We are No One

we are No One

I think my name was Shandra, at least before. Now I am neither alive nor dead, and I have no use for a name. When I felt my heart begin to beat again, and the flow of life recharged my brain, I knew nothing, remembered nothing. Before me stood a mangled corpse, the one who brought me back. He was just as lost as I. Brain damaged and confused, yet somehow moving around.

Grey flesh hung from his frame and he drooled as I rose from the stone where I laid. Everything felt cold and wrong. I didn't recognize the scenery. A memory sparked at the gruesome sight: a picture of the world that I had once been a part of, cities of people bustling about, never knowing how small their existences truly were.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, then noticed the stench of my hands. It did not bother me though. The smell of my reanimator was much stronger and overpowered what little senses had awakened by then. He was a male. That much I was able to decipher. Though what he had to do with me was unclear.

Looking around, I began to focus on the strange buildings that rose in the distance like pillars against our desert surroundings. The grainy dust beneath my feet was real enough. Though I was not fully conscious, due to my unnatural breathing, those towers, those ghastly shapes jutting out beyond us had no business standing.

Lacking most of my wits, I still knew that the city I spied held no hope—each intricate work of clay molding hunched over as if ready to crumble. But when looking closer, the windows, doors, and roofs, were positioned as if the constructs were created to such dangerous degrees on purpose. This did not become clear to me until later, but even then, I felt unsettled.

My slow dead mind (just waking) could not understand much. I am grateful for that. If I had been as cognizant as I am now, any number of nightmares would have plagued my thoughts. There is no escape for me any longer, but it has been a gradual realization that is comforting after everything that unfolded.

We were drawn to those disgusting buildings, greened over centuries. My companion hobbled along with me until we passed out under our weakened corpses. I was dragged along by the undying man who brought me back, once he pulled himself up. Each dusty step knocked off more of my flesh. When we stopped, I sat up, reaching for the only living thing upon the planet, I touched the glossy moss that grew on the walls of the first grotesque structure before me. Its hardened crust shriveled under the pressure and dropped to the ground with a small sickening thud.

My ears rang and I gained another piece of myself: Before, when I was Shandra, I worked with plants like this. I had studied the very substance. Something called algae. It belonged somewhere familiar. The word ocean filled my head. With it came pictures of flowing waves and cooling waters. Water: I remembered my love of the clear element. Then images of great storms and clear crashing mountains from the sea poured into my very being. I had seen it. I had died watching the end of the world. My last thought had been the horror ofa mythological creature rising. The memory faded as the sound of helpless moaning grew closer. My companion and I turned to see more beings like us; broken bodies with tongues hanging loose, trying to communicate unfinished words. The other corpses staggered closer to the structure where we slumped and began licking the walls. The sight triggered my own instinctive hunger, and I too began to consume the dead algae stuck to the buildings. The rough plants, dry as the skin of our shriveled bodies, revived me in ways I wish I had prevented, but the bitter greens called to us.

Each mouthful, each gritty moldy bite, brought us closer to our former lives. It filled me with a feeling that I could not prevent. As my identity became clear under the effects of the strange nourishment, I shuddered at my actions and backed away from the others who had gathered around me. Terror struck them each as well, firing at different times. Some froze with fear. Others grew desperately violent.

Someone grabbed my decaying arm and hurled me to the ground. The stomping of angry feet, hardened by the rigor mortis that still plagued us, cracked a few of my bones. But death does not come easily for those who have returned from beyond.

They kicked me and tore at each other until a strange ghoulish bird flew around. Its cries frightened us all. Those that were able, scrambled to find shelter.

Time passed. It could have been hours or minutes, there was no way to tell. My companion had already moved on. Eventually I drew myself up, feeling bare in my naked form. Shame: a ridiculous human emotion had resurfaced from my past life. Covering my breasts with my left arm and my nether regions with my right hand, I rushed into the nearest building with the ludicrous idea to find clothes. More and more knowledge of who I had been and what happened assaulted me from within. By the time I realized that I was not alone in that strange awkward room, my sympathies lay with my kind, even those who had assaulted me.

—-000---

It had happened. The world had ended. People had been talking about it for years, centuries. Songs had glorified it. Writers had obsessed over it. Hell, every moving picture show before the end seemed tied to it. Maybe that's why it was over so fast. No one fought. They just accepted fate in disbelief.

As I remembered the returning truths of what had been, the faces of the others began to creep forward. Their eyes bulged with sickly yellow fluid, but behind all of that, there was more. The dead were now walking and we were not animals. Each of us came to realize that we would never be as before, when our attention moved to the carvings on the walls. My own lost thoughts were pulled towards the pictures. They told an ancient story, the beginning of humans on Earth. I stared at the artistry showing two worlds, one that was once my home and the other with links to this unearthly place. The hieroglyphics displayed a portal deep under water that led to where I now stood. Beside it, a giant tentacled monster sat atop a great branching line. Beneath that were others that grew more distinctly human over time. I vomited on the crooked floor, and shiny green bits of algae squirmed in the vomit. Everyone seemed just as unnerved as I was.

What now? I wondered. Would we be forever trapped in these undying sacks of rotting flesh? Was this hell? My answer never came.

The ground shook and churned uncontrollably until it spewed forth a beast, a gargantuan octopod roaring in tones that caused my ears to bleed—it spoke deep, demonic words, which were not any known language, but were understood somehow. It called us abominations, ugly trespassers who belonged back in our graves. Try as it might, death was gone from us and seemed unable to reclaim what it had lost. When we would not fall, the creature gave up and went back to the other world.

Here I am, suffering with others like myself, because someone brought back another, who brought back

another

and there are always more. Death is a dream, a

myth for you and me: an unobtainable goal. We shall feel forever, remember forever, until maybe there is nothing left but the dust of our bones.