seraetluna

[seraetluna]

[seraetluna]

(resting in peace)🤍

[seraetluna]

I think if it is to become a proper story of their lives post-apocalypse, one of them should die and the other continue without them, as would happen in reality 😔obviously, unless they had some sort of pact���😟

Hopefully this new coronavirus of our own will not result in the extinction of humanity 😂

[seraetluna]

Still thinking about how to continue. Have been given some helpful feedback from a friend, may simply start again and rewrite it better, I think I said in my first post that I wasn't a writer 😉

[seraetluna]

How can their story continue?

I don't want it ending in death in the future

Maybe I can switch to another reality ?

[seraetluna]

[seraetluna]

5.

Fairytale

The next two weeks passed in a flurry of activity.

Luna introduced Sera to the twenty-six allotment plots which stood behind the crematorium, separated from the cemetery by a line of fir trees. The catalogues she had created of the various fruits and vegetables contained made the younger woman hopeful that she would not at least have to live on tinned fruit all year round.

Sera helped to identify various plants and flowers which were previous occupiers had planted in each allotment, having been a keen gardener herself before the spread of the virus.

They began to speak more deeply and spoke of topics including literature, music and the families they had lost.

Without meaning to, each woman became the most prized possession of the other. They gossiped and they laughed and they continued to dine together.

One day when they were breaking into and exploring the rundown houses on a new, overgrown street, they came across two, sturdy looking mountain bikes.

Sera trailed one into the debris-stewn road and mounted it.

Luna watched her cycle merrily into the midday sun and disappear around a corner and down a short hill.

Her heart filled with emotion, and as she trailed her own new bike slowly back to the graveyard where she would meet Sera, several warm, happy tears leaked from her eyes.

She knew that she had probably fallen in love with the younger woman.

Inwardly she chastised what she saw as her own weakness.

The teenager Deborah Ferguson, her first girlfriend back in the 1980s, had tried to express to Luna her fear about the reaction of her traditionalist parents to her sexuality.

The arrogant and carefree teenage Luna, who was raised by a single, liberal mother who let her do whatever she wanted, including having sleepovers with her girlfriend Debbie, had never properly acknowledged Debbie's fears. She had dismissed her girlfriend's fears of being disowned by her parents as foolish, and had blocked any further conversation about the matter.

Having nobody else to turn to, Deborah had succumbed to her anxiety and had committed suicide.

Following this event, the responsibility to explain to Debbie's parents why she may have made this decision had fallen on Luna's shoulders. And on Luna's conscience.

Luna had never trusted herself with another woman after that. She had settled for men, who attracted her and gave her pleasure, but her intimacy with men was incomparable to her intimacy with Debbie.

Climbing gingerly onto her own bike, Luna once more suppressed her heavy feeling of guilt in the role she played in that teenagers suicide, and peddled unsteadily down an alternative route to the graveyard. A route with no steep hills.

That same evening Luna found herself with Sera in the small tower of a large house which she herself occupied.

It was a hexagonal shaped room, with six large, narrow windows allowing for a 360° view of the surrounding rooftops, the sprawling graveyard and allotments, and the hills of the countryside in the distance.

The sun was low in the sky, and Sera was teaching herself to play the large harp which the wealthy, former owners had covered in a bed sheet before abandoning the house.

Luna stood by the narrow staircase which led up into the small tower room. She lent against the stone-set window frame, the sky pinkening behind her as orange sunlight illuminated the sealed tower, dust mote's glittering around them both as Sera plucked the harp's strings tenderly. Beautifully.

She had been learning the instrument for a week, having located various music books for learner harp players, and already she was able to produce simple but elegant melodies using the extravagant, gold painted instrument.

Luna looked and listened on, and felt like she was living in some sort of dark fairytale.

Everybody was dead, except for her and this angel.

Sera had found a light-coloured, summer dress which was a perfect fit, and ideal for the warm, tower room. The material fell loosely from her slim thighs, leaving her smooth legs exposed as her bare arms gently twiddled the strings of the huge instrument.

Having stared fixedly at the younger woman for a long time, Luna closed her eyes for a few moments and meditated on the present.

