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recklessjerry · 4 years

Text

A Note from The Underground

This is a backstory of Philomena from Apocalypse AU, which belongs to @feetinspace

Lots of text so read it only if you really want to c:

Johnathan Pulleze, who is being mentioned in further text, belongs to @elementalgod-aj

Darkness. Nothing but endless darkness around me.

Even though I cannot see it, due to the talent I was born with, I think after spending so much time here I have learned to feel it.

Thick as resin. It sinks through my skin, runs within my veins, fills my guts and my head with dirt, mold and insanity.

Makes me feel like a mosquito in one of those souvenirs. Stuck, trapped and frozen here for eternity.

I do not know how much time has passed since I was left alone here. But who cares about such nonsense as time anymore? There is no reason to rush, to be on time or to be late. No one is waiting. And no one is coming.

Is not that ironic? I talk about time as if it is some velvet skirt that went out of fashion while, it seems, time is one of the only two things that is left for me.

The second one is my memories left. Not all of them, but those I could save seem to be clear enough to make me feel something else but desperation.

I still remember the day it all happened. We were on our way from the bar, Richie and me. Together with a group of other people we managed to hide in the tunnels. There were not many of us.

Well, from a perspective of being the only survivors it looked like so. But we were not alone here.

At first everything was peaceful. Until we found out there was no way out of here. That is when the real ending of humanity started for us.

I have never thought of that before, but then I opened my eyes. Fear.

Fear is what motivates us.

It does not matter how strong it is or what are you afraid of specifically. Fear as a feeling is one and the same for the whole humanity.

We are scared of being poor and dying of hunger – that is why we have jobs. We are scared of somebody being more powerful than we are – that is why we start wars. We are scared of dying alone – that is why we make families.

Fear is like a virus. Someone gets sick and then all the rest catch it one by one.

It covers everyone and then starts eating people alive, destroying them, slowly reaching the peak.

And with the peak comes panic. Chaos. Massacre.

Everybody is dead.

Richie and I were able to escape the plague. Together we had hope that two of us will be enough to find a way out.

But we were foolish. A way out was a blessing we did not deserve. Not after what we had done to those people.

I guess I could say we were only following the rules of this brand new world we were so brutally thrown into against our will, but rules do not exist anymore. Our world became an endless anarchy.

I am surprised I am still able to feel bad for what we had done. After all I have seen, how am I still able to believe in such nonsense as morality?

Morality is dead. I think it was dead even before this mess took place but we still were playing a game of caring about each other because that is what society wanted from us.

But society is dead too. Rotting somewhere among the ruins of what we called “civilization” and corpses of those who were taking parts in building it.

It was only a matter of time when we all will take off our masks and show what we actually are.

Animals, thirsty for blood, only caring about our own wellbeing and ready to destroy anyone who gets in our way. Everything worth survival.

Some may think this situation made us do that, but speaking honestly, that mask was not even fixed well enough not to fall off accidentally every once in a while. I would know…

So it was either them or us. And we made damn sure it was us. Back then I thought, perhaps, that was just a temporary insanity against the background of general madness because I have never seen my brother using his strength to do something so gruesome to people, but now I am sure we always had that in us. Somewhere deep inside, suppressed well enough not to get out, but it probably was there all the time.

Despite what we had gone through we were still able to hold on. We never talked about our actions during the massacre, but sometimes I could feel the tension in the air when we were silent.

We became different now. And Richie was not dealing with it well. Every day he seemed to be more and more apathetic. Even that electric blue light in his eyes was fading. I could not see the sparkles in them anymore. His beautiful sparkles…

Sometimes Richie would wake up in the middle of the night (at least we were considering the time we were asleep night) and silently staring at something further down the tunnel. From time to time he would stand up and go somewhere, then come back and sit beside me, waiting for me to wake up.

I tried to ask him where he was leaving but he never told me. Until that day.

We were standing on the edge of a huge crack in the ground. I am not sure where in came from, but speaking honestly, I did not care.

Richard was looking down there for a while. That is why I decided to ask him about his night walks again.

- I can hear them, – he answered.

- I still can hear their screams, echoing in the tunnels. It was happening ever since we ran away and at first they were quiet. But they were becoming louder every night. Now they seem to be almost real.

He was shaking. I knew I should have comfort him somehow but what could I do? I – the one who helped him murdering people who were just trying to defend themselves from the nightmare that surrounded them? So I was just standing there, listening silently.

- They seem to be so real I tried to find where they were coming from. A part of me knew they were just in my head but… - He went silent for a moment. His voice was shivering as he whispered:

- The other part secretly hoped I would find them. And then they would do with me what I have done to them. They would pay me back with what I deserve”.

Richie looked at me. His eyes were barely glowing and the tears were running down his dusty cheeks.

- How can we live like this? After what we have done! How can we still live with hope when we took away someone else’s lives and hopes?!

Then he did something I certainly did not expect. He hugged me tight. So tight I could barely breath.

- Twinkle, - I think I flinched when he called me that. I haven’t heard that nickname for a very long time.

- I hope someday we will be forgiven. But I want you to know now that I forgive you. And I hope you can forgive me too. I love you, Twinkle. I love you and that is the only thing I am still carrying and will be carry with me forever. I love you.

