Daniel

Alec walked into the abandoned home once occupied by his family. It seemed somewhat surreal. Everything left as though waiting for the occupants to return. The furniture he remembered from a time when he lived there with his parents and younger brother and sister, remained untouched. He moved around the living room and noted the odd item missing as well as several family photos from the mantle. One he realised, taken of all five of them, was missing and he hoped that meant they took the photo with them when they fled the capital.

The city they grew up in now lay abandoned, only the hopeless and destitute remained, waiting for the chosen one to surface and purge the world of its sins. When the heretics suggested long ago the world would fall from grace, for no other reason than by our own hands, the world scorned them. They spoke of the chosen one who would, in a time when the world would truly saw its end fast approaching, come forth to a city and sacrifice their life to purge the earth.

Despised, victimized, banished, punished and even murdered, the heretics did not stop their calling for the world to be brought to account for its injustices but by the time the world listened it was too late. The collapse of the world’s economy was only the beginning as the rich contained their wealth and created a world within the world in which they alone might survive. While the people who worked to keep the world moving lost everything and thus the lives of many ended.

Alec remembered in his teens what it was like to have both parents working and not having to go without anything. That was until he told them he was gay and they kicked him out of home. Some years later the world had fallen. For Alec, who lived on the streets at the time, it was no different for him; in the beginning. He saw the world around him fall from grace and the desperation of the people who lost everything force the government and wealthy to save them. However, they had been abandoned.

The heretics rose from the fire and destruction of the cities and preached again of the chosen one and this time the people believed. How could they not, there was nothing else to believe in? They abandoned the cities, the masses heading towards the centre of the country. In the dry desolate land, they built a city of tents waiting for the saviour to free them from the turmoil that consumed their lives.

Alec never followed them, when the city had been evacuated en masse; it became a ghost town of its former self. Many who remained, stayed to pillage and ransack the homes long deserted but over time even those people left. Fearful of death in the end, no city remained inhabited while they did not know which city the chosen one would rise up in.

It did not faze Alec in the slightest that it might be possible his place of home might one day be destroyed by a force that would sweep the world clean of all its inhabitants, allowing the wise to rise up from the ashes.

No one understood what that meant, nor if they would even survive the purge if or when it occurred. Only the tales spread claiming the wise would survive gave people hope, but how wise did a person need to be. Therefore, everyone walked a fine line between what they considered good or bad in society. No one dared to defy the nature of kindness and goodwill for fear of not surviving when the world was purged. Still, there were those who didn’t believe or didn’t care and took advantage of those that did, such was the way of the world.

Alec let out a sigh and moved away from the mantle to look through the rest of the house. Evidence his family packed only the crucial things, as drawers and cupboards contained clothes not needed. In the kitchen, food had been left rotten and decomposed on the table. His family would have left with the first wave of people to abandon the city. Alec continued through the empty house. Dust layered the tops of everything, another sign his family were long gone.

At the door of his old bedroom, Alec stopped in mute surprise. As though looking back in time, everything looked exactly as it had when he left twenty years prior. Pain tugged in his heart and his eye grew misty but he would not shed a tear. He stopped crying long ago at the injustices in his life.

But it wasn’t the sight of his former bedroom that surprised him the most; it was the envelope lying on the pillow. As Alec approached the bed, a surreal sensation engulfed him. As though having an out-of-body experience, Alec stared down at the envelope and his name written across the front. He stared at his name and recognized his mother’s handwriting. Had she hoped he would come back in all that time? Doubt told him no, if she were merely telling him they had gone, he already realised. Why would she want to leave him a letter?

Half afraid and half curious he tore open the side of the envelope and pressing to open a key fell out into his hand. As he stared at it, confused at first before recognising it as the key to his mother’s car. Curious as to why she would leave him the key, he reached into the envelope and taking out a small card, it read, follow us.

Alec closed his eyes and squeezed the key in his hand. Why would she do something like that? After all the time he had not heard from them - why? In the end, he guessed the past didn’t matter. Even if he did follow them now, he would make no effort to find them, that part of his life was over and done with.

Alec threw the envelope to the floor and made his way to the garage. Much like the house, the garage had not been touched by the scavengers. At the side door, Alec pulled it open; relieved to see the car remained. Through the dust and cobwebs, Alec made towards the roller door and lifted it open. The sun shone over the dusty red Toyota and opening the boot he found non- perishable food in a box in the back. How the scavengers missed the car, and the food surprised him. But when a city became abandoned only the wealthy were worth looting. Alec closed the boot, leaned against the car, and wondered what he should do.

He’d never considered leaving the city, welcoming the idea of finding his end there. Life had not been easy. Nothing but pain and torture followed him and taking his own life had been a failure to him twice. To realise the end of the world would take place soon had been something Alec lived for. But now after years of waiting he grew tired.

The loneliness that settled around him began to make him doubt his decision to stay. He didn’t want to live and yet a small voice inside him, one that grew bigger every day, told him he had the right to live.

The quiet had finally got to Alec. No sound of industry. No sound of vehicles, and no sound of people at all drove him senseless. He had to get out if only to know what became of everyone. If things were not to Alec’s liking then he would simply return. He didn’t have to leave permanently.

A holiday, yeah, that was how he would think of it - a holiday.

The last time he drove a car he was sixteen. Now at thirty-seven he was surprised he had not forgotten, although it did help his mother’s car was an automatic. The fuel gauge full, with a full tin tucked in behind the passenger seat inside the car, Alec took the opportunity given to him. Why his parents did what they did remained a mystery and a part of him was grateful.