She was in love, she stood next to the sky with live, beautiful music playing through her ears and through her soul, and she was hot with undiluted sunlight, and with arousal.

Although all human existence had apparently perished, there she was with Sera.

They were together. Alone.

The last note of the melody rung hauntingly across the six, narrow walls of the sparsely decorated, dusty room. Sera smiled with the pleasure of having played music again, and then she sighed lightly.

She turned to look upwards at Luna, who had been stood just out of eyesight.

The older woman's open lips and hooded, glistening eyes told a tale of silent desire to the younger woman. 

Standing up slowly, she approached Luna.

As she got closer, Luna's heart raced and she began to recoil slowly, her body pressing further against the stone as the younger woman continued to approach.

Their gaze not having yet broken, Sera stepped so close that Luna's thick, dark hair began to press against the stone, her head tilting upwards as the younger blonde stood only inches away from her, placing her hands on the older woman's hips.

Luna inhaled sharply, her fingertips pressing against the stone as Sera brought her lightly freckled face forwards, and pressed her lips into Luna's.

Her kiss was soft, and sweet, and Luna's passion rose steeply as Sera pinned her lovingly against the wall.

Within moments, the two women were lost in a haze of hungry kisses and wandering hands.

[seraetluna]

[seraetluna]

4.

Nourishment

The remainder of the two lonely women's first day of friendship passed in calmness.

They spoke about which towns they had came from, and how they spent their lives before the virus apocalypse. Sera had been a music teacher, and Luna had owned her own joint cafe and gift shop.

Each had been happy, hopeful for the future, and deeply in love with their partners.

But neither woman elaborated on the depths of their mutual feelings of loss and despair. And neither intrusively questioned the other.

 

It came as a comfort to them to discover that, quite incidentally, each had chosen to build "dens" into different houses on the same attractive street.

They were neighbours, yet although Sera had only moved to the neighbourhood recently, they had never met or seen any trace of one another.

Following their conversation, they separated, but each remained in or around the large graveyard. Sera exploring the terrain, Luna visiting her favourite places to sit and reflect.

Dusk came swiftly and Luna accepted Sera's invitation to join her for supper. The older woman tried to hide her hesitance, she felt she could not entirely trust Sera, she did not want to get too hopeful of the younger woman's sincerity, but neither did she want to insult her. It had been her after all who had drew a knife when the younger woman had began to approach, and she knew that Sera would be taking a risk too in welcoming her very new friend into her makeshift home for dinner.

The house itself was grand, with large, stained glass windows, a wide, wooden front door and an extravagantly set roof.

It had no front garden, only eight sealed garage, with an old stone staircase leading to its first level.

There was ivy and honeysuckle, and despite the dullness of the light through the large trees which lined the once semi-prestige avenue , which boarded the graveyard on one side, and the darkness of the inside of the abandoned house, Luna felt she was entering somewhere quite magical.

Maybe because before she had thought herself alone in living on this overgrown street, still occupied by corpses of previous owners. It had seemed like an extension of the graveyard to the older woman, but to be here with the woman she hoped was indeed a new friend, she felt she could have been on a mysterious adventure.

Unless this whole day was a dream and she would wake up in the morning alone and with a fox in the kitchen, as still could happen in this new natural world.

If this was indeed a fantasy then she would enjoy it a little longer.

"Soup and fruit, that's the best I have…" Commented Sera with a very slightly nervous grin, her skin beginning to glow as she lit two large candles on the tabletop of a beautiful, oak finished kitchen.

"Tinned fruit of course" she added, placing a can of mixed tinned fruit on the large wooden table next to the lighter, and next to a small novel. The dark haired woman lowered herself onto a thick, wooden chair and nodded appreciatively at her host.

She picked up the book, 'The Wheels of Chance' by HG Wells. She wasn't sure if she recognised the title.

The large kitchen itself was dim, with only the soft light of the candles and some strands of moonlight shining through the large windows.

Without consciously doing it, neither woman was "social distancing" any more. Throughout the day they had walked and relaxed in gradually closer proximity to one another.