I managed to break out from his strong hands before it was too late. I do not know why did I do that and how did even I feel him leaning back. I guess my self-preservation instinct and reflects were still on guard somehow.

I remember his face as he started falling. It was calm.

His hands were stretched out towards me, as if welcoming me to go with him. The last invitation.

Maybe I should have let him take me with him. Maybe that would be better than what I have now. But I have made my choice. And Richie had let me do that. Otherwise he would have hold me tighter.

He knew I still was strong enough to search for another ending. And he decided there was no place for him there.

I was sitting at the same spot for a very long time. The sound of him falling was echoing in my head every second. I think I even heard his bulb breaking. Such a ringing sound. It was cutting my brain every time it played repeatedly like some jammed record with a catchy song you cannot stand anymore but keep hearing everywhere.

I was alone. For the first time in ages.

I used to think I loved being alone all the time but in fact, I never was. Someone has always been beside me. Richie, John, Martha, Jordan, even our parents. But now there was no one left.

I remember thinking about what happened to everyone I knew and where would I be if they were there with me. And the more I thought, the more hopeless I felt.

There was no reason for me to go on anymore.

Everyone is dead. The whole world is dead. What is the use of me in a world, filled with emptiness and lost memories of those I once loved?

I was ready to jump into the crack. I have lost everything I could already so that probably was the only option for me.

But I did not.

Even if suffering was my new standard of living, I could not let those precious memories to fade away, to disappear into the darkness of the underground. I had to keep them. I have to keep them all alive, even if it was just in my head.

So I stood up and started walking. With no goal or destination, I was just trying to make sorrow retreat with concentrating on my steps.

I walked, and walked, and walked.

I walked so much I could remember every tiny stone, every convex on the walls, every drop of water coming down from the sealing of these endless dungeons.

Long time has passed until I noticed something was wrong. Surprisingly it took me a while to realize what that was, and when it hit me I did not even stop. Maybe I did not care that much about it or was just too concentrated on my thoughts, but the fact is – I was still alive.

Why was I still alive? I walked for so long it must have been days. I think I felt hunger and tiredness but they did not seem to bother me.

Sometimes I would stop and sleep, but not because I felt the need to, it was more like a basic setting. I had to sleep because I had to. Does that even make sense?

Soon I noticed the changes in my body. My hands became longer, my finger and nails merged into something single. I could not explain why they were happening. At that time, I thought that was just a natural reaction to being trapped under the surface for weeks.

I mean, I have never been interested in what happens to a person if they spend too much time underground so I could not tell for sure.

But then I noticed blood on me after waking up one day. I checked my body thinking I was injured during sleep but I was fine.

Besides, the blood was only on my hands and a little bit of it was also on my face. That means, I found someone else there and somehow their blood got on me. I was not alone there anymore

This mystery started opening its curtains for me very soon as I understood I did not feel hunger anymore. And the more filled my stomach was, the dizzier I felt waking up every day.

I had troubles concentrating, my head felt heavy and hurt a lot. I could not think straight anymore.

And then one day I found the bodies. They were not far away from the spot I was sleeping at the day I found blood for the first time. By the wounds and missing parts I understood what happened.

I understood everything.

So here I am.

This is how my story ends.

I guess a bad ending it is. From family issues, good friends, promises for life, love, secrets, regrets, parties, losses and finds, through tragedies and tears – to this.

There is no words that can express how sorry I am for the way it all turned out to be for all of us, no tears to express how much I miss them all.

I wish I would not be the last one standing.

I wish I could see John in his top hat I laughed at the first time I saw it and feel his heart beat again, put my hand on his cheek and tell him how much I regret saying “no”.

I wish I could tell Martha how good she is at her job and make her blush again because I knew why and how much my words meant to her.

I wish I could call Jordan in the middle of the night again just to tell him about another crazy idea I have been obsessing about and discuss it for hours, wondering how he is still able to handle me after all these years.

I wish I could come to my office late again, drive Gwendall mad and make him come and yell at me. Just because I always secretly loved the smell of flowers he puts in his head.

I wish I could hear Dedrick rumbling and Eddie’s crazy laughter again and try to reconcile them because out of all people in the universe I may be the only one who knows how much they care about each other.

I wish I never told my parents that I hate them. Because I know it was not their fault and they were doing their very best. I wish I listened to them instead of being headstrong.

I wish I told I love them. At least once.

I wish Richie was still here because he did not deserve an ending like this.

None of them did. And I believe neither do I.

But I am not scared. There are no reasons to be afraid of inevitable.

At least my life was colorful. And I was lucky enough to have happiness among those colors too.

Writing this down and putting it all together into something readable was hard, mostly because my head hurts constantly and I am barely able to think.

But a good journalist has to write no matter what, right?

So if you are reading this would you kindly do me a couple of favors?

First one is: please, take the memory of me with you and keep it as long as you can. Because while it is alive, the memories of my loved ones are alive as well. At least I believe so.

And the second one: please, for the love of whatever you believe in – leave.

I am not sure how long I will be able to hold down that thing I turn into. Hopefully when you are reading this someone had already taken care of me, but if you do not know for sure, then please, go away as soon and fast as you can.

But while I am still here, I am hoping for you.

And I hope your future will shine as bright as sparkles in Richie’s eyes every time he looked at me.

Sincerely yours

Philomena Casey O’Bulb.