looking through the ruins of a broken world to see the void begin to split into soft purples, oranges, reds, and a bright warm yellow.
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