The older woman looked up and watched Sera open an unopened box of cuppa soup. She hesitated as she withdrew a single sashay.

Understanding her hesitance, Luna offered, "Why don't we share it? I don't feel like having a whole portion myself either. My appetite isn't what it used to be, although you'd never have guessed…" Luna looked down at her own body. She didn't look malnourished. Despite everything, she had maintained a healthy weight, and a curvy frame.

Smiling shyly as she also stole a glance at Luna's body, Sera took a small pot of her own previously boiled rainwater. She brought it to the small, makeshift stove she had designed for herself, and took the lighter.

A memory stirred within Luna. She looked once more at the book and knew it was about a man who went on a cycling holiday.

"… Are you a cyclist?"

Turning to join Luna at the table, Sera nodded, sat down and answered quietly, "I was."

The small fire crackled.

They didn't have bowls, or cutlery, but each woman's mind was now meditating upon something else.

An owl hooted in the distance outside. Luna looked upward and saw Sera's eyes shining back at her. 

They said nothing, but they stared at one another.

Neither had eaten with the company of another for six months. Was that the reason they were each feeling so eager for this evening to continue forever…? 

[seraetluna]

[seraetluna]

3.

New Friends

Sera and Luna walked in silence along the broken footpath which bordered the innermost portion of ancient, and some more modern, stone graves.

After having made a simple introduction, they strode at a distance of several meters away from one another. Social distancing had been so ingrained into them in the last days of humanity, that even now, they were afraid of coming too close to one another.

Each woman was reeling within her own rapidly evolving thoughts. Stealing quick glances at one another to confirm the incredible new fact that neither had been alone in surviving the plague, each woman was experiencing an overwhelming sense of pleasure. Something neither had felt in many, many months.

But each was still cautious. Neither knowing what exactly to say, or how to behave.

Luna did have a question though. Looking briefly upwards towards the sun, she drew a deep breath and inquired with a gentle voice, "… Would you like some hot water, and some clean clothes?"

Sera, who had been conscious of looking distinctly worse for wear compared to Luna, felt that she herself had almost wanted to be asked this question. 

Her heart began to beat faster as at once she remembered the feeling of somebody caring for her. But also, the feeling of wanting to care for herself. For she had survived the past six months alone, but she had become rather feral in the process. Although she maintained a regular routine of cleaning her teeth, acquiring toothpaste from each house she visited.

Her exposed legs were even hairy, something she suddenly felt very embarrassed about.

Approaching the corner at the top of the low hill where the large graveyard lay below, an old cherry blossom stood proudly blossoming pink petals next to an old stone archway.

Staring through the archway into the overgrown flower gardens which Sera realised must have belonged to the crematorium, she cleared her throat and finally answered, "I have some clean items…" She smiled and looked at Luna quickly, before looking down at herself, "I guess I never… I never…"

"… You never thought you would need them."

Sera looked shyly back up at Luna who gave her a guilty smile and continued, "Well, if we needed to go anywhere special, I would have ironed my blouse. But as it happens, the apocalypse may have taken my husband and my parents, but I still have my vanity…"

Still smiling softly, she turned and walked towards the stone archway. Following her, Sera saw several large, plastic barrels of murky looking water hidden behind a stone wall. It looked like rainwater.

But there were also pots and pans, and a small clearing of rocks and rubble within the grass, where Luna was now relighting the fire underneath several small kitchen pots.

Sera turned around again and noticed a small, wicker basket next to the archway, which was filled with soaps and toiletries.

Within fifteen minutes, Luna had produced two mugs of hot, herbal tea, and taken Sera to the spot beneath the cherry blossom where one could stand on soft stone, leave one's toiletries on the broken stone wall, and wash beneath the sun and the pink petals with a view of sky and green. There was even a designated spot to put one's hot drink.

Momentarily hesitant to undress in the presence of a stranger, the collection of new razors and fresh, rosy smelling soap, pots of freshly boiled and previously boiled, cool clean water, as well as a small collection of clean T-shirts, jogging bottoms and underwear, helped convince Sera of the new woman's humanity.

