Left Behind

3. ...Forever

I woke up after the sun came out, half frozen and stiff. I looked for my father, but I couldn't find him. I called for him, but he didn't answer. After a while I checked his bag. I found little cans of food, rationed for each meal we were supposed to have. I smiled. This is how we have been eating for the last 8 years. Somehow, prolonging this habit out in the open seemed funny. I opened two cans; I unpacked the camping burner, heated the meal, and waited for a while. He didn't show up. I got up and actively went looking for him. I wasn't worried at the time. I knew he needed his exercise, so perhaps, I thought, he was out jogging or something. When I couldn't find him, I came back, reheated my meal, ate it, then I brewed some coffee. I sat waiting for him while I drank the entire cup. After about two hours I decided to pack everything and go looking. I left signs so he could find me in case he'd turn back after I left.

I walked in an outwards spiral and then in an inwards one, reaching the camp late in the afternoon. He hadn't turned back, I realised, as the signs I left weren't touched. I unpacked everything and waited some more. Come night, I slept in my sleeping bag, but outside. I watched what my father claimed to be the debris from the spaceships, until I fell asleep, all the while trying to convince myself he wasn't right, and those little fancy Milky Ways weren't the spaceships. In the morning I heated just one meal, I brewed some coffee, I packed as I drank it and went looking. By now I knew something was wrong, so I had no intention to get back. I still left signs though. I spent the next day walking in another outwards spiral again. By nightfall I still hadn't found him, and I fell asleep some miles away from the point we'd stopped the first time, while again watching the stripes of debris.

Another morning, another meal, another coffee. By now I was beyond worried, I was hands down panicked. I had barely slept during the previous night and the tardiness was taking its toll.

It was in the evening of that second day that I found him. I don't remember how it happened. I can't, for the life of me, put the pieces back together in the correct order. One moment I'm walking, talking to an imagined father, the next I'm embracing his body, caressing his cheeks. The next moment I cut a knot. The next one I see him hanging there, under that bridge, at the end of a very long rope.

Right now, I'm at the entrance of the tunnel I came out of, not three days ago with my father beside me. I am alone, tired, and with absolutely no clue as to what to do next. I buried him in a park, not far from here. When I'll feel like it, I'll go visit, like I used to visit mom.

As I enter the tunnel a thought crosses my mind. How did he die? How come I never thought of that before, I wonder. And yes, really, how did he die. I mean, I am no expert, but his broken neck did it, I'm sure. However, the question that nagged at me now was: how did he end up at the end of that rope? Did he... do himself in? Suicide? Was that it? That was the simplest and most immediate answer. But what if it was... were all the terrorists dead, I now wondered? What if some of them were still alive and having found him, they murdered him? What did he say the other day? That he didn't go out for so long fearing that they might kill him and then come for me? Fear gripped me tight. I ran through the tunnel, forgetting to light a lighter. 

I hit the gate face on. Groaning, I slid it aside, went inside, then I glided it back. I pushed the handle in the upper left corner back in its place and I sat on the bed, panting like mad. It was weird. The bed was in the middle of the booth. My father had pulled it aside so he could access the lever, and never dragged it back. He couldn't have, either. The wall had to have been closed in order to do that. As I sat on the bed another thought crossed my mind. What if the terrorists did kill my father and then came into our bunker? What if they had found the entrance and they were now waiting for me inside? Shaking with panic, I grabbed a shotgun from the bag. I could see my shower cubicle and it was evidently empty. I went to check, nonetheless. No one was there.