#KJDGHHJSDG

[zedif-y]

judgement day.

Eight days until the end of the world.

You look down at your watch, and think, that’s plenty of time.

I.

There is laughter and there is blood on that first day, the beginning where nobody is really all that afraid. The news looms over the horizon, but doesn’t seep in, doesn’t soak into your bones. Oil and water.

II.

There’s fire. It’s red-hot as it scorches, burns off your fingerprints. There’s soot in your friend’s hair. Hell-forged, you call yourselves, sweaty and singed and running from danger. We’re hell-forged, you and I.

You and me. Me and you.

Slowly, you start to build.

III.

Howling wolves echo in your skull, clawing for release. You blink, and there is fear in your friend’s eyes, a knife in your hand. Blink again, he is against a wall. Blink, the knife is gone. There’s a piercing scream. 

But not yours. Not his.

Never his.

You remember it in parts: a knowing look from a friend, another watching your back. Moonlight shining down. The glint of a blade, long hair in the wind.

Five days before the end of the world, you killed someone who trusted you.

IV.

They’re chasing you.

They’re chasing you, hunters after prey. Sharks to blood. Old allies blur into enemies blur into ghosts, and your legs ache and there’s no escaping it but you know damn well that you will try. Copper-tang crimson sits between your teeth, dripping past your lips.

Come and get me, you laugh, the sound grating against your throat. You hear the gnashing of teeth, nails scraping against stone. Come and get me, asshole.

You survive. Through all odds, by the skin of your teeth. You survive.

Red cakes under your fingernails.

V.

The thing about the past is it will not go away. It haunts you, battered and bruised and grinning with missing teeth. He smiles at you and he looks like a lover, beautiful as a night terror. He waves at you, and you beckon him closer, and the words I trust you tumble from beaten lips.

Swallow back the acid. Grit your teeth.

He follows you and it feels almost familiar. Hand in hand, past enemy and past love. You talk nonsense, watch as he giggles and nods. If you still loved him, you would tell him to run.

You grin, and you beckon him closer.

The thing about the past is it will not go away. So you blow up the body, burn what remains.

Bury the hatchet. Dig a grave.

VI.

On the sixth day, it sinks in.

VII.

On the day before the end of the world, you watch your best friend die.

On the day before the end of the world, you wonder when you will follow.

VIII.

Eight days you’ve waited. Eight days you’ve survived.

You’ve buried more bodies than you can count, your grief heavy as an axe, deadly as a blade. 

Part of you hopes to be the last one standing. The last face on a ruined world. It doesn’t matter, but it does. You’ve come so far. You’ve lost so much.

The sun beats down on a scorching field. You think of friendship, forged in hell. You think of fire.

You think of love.

But this story ends one way, and it isn’t soft nor sweet. There is no glory, no sun-burning triumph. As your blood seeps into the grass, you do not face the sky, the heavens above.

Faces and memories rush behind your eyes. People you love, people you don’t. As the light begins to dim, you wonder, distantly, if people are cheering.

The world ends, but not with you.

—

Eight days until the end of the world.

Impulse looks down at his corpse, and thinks, that wasn’t nearly enough time.