FSE

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Dear Reader,

My name is Einar Dal; I was born in Tooting London at St. Georges Hospital in 1986. Before everything changed, I lived in Southern California, going to College and about to marry my best mate. He lived in San Francisco and had just finished Art School. We were going to buy a sunny little house and live out our days.

Now I'm not a writer by trade but I feel someone has to keep an account of what happened after the Epoch. When the meteors fell and destroyed our world. We knew for a year that they were coming and the government

We didn't survive it; we shattered like a hammer to a pane of glass. Our years of evolution and innovation fell down like a house of cards. All of our advancements with technology, medicine, entertainment and society was torn apart and decimated in five days. It has been 3 years since.

No one enjoyed it like you would have expected. All the ones craving anarchy and the end of all things were scared just like the rest of us. Instead of rejoicing, we went scuttling for cover like roaches when the lights turned on. I know you would think there would be some prolific reaction to this but no. It was a lot of people running for their lives, scared out of their minds. There was barely any looting; there wasn't time to loot, let alone try and save yourself. We all regressed into a devolved form and grab our closest loved ones and tried to hide. Hoping that we would make it through the night, that someone would hold us and tell us it's all going to be ok. Yet no one came, no one held our hands and walked us through the apocalypse, we had to reach deep and find courage we never knew we had.

Now my reason for survival was cliché and it wasn't my own life. I had to find the only person who mattered to me and he was out there somewhere, a scared fox lost to this savage world. We met back in College when my main goal in life was studying computer science and trying to find a comfortable niche in the corporate world as the head of an IT department. Today I struggle to survive and travel, hoping one of the faces I see in a crowd is his.

After the new era began there were two kinds of people left. The ones who were able to comprehend what happened and rise above it, trying to eke out a life in this wasteland. Then the lost ones who cracked under the pressure, their own psyche fractured. You see them every day, their faces drawn, fur matted and falling out, ears full of mites. The worst part though isn't their haggard appearance or the missing will to live. But their quiet vacant eyes seeing nothing and yet continually searching. In the end there was no god, no government, nothing. We were lost to the wind, the children of Gaia scattered like ashes.

I walked all the way from the high desert, up to what used to be the San Joaquin Valley in California. I was looking for my love and he wasn't there. I did find his family alive and it gave me hope. They still lived in their old house, it had survived the destruction. I spent a few weeks with them gathering supplies and helping them get on their feet. They told me he had headed south to find me, so I left them with a heavy heart. It was a small sliver of hope but it's a big angry world out there and even I am barely surviving. Without him I too would become lost, yet in my heart I knew he was out there waiting for me. So I trudged on, all I had of my former life was a small photo of him he gave me on our first anniversary. At night when I had built my fire I would stare at it till I fell asleep and dreamed of finding him.

In my dream, I was running towards him, all I could see was him facing away from me and screaming for me. His bushy orange tail was streaked with blood and thrashing, clumps of his hair were missing and no matter how hard I ran I could never catch him. I woke with a start, sitting straight up clutching my heart. I drew my knees to my chest and held them, my muzzle pressed against it, I began to cry. I wept long into the night and don't even remember falling asleep

06/04/03E

The next morning I had just entered the outskirts of Los Angeles, its towering sky scrapers now just empty shells and bones of a civilization passed. In a few hundred years even these will be eaten by the sand and winds, turned into the earth from whence they came. Here in the bigger cities, I saw people still around, sorting through the scraps, trying to find anything that would ease their suffering or reminded them of their former lives. I stopped by a makeshift booth with miscellaneous items scattered over its top and a filthy grinning badger behind it making offers to trade. I pulled off my rucksack and sort through its contents and offer a small bottle of antiseptic. The old badger gets excited and says I can have my pick of anything he has to offer. In this age, old world medicine is worth more than gold, which is funny because that is basically worthless now.

Looking through his things I find a red sweater that looks familiar, I picked it up to examine it and I almost lost it. This used to be his; I gave it to him on the first birthday we spent together. I give it a big sniff and I can smell him, I could almost feel him in my arms again as I hug the sweater and cry. Regaining my composure, I drilled the badger as to where he got this, and after some coercing he told me he stole it from a fox he found asleep at his camp a few days ago, warm weather gear can be traded for almost anything. Angrily I took back my antiseptic and helped myself to his wares; he deserved more than this for his transgression...but there has been enough death already...

06/05/03E

After the badger told me where the fox's camp was, I started following his trail south, running until my lungs burned and my legs ached. I could smell his trail, my senses were alive and focused on my goal, he was near and I had to find him. For hours I ran, there isn't a word for what I felt...well felt isn't even the right word, I was on autopilot stopping each time I found one of his camps, catching his scent and running after. All I could do was keep running and hope that over the next ridge or between the next break in the trees, I would see him. Sitting at a fire and staring into the picture I gave him.

It's nearing nightfall and I can't keep going, my muscles were on fire, I've spit up blood and still I run, with each camp I got a little closer. I passed through an old town and I collapse, hitting my knees, unable to rise. I start crying feeling like it's over, my body is giving out and I am so close, I can almost feel him. With a scream I lifted one leg and planted my foot, struggling against the weight of the world I stand, in the distance I can see a fire burning, the faint hint of food drifting my direction. I place one foot in front of the other I inch my way to the camp, my vision blurred, blood pounding in my ears, I can see a figure stand up and turn my direction. "A fox?" I whisper, collapsing to my knees again. Less than 200 feet from the camp I hit the ground hard. My vision swam, muscles were coiled bundles of throbbing steel, breath coming in ragged gasps. Someone rolls me over onto my back and I stare up, unable to speak. A familiar voice whispers "Einar...Is it really you?" Suddenly arms surround me as I am pulled close. The scent I know this scent, instinctively I wrap my arms around whomever it is, just needing this. "This is a dream, I'm dying..." I thought but they pulled back and gazed into my eyes and I realized who it was...I started to cry, I found him. I found my love...

The End