Population Zero

by Fran Lewis

  The glass is thick, but before they put the final closure on it, people were told and warned that they had to decide where they wanted to live—the state, the city, the town—and make sure they knew once they left their homes they could never return. If you decided to visit family anywhere in the United States you could not return, for each state and city had to deal with different strains of different viruses, and the governors did not want things to escalate even more. After choosing your permanent place to reside, if you chose to leave the country and go to either Australia or Europe to visit someone, you could not return.

  Living in this community, you have to follow rigid rules, being careful of the glass enclosure and not getting too close to it. The air quality inside is fine, but the toxic air on the outside would destroy our breathing and possibly spread the virus destroying anything living outside the glass.

  Parties, games, dinners, and some social gatherings were okay, but then one father and a group of friends decided to create these drones and stand-up flares to celebrate our five years of living behind the glass. You know the rest.

  Take this final journey with a man who will guide you through some of the worlds I created as he takes his journey—one final journey to OBLIVION.

  ROAD TO OBLIVION

  before the population became zero

  Waking up this morning the house was silent and everything in it was gone. I was sleeping on a hard, cold floor and I no idea how that happened. My hands were frozen like solid ice and the clothes on my body were all that I had Walking outside I saw that my car was gone, it had four flats, and nothing was left in the garage. My family was gone. I realized that what I already had with me were the only things that I would have, perhaps forever.

  Wearing my lucky old beat up hat and my woolen coat, I left home early that morning to decide my fate. I walked outside and there was not a soul there. The air was dank, rancid, and I could smell the stench of decay. I could not even see where it was coming from. The world was losing its people, animals.

  There was no one there now. My family was gone, and I was coming to a place that looked like a forest filled with dead trees, animals hanging from branches but dead, their eyes looking at me, but nothing that let me know they are alive—just the skeletons of dead bodies. The rancid smell of the dead leaves was hideous and the air was filled with awful odors. I was walking, but I had no idea where I was or how I got there. The world I lived in disappeared, and now I was aimlessly walking nowhere at all. Walking through this world, I wondered why I was there and what I did to deserve this new life I was about to experience.

  I began to think of places I could go and where I would spend the rest of my life. I could not even think that far ahead. I wandered down the road until I came to a small body of water surrounded by trees and grass. There was no one in sight. It was pitch black. The sky was covered with clouds so dark and ominous that I stood frozen to the spot and could not move. The air was damp and yet I felt nothing. I was neither hot nor cold. I felt numb.

  Feeling nothing but the pain in my heart and fear that someone would finally find me and make me go back to the life I had before, I knew I had to make a move in some direction. Then I realized I was in a world with no sun, and the ice-cold feeling permeated my body.

  I began contemplating my next step. I did not know where I was or where the road would lead me. It was so dark I decided to stay put until morning. However, that decision was not so easy to carry out. I saw a pair of lights coming towards me from a distance. I hid behind a tree, or at least, I tried to, but I was wearing a yellow shirt and the driver must have seen me from a distance. He got out and walked in my direction. Being in an isolated area, I did not know where to go or where to run. I just stood there like a statue, hoping I would look like part of the scenery. Then he just left.

  I passed the night in that place, rooted to the spot, afraid and unsure of myself. With the coming of daylight, I planned to summon what remained of my courage and make my way home. That very day, things began to change. Daylight never came, and the world was so dark. The sun was losing strength; it was as if it was burning itself out. The rancid air quality caused me to vomit in the street and with no source of liquid readily available, I began looking for somewhere, anywhere that might have something left that I could drink. Stores were unlocked. Some looked as if they were ransacked, but where were the people? My heart was pounding, and my head felt like it was splitting open.

  I could not see where I was going. I had just been to the eye doctor, who had given me a new prescription for distance glasses. He assured me that wearing them would make things look much clearer. The glasses would help me not only see where I was, but also, possibly, where I needed to go. That remark seemed strange at the time, but I passed it off as him trying to make me feel better. Little did I know things would change radically for me, and I would have no idea how or why. Now, my eye doctor was gone too.

  I walked a little further, stopped, and stared at myself in a store window. Staring back at me was a younger man dressed like all the other people in this town, but it was me, looking at least ten years younger. It seemed that the man knew who I was, or at least he was pretending to know me, but he never called me by name nor told me where I was, or what he thought I was supposed to be doing. But there was really no one there. I imagined him.

  The entire town was about ten blocks long and about five blocks wide. Each block had three or four stores and three or four small houses. Behind each of the stores were wooded areas, and behind those were what looked like gated communities.

  Walking out of the town, I came to a fork in the road with four signs. The first one read, The Road to the Town of Nowhere: Keep Walking. I began to shake and shiver as I neared the next world covered with ice and snow. How would I survive this? The sign said Polar and the road led to the Town of Decisions, which had turned into a town of polar ice.

