Page 55 - North Star Literary & Art Magazine

tore. With May it was different. We had only managed to start a proper conversation today but it felt like I’d known her for years, that this was just a quick call to just check-in. I suppose the end of everything will do that to people.
May promised me she’d come to find me when her dad gave the “O.K.” to leave their bunker. I couldn’t promise her she wouldn’t find my corpse.
Her voice joined my family when it came time to speak to the wall. May’s laugh mingled with my dad’s and her caring reproves joined my mom’s. I imagined what lips would match with her laugh, what eyes would squint in question. In my mind she was an angel.
She joined us for dinner that night. We all laughed together over the mashed potatoes, and May held my hand under the table, thumb brushing against my knuckles, as we talked about our future. Our future. It tasted sweeter on my tongue than the chocolate cake we had for dessert. When I walked May to her car she began to lean in and my breath caught in my throat-
It felt like drowning.
My eyes burned as I flinched away from the wall, those football eyes just staring, taunting, mocking.
“May,” I radioed over. “May, I don’t think I’ve got long.”
“Sam? What’s wrong?”
My hands shook as I held the microphone. It was hard to press down the speaker, my bony finger quaking under the weight. “I’m... May, I’m seeing things. I’m losing my mind and, and I don’t know how much more I can take.”
May’s voice was frantic in her response. “Don’t say that! I- I’ll come get you, screw what my dad says! I’ll come get you and- and I’ll bring you back and you’ll be okay! We’ll be okay!” I cried. I think she was crying too
look what you’ve done! you’ve made May cry!
but I managed to thank her.
As I struggled to scratch in the third line, the whisper strained against my ear.
“Day Three.”
And on Day Three I knew what was coming.
I couldn’t move. I tried.
I couldn’t breathe. It hurt.
I couldn’t cry.
My wheezing attempts for air echoed in the cellar. I couldn’t stop thinking. I was
such an idiot Before. Before-Sam didn’t know what death felt like. She didn’t know the burn of the lungs as she struggled to breathe. She didn’t know the burn of flesh accom- panied by lightning. She didn’t know the burn of radiation eating away at her skin.
In a thousand different voices I heard the world condemning me and my arro- gance. I was Victor, watching as the monster of his creation killed his beloved, Oedipus as he fought against his sinful prophecy, Satan as he rebelled his godly father.
My heart, I don’t think it could take anymore.
I mumbled a prayer under my breath. Not that I was ever religious, but it wouldn’t hurt, would it? “Listen to me, please. I’m helpless. I’m weak. God, please, I need help.” The top row of my teeth chattered against the bottom as I was washed over with an unnatural
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