The End of the My World

The End of the My World

So thirsty.

Mouth as dry as dust.

Tried to call for help but couldn’t.

To bright.

Must have nodded off. Plastic cup by the side of the bed, but I can barely move my arm. I’m just so weak. Got a sip of water and spilled the rest down my chest. The cool on my chest helped me to wake. Still I’m so groggy. Everything is a haze. Need more water. There is a pitcher on the table beside the bed. I start to move to get the pitcher and see an IV in my left arm. I must have fallen asleep again. I dreamed of an angel hovering over me. This time I’m even more awake. I’m in the hospital. It takes all my effort to pore myself a cup of water. I drink it slowly. I found the button to ring for the nurse. No one comes. I use the remote control to turn the TV, but I can’t seem to make it work correctly. Only a few news channels and there all talking about the latest disaster. I can’t focus on the story long enough to follow. Still no nurse will come. The IV bag connected to my arm is empty. I consume a little more water and fall asleep again. When I wake up this time the IV bag is half full and I notice that I have several IV bags connected to me. My stomach is kind of bloated. I find the buttons on the bed to raise myself up a little and drink some water. The TV is still on. I look around the room and finally notice the person in the bed next to me. He is very still and the most wrinkled person that I have ever seen. He looks like an albino raisin. I ring for the nurse again.

Feeling a little stronger, I reach for the pitcher again. I’m still so thirsty. I’ve never been this thirsty before. I can’t remember how I got here. I don’t have any casts on me or any bandages that I can see or feel. My skin just seems to be hanging on me like a shirt that is several sizes to big. The pitcher is almost empty. I drain it into my plastic cup and drink it. I have to rest for a while. The nurse must be really busy because she doesn’t come. My IV bags are empty again. I’m still so thirsty. I decide to try to get out of bed and get some water. I disconnect the IV bag from my arm but leave the catheter in. Slowly, I swung my feet out over the edge of the bed. The rail was down. I never noticed how high up a hospital bed can seem I try to call for help but my voice is course and very soft. I need water. I lowed myself out of the bed but had to hold onto the mattress for support, because my head was swimming. Luckily, I didn’t faint. I grabbed the pitcher with my left hand and tried to walk to the bathroom. It was only a few feet from my bed but my whole body felt stiff and my head ached. Slowly I forced my body to cover the short distance to the bathroom door. I had to hold on to it for a while before I could go into the bathroom. The sink was right by the door and there was a plastic cup above the sink. I filled the cup and drank it. I filled it again and drained it as well. A third cup and my stomach felt full. I filled the pitcher and headed for the bed again. I don’t remember actually reaching the bed but I woke up in it.

The TV was still on. As I filled my plastic cup again I started to listen to the news. It seemed like the same story that was on the last time I noticed. Some a newswomen in a t-shirt was talking about an epidemic. She said that the whole world was stricken with the worst flu epidemic ever. It must have been a tape because it started to play over again. I drank more water and rang for the nurse again. I was hungry. I drank some more water and decided to go find the nurse. I felt much stronger. I finished the pitcher and slowly stood up. My head hardly spun at all this time. I walked towards the door and stopped. The hallway was filled with gurneys. They all had people that looked like the guy in my room. They were all so wrinkled. There was a nurse lying on the floor just outside my room. She was lying in her own vomit. She moaned and then through up a little, and then she looked up at me. She said “you’re alive”. It almost sounded like a question. I told her that I would get help. She asked me to stay with her for a minute.

She looked at me and kind of smiled. She said she knew that I would make it. I told her that I was going for help and she said that I should not bother. She then told me that everyone else was dead. I looked down the hall and realized that there were just corpses on the gurneys. No one was moving. Further down the hall there were bodies on the floor. I helped the nurse to stand up, she felt like she was on fire. I helped her to my bed. She asked for water but when I have her some she immediately through it up. I asked her what I could do for her to make her more comfortable. She didn’t respond to that but instead said that she was the last staff member at the hospital. She talked slowly and haltingly. She said that I was the only one who had survived and then she went limp.

I tried to make her as comfortable as I could. I changed channels on the TV. This was another news report. The commentator showed a map of the world with the known outbreaks plotted. Next there was a map of the United States with the initial outbreak locations shown as red circles. My city was shown as one of the primary outbreak sites. The red circles expanded to cover the entire country.

I started to get frantic. I picked up the phone and called my parents home to see if they were OK. The call was picked up and I was elated, but it was the answering machine. The nurse kind of moaned and then she convulsed. I tried to take her pulse, but there was none. She had died. I just left her there. In the hall was a laptop computer. I picked it up and looked at the monitor. It was a diary, probably from the nurse that I had just watched die.

Slowly, I started to walk out of the hospital. It was a scene from my worst nightmare. Nobody was alive. I found myself at the emergency entrance and stared out into the parking lot. Cars were everywhere. Many near the entrance had people still in them, but nobody was moving. Some people looked as though they had been dead for some time. I stumbled out the door and realized that I just had a hospital gown on and no shoes or slippers. I moved slowly between the cars, occasionally stepping over a dead body, until I got to the street. I saw a dog eating a human corpse near the entrance to the parking lot. The street was also was filled with cars. It was like the worst traffic jam in the world except many of the cars had corpses