  The second sign read, The Road to the Town of Decisions. The third announced itself as, The Road to the Town of Surprises. And the fourth said, Just Walk in this Direction and You will Find Out.

  I had no idea what these signs really meant, and since I was really nowhere that I knew, I thought about taking off my glasses and hoping to find myself back where I’d started in my own hometown. However, when I did, nothing changed. I started walking in the direction of the second town, hoping that this Town of Decisions would help me make some for myself. However, when I got there, I knew things were only going to get worse. People just stared at me as if I were invisible, and then vanished into thin air. I looked around and saw nothing. I looked straight ahead of me where someone had been standing and saw something so frightening that I thought I might be hallucinating—a vision. I could see what looked like a floating ball, and inside the ball, I could see my family. Where had the time gone? It seemed every time I left a place I was sent even further into the future.

  I might be on the same road that I had started my journey on, but my surroundings were different. Instead of the beautiful houses and trees in the once countrified community I had lived in, the area was totally devoid of any trees, vegetation, or houses. The road was no longer paved. It was constructed from hard stones and pebbles. The surrounding area featured burnt out barns and houses in total disrepair. I did an upturn and turned into World One.

  I walked along this road hoping to find a small town or any sign of people. What I did find was so frightening I stood there, frozen. No one was alive. Bodies were strewn all over the ground and the faces looked stunned and scared, as if they could not believe their own fate. Suddenly, something hit my head.

  When I finally woke up, I had a throbbing headache, felt nauseous, and could barely sit up. The left side of my face and head were covered in dried blood. Whatever I was knocked out with had had a sharp edge, and really did some major damage to my head and my face. I could not stand up without feeling dizzy and lightheaded. I didn’t see anyone around. My eyes were having trouble focusing on where I was
, and my vision was blurry.

  When my vision finally cleared and the throbbing in my head seemed to be subsiding, I took a long look at my surroundings. I was no longer in the same place I was before I was knocked out. I was in an open field with nothing but grass and farmland in the distance. I could not see any barns, farmhouses, or anything. There was no one in sight as far as I could see.

  When I was finally able to stand up, I knew I needed to decide which way to go. Where should I walk, and in what direction? However, all I saw on all four sides were empty fields of green for miles around.

  I kept walking and came to a wall of thick ice. I could hardly move when suddenly it disappeared, and I was surrounded by mist and fog. Walking aimlessly and having no direction, I looked to my left and right and saw shadows of figures walking. But no one said anything—they looked like the walking dead.

  Where was I going to finally wind up and restart my life alone?

  I was feeling nauseous and tired; I was coughing and had the chills. Just a cold, I guessed, from the change of temperatures. I saw something up ahead—a sign. I remembered the glasses that I had gotten to help me see better for reading and distance. I put them on, and what flashed in front of my eyes were memories, incidents that I ignored, signs that things were changing, and my family in a car going away—but where? My life was no longer my own.

  Each world was different, and each time I entered a new one I experienced something I would never forget. No sun, desert expanses, mist, dank air, no people, no power or electricity. I often couldn’t even see where I was going due to mist or darkness.

  I realized there was a note in my glasses case from the eye doctor. Welcome to your life. The places might change as you wander through them, the years might even be the same. If you had listened and worn a mask, social distanced, and taken this virus seriously you and the others might have helped save the fate of people. Welcome to your life. Now do you see clearly? Journey to oblivion: you lose, I win. It is not the flu. It is COVID-19.

  There are so many that would come to learn this lesson, but it was too late for this man. He would wander the land wherever he was forever, never finding peace, solace, or anything to allow him to rest. He would relive each moment and hopefully regret the choices he made before realizing how he fell.

  This man would be walking through each world forever and never really rest or come to a place where he could stop and live. The worlds I created are supposed to help people in this one understands how horrific this virus is. Imagine walking forever in a thick mist and not being able to see anything or where you are going. There are so many people that are doing that now without realizing the mist will never be cleared if they do not wake up to the truths that lie in front of all of us. The world got darker to him and then he was gone: Population ZERO.

  ONE LAST LOOK

  What if you were alive and had to live in this world?

  You would see blackness on the shoreline. You would see the sand on the beach eroded and looking darker than a dark brown crayon. You would see dark sky covered in dark clouds—no sun, no moon, no stars. You must try and find some sort of flashlight, beacon, or something to help you see. There are no cell towers working. No phones or any method of communication.

  The mountainous areas are frozen solid. The cliffs are bare rock, and the trail is filled with a combination of dead branches, bark, and animal bodies so thick you can hardly find a single path to walk on. The world is dark, cold, and filled with mist, ice, or dead leaves, depending on where you wind up. Life will never return. What world would you choose? Or will you realize what we all must do to survive in this one?