The house located in the hill meant the drive towards the freeway was done surrounded by lush green trees. Birds and animals in their dozens roamed the lands free and Alec stopped a number of times for kangaroos and koalas congregating on the roads. On the occasions Alec used the car horn to displace the animal’s mayhem resulted in more animals panicking and flooding the roads. When he reached the freeway, it wasn’t the animals that caused Alec to drive slowly, but rather the multitude of abandoned vehicles littering the roads. In no hurry, Alec weaved through the traffic occasionally stopping to pillage trucks and cars.

As he neared the tunnels to leave the city, Alec found the entrance blocked and doubled back to leave the city via the inbound lane. With a clear road ahead, Alec remained on the wrong side, picking up speed and leaving behind the city.

In pockets along the freeway, forest of trees once caught up in bushfires showed signs of regrowth. It gave Alec a sense of rebirth, as though the world itself did not believe the destruction predicted would occur. Time became irrelevant. Therefore, he did not know long he drove, nor how far he travelled, when he came across a beat up pale blue car parked on the side of the road. It had been heading the same direction as Alec but what surprised him was the young man sitting on the boot, watching his approach.

As he slowed the vehicle, Alec made eye contact with the man and it was as if time stopped. Alec stared as he slowly passed, then pulled to a stop. He didn’t look back at the man, he didn’t get out, and he didn’t lower the window or call out. The emotions he experienced, long buried over time, erupted through Alec.

The passenger door opened, and the man got in. Years younger than Alec, they said nothing to each other except exchange names. His was Daniel and Alec realised there and then Daniel was going to have an impact on his life. The moment he met Daniel there was something about him that made him different from anyone he had ever met. There was a fire in his eyes that said he was destined for something more.

It those first silent hours before night fell and they camped on the side of the road, and Daniel realised his life would never be the same. When they began to open up and share their history, they were similar in so many ways. From that night on they remained together and Alec found contentment.

They stopped at the first commune they came to in a once thriving town now void of anything resembling civilization. Buildings slowly torn down, their resources used for other things and small farming communities formed as the people there managed as best they could. They did not discourage Alec and Daniel from being there, so long as they did their part, they were welcome.

Both men set up a small lean to against the Toyota and used the vehicle as a place to shelter when needed. What meagre possessions they acquired they were grateful for and Alec cherished their time together. The intimacy he and Daniel shared in the privacy of their makeshift dwelling gave Alec the pleasure of contentment for the first time in his life and he was happy.

Seven months they lived together, loved together, and Alec learned to rebuild his shattered heart and plan for a future. But that changed one morning as Alec woke to find Daniel gone. In the hours after Daniel’s disappearance, the weight of depression consumed Alec until he had ever experienced. Why Daniel left was a mystery, not only to him but also to those who lived in the community. They too had not seen Daniel leave. Nor did any of them know where he might go. It was then Alec realised there could be no future. He had been gifted a few short months of what life might have been like if the purge did not exist. It was over. His first night alone Alec cried for the first time in years.

Within weeks of Daniel’s disappearance word began to spread about the chosen one. These rumours were confirmed one afternoon by traders passing through telling anyone who would listen that they needed to get as far away as possible as our city had been chosen. They didn’t want to believe but it didn't stop them from packing up their belonging and leaving.

In his heart Alec knew. Knew why Daniel left him; why he disappeared and said nothing.

With the commune almost abandoned, Alec pulled apart his dwelling and with the last of the fuel he had stored, he prepared his car. Rather than drive away from the city, Alec chose to return. He didn’t want to think Daniel was the chosen one; didn’t want to believe he would never see him again. The drive back to the city seemed much longer than the drive out and many times Alec stopped due to the flood of tears.

Onward he drove. Neither food nor sleep stopped him until he came to the abandoned pale blue car where he first met Daniel. He brought the car to a stop and this time Alec got out. He stood in front of the car and stared at the message written in the dust of the windscreen. It read - Turn around Alec.

Daniel knew Alec would follow him? Did he think his message would deter him? Alec fell to his knees and smashing his fists hard against the ground until they bled, he chanted over and over in his mind, you are my home.

When he could not bear the tormenting words any longer, Alec stood and returned to his car. He took little regard to his blood stained hands as he started the engine and continued towards the city.

It neared twilight when Alec came to the foothills and the thick smell of smoke filled the air. Curious as to what awaited him, Alec pulled off towards one of the many lookouts to get a better vantage point of the city. What he found when he stopped the car and got out scared him. Embers and ash rained down over every building burning uncontrollably. The sight sickened Alec as he realised he was too late. He would never see Daniel again because the sacrifice was already taking place. Near the coastline he could make out a rotating column of fire funnelling up into the sky, drawing in the atmosphere and loose debris caught by its sheer force. As the column of fire grew in width, the more embers fell from the sky, until Alec saw it slowly making its way towards him.

He didn’t run, knowing this was Daniel he was watching. The fire he saw in Daniel’s eyes when they lay together, the passion when they embraced. Daniel had come to terms with his destiny long before Alec.

Had he known when Alec picked him up he would never know but Alec suspected he did. Tears fell down his face and Alec watched the tower of fire continue to grow, and the warmth of the surrounding fires grow hotter and fiercer.

The chosen one would purge the world of its impurities, which was what they said. However, upon seeing the destruction before him, Alec realised this was not what they had been warned about. There were not going to be any survivors. The wise would not rise up from this destruction.

He held out his arms to the sky as it continued to rain fire around him and silently he called, Daniel, I am home.

The column of fire continued to amass in height and depth until it stretched for miles before it burst open with a life of its own. The flames sped across the earth consuming all in its path.

None were spared.

The End.