If Tomorrow Never Comes

3 - Apocolypse

Esme lay unconscious at the bottom of her stairs. Her small hand lay palm up beside her face, which was tilted to the left, facing her hand. Her legs lay bent, her heels almost touching her butt. Her right hand lay beside her, almost touching her feet. The position she lay in sounds complicated but if I were to tell you that many tv shows or movie characters, who had been knocked unconscious, lay in the same or similar position as Esme then you would probably understand how she was on the tiled floor.

After the storm had ceased and morning had come, Esme finally awoke. She opened her green eyes and scanned the room around her. She recognised the place and remembered what had happened but felt as if she was missing something like she had been robbed and she didn't know about it but she knew something was missing from her bag out of instinct. She slowly lifted her cold hand and rubbed her eyes. She got up from the warm spot on the freezing floor and made her way into the living room. She paused for a moment, holding her unstable head in her hands, the pain was unbearable. She groaned in agony, hurling herself onto the couch and fell back asleep.

Now for someone who had been asleep for twenty hours, being tired is one of the most bizarre things someone could tell me, but for someone like Esme, going to sleep gets her away from her demons ... well, most of them. She had horrendous nightmares of death and things that would keep you up for weeks but Esme was used to it by now. She never failed to wake up screaming as if she had been stabbed through the chest by five chainsaws but her parents and brother ignored it, they were tired. They were tired of the screaming, they were tired of waking up to comfort her, they were tired because of work but most of all, they were tired of her. Each and every second, Esme was getting rejected more and more by her family, mainly her parents as she and Charlie were like magnets ... well, when they weren't fighting.

Esme finally awoke, screaming, as usual. Her slim hands snaked their way into her messy hair and tugged as she released all of the pain from that night. She screamed and tugged on a cycle for a minute. Then she just stopped, like in an orchestra when the conductor stops a section of instruments. She sat there, rubbing her red eyes and coughing. Esme looked down, remaining eye contact with the ground so she couldn't see the monsters around her shook figure. She didn't understand what was going on but at the very same time knew exactly what was happening and how it was going to end. She brushed the floor with her curled toes and waddled into the kitchen. The young girl took no notice of the smashed window, that now had grains of sand pouring through it and piling up on the conservatory tiles like a time glass, and went straight to the fridge. She pulled out an apple and bit into its juiciness, the flavours splashing colour in her dark, dull world. She looked back to the floor and slid her way out of the room and into the dining room.

She slouched down onto the cushioned seat she had pulled out for herself and flopped her lanky legs onto the wooden table. She took bites of her green apple as she scanned the room for nothing new. She took in the scents of the room and the familiar feel ... but she felt warmer ... a lot warmer. So warm that it wouldn't be hard for you to mistaken it for mid-summer. It was getting to the end of summer, meaning that the temperature should be cooling down now, but no. This heat had probably been the hottest she had felt that summer. She became shocked that she hadn't realised this before as she stood up from her place at the table and scurried over the blinded window.

Let's pause for a second. Just a quick second. This was that moment that was going to change Esme's life forever. I know when I reveal what it was it isn't going to sound as life-changing as you would expect but if you were in this situation, think, what would you do? Where would you go?

Esme's hand curled around the blind's beaded string and began to tug. And tug. And tug.

Esme's unfinished apple hit the wooden floor with a deafening thud. It was just silence. There was no wind. There were no birds chirping. There were no kids in the street playing. In fact ... there was no street. Everything started to make sense ... sand dunes towered over neighbouring houses, some even replacing them. Sand spread as far as the eye could see. No birds flew in the bright, blue sky. No people were to be seen. No cars were on the 'street' and most definitely on the road. Esme's apple rolled back to her feet but she didn't flinch, no. She didn't blink. She didn't breathe. She just muttered three very simple words.

"What the fuck?"