The sun warming her wet skin, and the aroma of the rosy, pink soap which she had thickly lathered from her neck to her toes, Sera felt more clean and hopeful than she had felt in her life.

Though she knew that Luna, who was sat at a distance on a bench with her hot drink, enjoying the sunlight in solitude, may still not be trustworthy, after all, they were strangers. Sera nevertheless felt compelled to believe at least that Luna was not a devil in disguise. She had her own knife for such an eventuality. But then, Luna had stowed her weapon away once she had laid eyes on herself. Surely Luna trusted her…

Glancing towards the older woman who looked to be and still meditation, Sera took a clean flannel, soaked it in the clean, hot water Luna had provided, and began to rinse the soap and grime away from her skin.

Hearing the light splatter of water falling onto stone from the direction of the cherry blossom, Luna's eyes moved nervously beneath her closed eyelids.

Sera was younger and stronger than she was. If at any point Sera attempted to overpower her, unless she could learn how to safely wield her knife, she would not be able to defend herself.

In frustration she turned away from the sound of the naked stranger showering. She suddenly felt very vulnerable again.

Her eyes wandered towards a second cherry blossom tree in the far distance by the crematorium building. In her mind, she could see the form of a younger, naked woman, her smooth skinned shimmering in the sunlight as she slowly cleaned her body.

Her eyes fixed for several moments in one position as she momentarily indulged in this fantasy.. 

She hadn't seen another woman's skin since she was a teenager. At that time, she had been experiencing her first sexual relationship with another female. Debbie Jane Ferguson. Whose grave she had hidden behind when Sera had first entered the graveyard.

Debbie had killed herself. And Luna had never forgiven herself for it.

Agitated by by her own sexual thoughts and memories, and guilt, Luna's mind refocused on the present.

The sound of splattering water had grown louder. Sera must have been rinsing her body, Luna suspected, suppressing any further indulgent thoughts.

A short while later, she heard the other woman's footsteps, and turned politely to face her.

Sera was smiling, she was happy. She was clean, in clean clothes, her dark blonde hair was messy but now clean and towel dried. And as Luna moved up from the bench to make room for Sera and maintain their distance, the soft, rosy fragrance of the soap she had given her new from its packet, was attractive to Luna's senses.

"Thank you…" Said the beautiful, dark blonde woman gently, "You have been kind to me. I hope to be able to repay the favour."

"It's no problem" replied Luna with a kind smile.

Around them, pink petals flew lightly in the breeze as they sat together in pleasant silence.

[seraetluna]

[seraetluna]

2.

Discovery

The stranger walked slowly amongst the graves. Luna listened to the long grass swiping against her legs, and the twigs breaking under her feet. She thought she could hear the woman muttering to herself, even chuckling at her own private jokes. 

Curling more tightly into a ball behind Debbie's grave, she held held the short knife in a fist against her chest. She stayed still and silent. The overgrowth and additional tombstones which surrounded her afforded her some concealment, but if the newcomer looked in her direction, she may undoubtedly see the long, dark brown hair which fell behind her head. But perhaps the stranger would mistake it for overgrowth.

But Luna was unsure whether there was any newcomer at all. She had seen nobody alive for nearly 6 months. Perhaps the strange new woman was simply an apparition. It unnerved her to feel she could not distinguish between reality and fantasy. There had been a time, not too long ago, when she was desperate to find another human life. But it seemed like a wild impossibility now.

Luna tightened her limbs against herself and tried not to cry. The events of the last six months had traumatised her. Her husband of ten years had died in bed next to her. Unable to draw enough breath into his lungs, he had fallen unconscious, and his heart had failed. It had been a fate every other human, and the domesticated and farm animals they had contaminated, had suffered.

Luna had not been able to bury his body. She had covered him and the body of their beloved old dog in a blanket and left him. She had left their house, and their town, and walked miles to try and find one more person who had somehow survived this plague.

She had soon been made to accept that she may have been the last woman left alive, or at least, the last woman in the country alive.

She settled in a small city with many homes where she could find supplies. She invested time in surveying and organising allotment plots she had found, and would have a plentiful supply of fresh fruit and vegetables by the time that summer finally came.

