Jennifer Pickering

As I grew up my shadow was my best friend. We would play together until we both tired, and we’d curl up together until it was time to play once more. I was eight when I realised my shadow was nothing more than that but I still trusted it and cared for it. I even got others to believe that if you stood on shadows it’d bring bad luck. I guess too many were stood on.

I remember that morning, the first one, I had just turned 15 and as tradition I had let the candles burn out to let the shadows dance around the room. Young me thought this gave my shadow a chance to celebrate, older me just did it because I was never ready to grow up. I went back to my duvet but my mother was always an early riser. She’d taken her breakfast onto her balcony in her bedroom to soak in the early morning rays. She said these were the best ones, her secret to staying young, and she was so beautiful just about anyone would believe her. I can just picture how she would have looked that day, rejoicing in the warmth of early spring as its hands began to grip her. I try to forget what came next.

The scream, the scream almost killed me itself. She cried out for help but it was too late. In the moments it took me to cover the landing, she was gone. Her face etched in horror, her body contorted. I didn’t notice anything missing then. It had always been me and my mother, I had no one to tell, no one to turn to. I collapsed behind her bed, away from the balcony for sometime. It wasn’t until the emergency broadcast brought my T.V. to life sometime later that I moved.

“Turn off all lights, close your curtains, and stay away from windows, this is not a drill. Turn off all lights…”

I don’t remember following the instructions, I don’t think I could. I just sat and waited until more news came, 2 million was the first estimate, 64 the second, 1 billion the third. It climbed and climbed until they started referring to survivors. It somehow made it easier.

I buried her on the third night and left home on the fifth.

All that was a long time ago now and we’ve lived in darkness ever since. That was, until yesterday.

I went out to hunt, the cities were overgrown so it wasn’t hard to find a grazing rodent or bird. We rarely ate full meals in compound 7C, or any other for that matter, because no one could tend to crops in the daytime and animals would often eat them. They were immune. People would risk the miles of walking to jump from each compound in search of food, some were lucky, most were not.

A flicker. I was certain I saw a flicker in the window of the forgotten electrical store. That is when it began. One by one, street by street, the lights came on and it wasn’t just street lights, it was car lights and room lights and T.V. screens and every single thing you could imagine. 7C was lit up and there was no where to run. Each scream was followed by an even louder one, I crouched behind a bin and put my hands to my ears to make it stop. It was going to be me soon, I was about to die. I waited. I waited for what seemed like eternity. I could see the light around me, I knew I was covered, there was no escaping. These were my final moments and there was nothing left I could do. No darkened corner. This was it. That’s when I heard it, the first broadcast I’d heard in almost 2 years,

“Your country thanks you for your service. Your sacrifice in this difficult time promises to give life to the other compounds for the following months…”

The lights went out, the trucks came in and I was still alive…