  The oceans smell foul, the air is overheated, and the mass human extinction is widespread. The smell of death is everywhere. Crops have died, farm animals can no longer provide milk, eggs, or food for consumption, and the world is becoming devoid of people. Roof fires form from building to building, poison ivy is spreading up the walls, and rats infest homes and apartments. Roaches, insects, and vermin have taken over the planet, and no one will survive. The coral reefs are gone, the sea is infested with dead animals, and in the end the Earth will destroy itself and eventually divide into many pieces.

  The next time you walk outside, smell the fresh air, feel the sun in the sky hitting your face and giving you some type of warmth, and watch the animals and people walk by trying to live their lives, think about the worlds I created. What if this is next?

  THE WORLD OF ANIMALS

  This is Ella. I am about to describe the final world.

  The air is crisp and cool. The trees are glistening in the sunlight, and the smell of the fragrance from the grass, plants, and other foliage fills the air. There are mountains, valleys, hills, and trails that are so beautiful, and the surrounding land is well maintained.

  The houses are pristine, the farms are filled with hay, and dens and caves can hide and protect lions and tigers.

  Looking down I see the cows grazing the grass and the horses in the barns filled with feed and hay. Lions and tigers are within their own dens, and small insects and butterflies are flying about. The world is tranquil. The animals have their own places and respect the territory of others. It is a beautiful and serene world—without people.

  Respect!

  Like in all worlds, even in this one where the animals are working as a team, there is always one that is looking to take the lead and take over the territory. High above a snowcapped mountain lurks a dangerous wolf and his pack just waiting to take aim at his prey and the silent and tranquil world that exists.

  CONFINED

  Before the world ended

  The walls are closing in around me. I am suffocating and cannot catch my breath. No one can hear my screams. I have buried myself under the couch for fear that this deadly virus will find me. My windows are boarded up and I can no longer see the trees, the sunshine, or anything outside. I made sure that no air can get through by taping and cementing the windowsills, the sides of the windows, and even my door, making sure that no draft can come in from the hallways.

  This virus has many people in the hospital, others not leaving their homes except to get food or medicine. I have stockpiled on paper goods all my life. I have at least five hundred rolls of toilet paper on my floor and five hundred more in my closet, plus about four hundred cases of paper towels in the basement. There are also a thousand packages of napkins, paper plates, five hundred cans of soup, tuna cans, coffee pods, spaghetti, sauce, and lots of meat in the freezer. I even froze some rolls and some bagels.

  The indoor compactor sends my trash down the chute. In order to get food, I have managed to create a special chute in my basement which opens to the outside, and has a small platform and a basket attached to it so the delivery person can just drop the bag into the chute, making sure they are wearing protective gloves. But I know I must sanitize the packages without touching the bags, which are paper, not plastic—at my request. Anything cardboard just stays on the floor for several days.

  I have sanitizers, wipes, and lots of gloves to protect myself from this virus. I am afraid to go outside. I am so scared, but although I am confined to my house, this house has lots of rooms. I have lots of space, but it is still like being behind bars in a prison. At first it was not so bad, but suddenly, I’ve begun feeling tired with a stuffed nose—and worst of all, I have developed a hacking cough.

  I cannot escape and I am feeling trapped. I am vacillating between crying, screaming, lashing out at myself, freezing up, and trying the knobs on my doors to get out. I am terrified. Suddenly, I realize that I can no longer leave my prison that I have created for myself. My doors are made of steel like that of a bank vault. My pulse is racing, and no one can hear my screams. My walls are soundproof, so my neighbors never really know if I am home or not. Different thoughts are going through my mind as I manage to reach for the remote on my television to see what is happening in the world, to see if by some miracle this virus is gone. But the number of deat
hs has increased.

  I am sweating and have no way out. I check all my windows, but I really taped them shut, and even cemented the sills so that they cannot open. My only hope is the window in the bathroom. I am hoping that since it is up so high, I might be able to reach it with something to break it open, so maybe people can hear me and save me from myself.

  My heart is beating fast. I can feel that my temperature is rising, and my face is burning hot. My legs feel like lead, and the chills are running through me. The hacking cough is worse, and I can barely catch my breath. What is this that attacked? Listening to the news and hearing about this horrendous virus, I realize that I might be a victim of it, too. Last night I saw on the news that one of my neighbors was hospitalized with this virus. Her breathing was poor and they had to put her on a ventilator. How am I going to get help when I have been confined to this room for so long and have no idea how I am going to survive?

  The final verdict is out, and you should learn one thing from reading this story—never isolate yourself from the world. Never be afraid of connecting with neighbors, and never feel so paranoid that you cannot deal with the outside world. By locking yourself in, not only is your body confined, but so is your mind.

  *

  What finally happens to her? Fern is still a captive of her own fears, but she decided to begin a release and hoped that by opening one window shade just a crack she would begin to see the sunlight. She did, but the reflection facing her in the window was hers. Before it’s too late and no one is left on Earth, will Fern be the final human or will she go outside and meet her fate?