Zak - Entry #13

For a second, I thought I was descending into the very depths of Hell itself, complete with screams of agony and a Lake of Fire. Then I thought that I was, in my nervous state, hallucinating the inferno below. Then I realized that the subway station at the bottom of the staircase I was on was on fire. That’s not the strict truth; luckily, there’s not much, other than people, that’s flammable in a metro station. But that seemed to make the people all that much more on fire, from my perspective. And the way these people were acting, you’d think they had never learned how to Stop, Drop, and Roll back in kindergarden. They were just running in random vectors like decapitated chickens. A couple either ran or got pushed off the platform onto the tracks, crackling and convulsing horrifically. I saw one kid hit the floor and start rolling around. He got stepped on a few times, though, and stopped rolling. Screams echoed around the claustrophobic underground cavity, mingling with the roar of fire. It smelled a bit like a barbeque. My immediate instinct was to run. Some deep and animalistic part of me was telling me that if I ran, my problems would go away; if I ran away, I would be able to run to somewhere safe and normal where the world wouldn’t be ending and people wouldn’t be on fire just about everywhere I looked. But I knew that if I ran, the only place to run would be full of people on fire.

It was then that the gravity of the statement “The World Is Ending” actually struck me. It wasn’t just My Life Is Ending, or New York City Is Ending, or even America is Ending. Everyone was going to die, and so far as I could tell I was the eye of the storm. In the flames of the subway, that’s what I saw myself as: the eye of the storm, the guy who’s going to be surrounded by destruction, but never the victim.

It was then I that I saw the other eyes of the storm. We were the three people in the immediate vicinity not burning and running and screaming. They others were still and wore twin looks of horrified awe. They had each plastered themselves up against one of the cement walls that surrounded us. I imagined I looked much the same as them.

One was a girl that looked around my age. She was cute. Blonde. I had always liked blondes. Not like I was terribly picky in the realm of women. My relationship to the fairer sex had been very much “take-what-I-can-get” since middle school. A lock of her hair was on fire. I wanted to tell her from across the subway, but I wasn’t really sure how.

The other was a dude, probably a good couple of years older than me and the girl, who looked like he was either a prizefighter or had gotten in a couple of losing battles with the sidewalk. Based on his build, I guessed the latter.

In manner reminiscent of lemmings, a sudden drive to be on the train tracks seemed to overcome the victims of the flames. The last of them had started dancing in the electric current when the train came out of fucking nowhere. As I watched on, paralyzed, the doors opened. No one was on board. It gave no hints of imminent movement.

I finished walking down the stairs. The really beat-up guy, who had been on the other staircase, mirrored me. The girl walked up to us. We three stood in a vague circle in the middle of the station. It still smelled like barbeque.

It was sort of awkward.

“I’m Rufus,” said the guy, holding his hand out to the girl. I wished I’d thought of that.

“Hi, I’m Chuck,” I said to her. She shook both of our hands.

“My name’s Eira.”

“How’s that spelled?” I asked.

“E-I-R-A.”

“Quite the name,” I said. She seemed kind of unimpressed with my interest in her. I decided to lay off for now.

“So are all on the same page?” she asked.

“I doubt it,” said Rufus.

“Is this a bad time to mention how fucking eery that train is?” I asked.

“Not really. You’re right,” responded Rufus.

“Are we supposed to get on it?” I said.

“Probably,” said Eira.

“So how about it?” Still me asking all the questions.

“I’m actually ready to hold still for a while,” said Rufus. “It doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”

Whatever. Good start to the relationship.

“I don’t really like the idea of just standing here, though,” said Eira.

I got the feeling that none of us really wanted to just come out and say that the world was ending and we had some fate to fulfill together so let’s get to it. I sure as hell didn’t want to.

“We could make some attempt at getting to know one another,” I suggested.

Also, I wasn’t sure where we were supposed to go, but I had a feeling that that train did.

Eira shot me a look that said, Are you crazy? You’re talking like that at a time like this?