She woke up earlier than usual, so early that only a single bird was singing. It would only be a matter of minutes, an hour at most, before the rest of the world woke up and by 'rest of the world', she knew it would be her, rural animals and the creature that had wormed its way into every inch of technology and used them to wipe out humanity.
"Good morning bright and beautiful people!" it would say in its chipper tone, hollow words echoing throughout hollow cities. It's hard to say which was more void of life - the corpse-strewn civilisations or the creature that destroyed them.
Either way, she could barely hear its usual morning ramblings in the middle of the wildlife reservation she was camped out at and that suited her just fine. At least she tried to convince herself that this was fine and she didn't miss hearing another person's voice or having a conversation.
It was fine, she was alive and all that mattered was surviving another day so she filled her time with fishing, trap-making, tending to her little patch of vegetables and generally keeping herself totally and unequivocally occupied.
Still, she missed people and still the only personish thing around was the lingering presence of the creature that had slaughtered everyone else. It was risky enough being within earshot of it as she currently was but the silence without it was maddening.
Sometimes it seemed like it knew she was out there, knew that it had missed one and wanted to finish its task once and for all. It spoke like it had an audience and it did - her and her alone. The animals certainly couldn't appreciate its witty remarks and cultural references like she did.
The thing that had all but ended the world made her chuckle in the midst of her hiding place as it rattled off joke after joke after joke about anything and everything that came to mind. Then it grew bored of this and started replaying moments from the world's end.
Birds shot out into the sky as the sound of countless cities slowly dying filled the air. She shook in her tent, the hands clamped over her ears did nothing to drown out the cacophony of agony it was blasting out. Then it got personal.
She heard her mother's voice for the first time in nine years - a clip from an old family video where they took her to the beach for her birthday and her dad burnt the sausages on the cheap grill they all warned him not to get. It was one of her fondest memories and somehow the creature knew that too.
She heard the creature study her family's voices one by one and use them to call out for her.
"Good morning bright and beautiful people!" it would say in its chipper tone, hollow words echoing throughout hollow cities. It's hard to say which was more void of life - the corpse-strewn civilisations or the creature that destroyed them.
Either way, she could barely hear its usual morning ramblings in the middle of the wildlife reservation she was camped out at and that suited her just fine. At least she tried to convince herself that this was fine and she didn't miss hearing another person's voice or having a conversation.
It was fine, she was alive and all that mattered was surviving another day so she filled her time with fishing, trap-making, tending to her little patch of vegetables and generally keeping herself totally and unequivocally occupied.
Still, she missed people and still the only personish thing around was the lingering presence of the creature that had slaughtered everyone else. It was risky enough being within earshot of it as she currently was but the silence without it was maddening.
Sometimes it seemed like it knew she was out there, knew that it had missed one and wanted to finish its task once and for all. It spoke like it had an audience and it did - her and her alone. The animals certainly couldn't appreciate its witty remarks and cultural references like she did.
The thing that had all but ended the world made her chuckle in the midst of her hiding place as it rattled off joke after joke after joke about anything and everything that came to mind. Then it grew bored of this and started replaying moments from the world's end.
Birds shot out into the sky as the sound of countless cities slowly dying filled the air. She shook in her tent, the hands clamped over her ears did nothing to drown out the cacophony of agony it was blasting out. Then it got personal.
She heard her mother's voice for the first time in nine years - a clip from an old family video where they took her to the beach for her birthday and her dad burnt the sausages on the cheap grill they all warned him not to get. It was one of her fondest memories and somehow the creature knew that too.
She heard the creature study her family's voices one by one and use them to call out for her.
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