7 Stories Down

The Last Broadcast... - Part 3 (FINALE)

I had never thought that a day's hardship would make me feel that this life had nothing more to offer, even less, make me come to the conclusion that our innate faith had deserted us.

How is it that the very thing that gave us purpose and drive somehow ceased to exist?

A couple of hours have passed and many things have been seen. Today, in the forenoon to be more precise, me and my neighbor Ernest went searching for his missing son, Damien. On the hunt, we discovered that our region had been depopulated, food supplies snatched, and the combustible resources were staggering between being depleted and being detonated by an unprecedented event.

While we were returning home, we managed to capture one of those lapses in which a radio transmission loop restarted. A doomsayer on the radio advised us to pray for our lives to be saved and delivered from imminent suffering.

I was helping Ernest, who was seriously ill and restless, walk back home. On the way back, his behavior was strange. Although it was expected due to his fall, it seemed that he had lost part of his memory. I blamed it on the fact that, in an attempt to avoid further trauma, his brain blocked the memory of his son's soulless body inside that closet. 

Seconds before opening his house's front door, he looked at me and uselessly tried to talk. As I was telling him to steady his breath, his eyes began to move rapidly in a lateral direction, without any coordination. To me, it seemed like he was fighting something; while trying to stay awake and away from giving up his life.

He was dying, there was no doubt about it, and I feared he was waiting to see his wife so he could say a proper goodbye. Luckily for us, Susanne was vigilant for us to arrive, apparently she had been checking out the windows from time to time, expecting us to bring Damien back.

We rushed in, and even if we brought sad news, the priority was to lay Ernest down for him to be comfortable and be able to rest. In an unexpected twist, he resisted being taken to bed. He stood up vigorously again and again. It took all three of us (my wife, Susanne, and I) to put him to rest for good in one of the bedrooms. 

My wife went back to the room with the kids, as they had been having nightmares for the past few days and she didn't want to leave them unprotected. As Ana walked away, she stared at me as if urging me to tell Susanne the bad news.

Susanne offered me a cup of coffee, to which I replied, "Yes please, it is convenient."

As she was whisking the sugar, she looked away and said, "I know you brought sad news, which I refuse to hear. In my heart, he is a brave young man and will remain so, alive in my mind. Now, have your well-deserved coffee, that's what little I can offer you as a thank you."

I couldn't stand my sadness and the guilt I felt...

Even less forget my last memory of Damien.

5:40 PM— I began to tell her what we saw in our neighbors' houses, patiently; avoiding those recounts that could allude to Damien's misfortune. I told her about the bodies of the elderly that we found, the pictures, the young ones that disappeared without a trace, the sticky substance, and the electrical magnetism event.

She interrupted me saying, "Yes, I don't even want to think about it."

We had an uncomfortable moment, abundant in silence. I knew it was useless to worry about tomorrow, but I asked anyway, "Should we just let ourselves give way or should we connect to our inner selves to find peace with our fate?"

She shushed me after I accepted my guilt and apologized to her, deeply saddened. She then shook her head, looked at the door for the room in which her husband rested, and asked me in a low voice, "Did Ernest tell you about Stan?"