Week Thirteen(Jan 19- Jan 24)Topic:Lost 

Winner: Olivia 

Dusk 'Til Dawn 
By Olivia 

Lost. We were all lost. Lost in the wilderness, lost to the darkness, lost within ourselves. We had lost our humanity. 
When the inoculations against the mutated influenza were given, no one suspected a thing. How could they know that, with the eradication of cancer, AIDS, the common cold, Alzheimer’s, and more, the entire non-emergency healthcare system was beginning to fail like a deteriorating patient in intensive care? How could they even begin to suspect just how desperate the doctors, cancer specialists, and bedside nurses had become? Instead, over half the world was stricken with illness. Every facet of civilization went up in smoke. We became like animals, fighting to the death over scraps of food. 
Some had become literally inhuman. 
It could not be borne any longer. Everyne I knew had long since gone, dead, scavenging, or simply mental. It was time to go to a happier place, if such existed. But I musst make the journey alone. 
I stepped out onto the streets of what had once been Albany. Now it was populated by cannibal tribes living in the ruins of skyscrapers. I racked my brains for the analogy that now seemed eons away. It was like Lord of the Flies. With material civilization gone, mental civilization disappeared as well. 
I followed the underground tunnels to the edge of the city. It would be a day’s trek to the falls. It would be my third without food. I set off steadily. Some good had come out of things after all. Global warming was no longer an object, and nature had quickly reclaimed its own. I marched on like an automaton, thinking. Trying to capture what was left of the good in this life. 
I reached the falls at one in the morning, by my watch. It was a miracle it still worked, after the scrapes I had been in. But then, I had replaced the batteries the day before the inoculations began I walked over to the very edge of the falls. Now, perhaps, I might come to a happer place; at least one not of this world. I stood there, poised to jump and end my misery, for a moment; then I was violently yanked back from the edge. 
“Not everywhere is like Albany,” a voice said softly. I twisted around. A raven-haired young man, about my age, stood there. “The trouble is, they were mostly all power-hungry, greedy stockbrokers anyway, in town for vacation.” I gawked at him, speechless. “Join us,” he said, and proffered a hand. “Join us,” echoed around as dozens of flashlights- relics of what I thought was a bygone time- flicked on. Slowly I looked back at the still-outstretched hand. Its owner was smiling. I took it, and he pulled me back to my feet. A ray of light crept through the clouds. Dawn.  



Other stories from this Contest: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/96251.Week_13_Jan_19_Jan_24_DONE 

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