As her mind wandered onto the many things she had lost, and onto the new life she had tried to build for herself now, she realised that she had lost track of the newcomer's footsteps.

She heard nothing. No movement except the wind through the trees and bush.

She whimpered, she couldn't stop herself, she was terrified. And she felt embarrassed. At forty-eight, she shouldn't have been scared of a skinny stranger, she should be afraid of ghosts, or taking refuge behind tombstones.

Tentatively she began to raise her head. Her skin was wet from tears, which she impatiently wiped away with her forearm. Her expression became one of frustration as she chastised herself and her irrational fear.

She had been dreaming. There had been no strange woman in the grass. There could not have been. Nobody else but her existed.

Getting slowly to her feet, she straightened the clean but creased blouse she was wearing, and defiantly turned around, her knife now loose in her palm. Facing the sun, she stared into the shadows of the line of trees just ten meters from her position.

The strange woman stood there staring at her.

The breath died in Luna's throat. Her fingers trembled around her knife.

The woman's clothes were filthy. And she looked bewildered.

A long moment passed between the woman in silence, and wonder.

Sera's eyes then travelled to the knife still in Luna's hand, and mortified, Luna stashed it back in her belt.

She could not explain it. But instead of terror, she felt a wave of affection for the newcomer, who undoubtedly, looked just as scared as Luna had felt.

The stranger with dirty blonde hair then dropped the bag from her shoulders, and began to cry.

[seraetluna]

[seraetluna]

Hi guys, this is the story of Sera and Luna, and maybe some others, who are the last to survive following a post virus apocalypse.

As inspired by our current covid-19 pandemic 😉

The images I will use are taken from my local graveyard which I visit most days on my allotted daily walk.

I hope there's something on this page you will find interesting, and good luck with your own personal pandemic struggle 😘

The Return

Prologue

Dark days had come for humanity during the autumn of 2021. Within two months the plague had ended the reign of man, and brought about a relentless return to nature.

A woman in her mid-30s stood upstairs in selected pillage a house with two decomposing bodies. The past owners of this dwelling, and of so many others, had been forced to draw their dying breaths at home due to the collapse of health care and funeral services. The woman, alive, alone, searched for sanitary products and clean clothing. Finding what she needed, she left, her new items stowed safely in a small rucksack, her larger rucksack back in a large, empty house she had made her den several weeks previous. 

Sera had been living as a pillager for nearly six months now. And although this suburban world was alive with nature, every house and street covered in weed, ivy or bush, foxes and birds and badgers roaming freely, this once developed land had become nothing more than a graveyard for man. Almost every house was a tomb. In the beginning, the woman had covered the dead men and women with a sheet, or a curtain, but now she rarely bothered. The sight and smell of their decay were now as normal to her as toileting in the drains or washing by the river.

But human civilisation did not collapse without a fight. And on every street lay evidence of man's last struggle against destruction.

There were burnt out cars, houses, woodland. The debris of apocalypse parties and panic buyers. Abandoned bikes, buses, mobile phones. And very many smashed windows, although the woman could account for many of those break-ins herself.

And as she tread through broken glass and bindweed on her twice daily walkabout around this new area, many miles from the home she had kept with wife and children who had all perished, she came across a pair of huge and unwelcoming iron gates.

"Abbey Lane Cemetery" read the weathered, bottle green sign on the ancient stone wall.

Sera snorted. She tightened the straps of her rucksack, grabbed hold of the iron with her bony hands, and proceeded to climb over the fence.

"Fuck the dead..." She muttered croakily to nobody, straightening up and facing the hill of tombstones.

But one shape was dececptive. A second woman stood amongst the overgrown graves. From a distance she fitted the profile of a stone angel. An inanimate monument. And as Sera noisily stumbled amongst the gravel and bramble of the old and forgotten cemetery, Luna stared downwards at the newcomer's all too familiar, human figure.

She pulled the knife from the makeshift utility built around her waist and hid, trembling, behind the large granite grave of Deborah Ferguson, aged 16. "Departed from this life in 1989. Gone to join the lord in Paradise."

Would another leave for Paradise this warm afternoon?