I mean it. Like I actually mean it. Everyone is gone.
The neighbors were out there being loud and annoying like usual, then it was quiet. Then I heard the bus stop idle outside for a while but when I looked out just now I saw it in the neighbors ditch.
So I’m at my computer, I’m working, emails, calls, the whole shebang. I finish my day with just emails, sending them out. I didn’t get any in after my boss asked me to work on finalizing my presentation for the trip I’m taking.
Blah, blah, blah, blah. You’re not here for any of that. The point is after 2:24PM I stopped getting emails. I didn’t get texts, no snaps, no Instagram messages. Not even a fuckin reddit update. There was nothing. I figured hey maybe there’s just nothing going on right now, right? I only follow so many reddit accounts, and even though it showed people online they were just browsing like me.
I get up to go outside and get the mail, what I usually do at the end of the work day. I grab my slides, grab my jacket, and I step out. I see the bus first, like the driver had just let the car drift off the rode by stepping off the brake.
I stepped off my stoop, kicking off my slides and running barefoot down the hill and across the road. I shouted “Hey!” when I got close and stopped when I looked at the bus. There weren’t kids in the windows pounding to get out, or crying. After a little I managed to get my fingers under the lip of the bus door and pulled it open, lowering myself to enter through the door.
No one. Not a single person was on that bus. I climbed around, looking in every seat, peering under them, and there was no one.
So obviously something happened, I pull my phone out of my pocket and I dial 9-1-1. And it’s ringing, and ringing…and ringing. I hang up and try again, and again, and again. I called them 20 times and they didn’t pick up. I let the line ring for 10 minutes during one of them. Okay whatever. I google the nearby police department, and call that number.
No answer, but a message from a machine claiming all calls were recorded and then nothing. An endless silence. I hung up, dialing at least three more times. What the hell was going on?
I then start to actually look. The mail truck is still parked by the community mailboxes, and I couldn’t see anyone inside or around it. Then the bikes of the obnoxious neighbor, just laid out in the road.
I’m panicking now, this was a weird dream. I fell asleep at my desk, I just need to tell myself to wake up. So I tried, I lucid dream, waking myself up is nothing. It’s usually just willing myself to open my eyes until they opened, or making myself bite my thumb.
It felt like I was going to bite my thumb off at one point, but I still wasn’t waking up. I start to walk down the street, opening my phone to call other numbers.
I tried my mom’s personal phone first. I rang her up, listening as I walked up to my neighbor’s house, knocking on the door.
Hey, it’s Mags, leave me a message.
I called it at least twice more, then I called her work phone
Hello this is Margret Williams, VP of INC, please leave your name, number, and a brief message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you.
Okay cool, so I tried my dad, and then my sister, and then my grandma…
I called my partner, a few times, then the store. I was shaking before I realized that no one answered the door. I went knocking on all the doors around me, six houses down, each side of the street.
I started yelling for anyone. Shouting out ‘Hey’ and ‘Hello’ every few seconds. I called my mom again, nothing. My partner. Nothing… I was never really an emotional person, I didn’t cry about most things, but I was starting to.
I eventually sat down on my front step, staring at the bus across the street. I called everyone in my phone, and heard everyone’s voicemail.
This wasn’t an apocalypse, this wasn’t war, or sickness. I sat on the porch for a while, calling people on my phone again, but I set it down eventually. I just sat in the pure silence, there wasn’t even birds and the wind was still. I screamed.
I screamed until my voice went hoarse and then screamed some more. There I sat until it started raining about two hours later.
I went back inside, shutting my door and sat down at my computer, staring at my phone again. I glanced to the computer, and shook the mouse, I checked news outlets, live TV shows, live anything. A nature show which just showed this still image of the woods that should’ve been showing birds or some small animals or something.
I closed those windows, and opened youtube, looking to the clock. Okay, my partner was supposed to be home in an hour. So I would just wait, I was clinging to it really hard. Maybe if they came home then I wasn’t alone. The hour came and went, and nothing.
This is when I get in my car, I decided what the hell, I’ll just go for a little drive, I’ll see someone and then I’ll feel better. Then I could figure out something.
Cars were all over the road, driven off or into each other, leaving gaps in the road I had to navigate. No one was in these cars or anything. If there was an evacuation there would’ve been something about it. But everything just looks like it stopped. Like everyone in the blink of an eye disappeared.
I parked my car on the road, nodding a little, as I sat in my car, staring at the mall parking lot. There weren’t even alarms going off for the cars that had been hid. It was still.
This is where I do some questionable things, but if I’m the only one left who gives a shit, right?
I head to a smoke shop, looking around and took the carts alongside any edibles or anything that struck my fancy. If the world’s gonna end like this I don’t want to be sober.
I’m at home right now, listening to music and hitting my dab pen. This is fucked. Where is everyone else? Is anyone even going to see this?
Whatever. It’s a start. If anything maybe I’ll just try and keep track of things here. And if you are out there, please let me know.