When the world finally Ended, everyone signed with relief. The events leading to it spanned decades of fear and tension and growing hysteria as worse case scenarios were followed by even worser scenarios. When the world ended, it put a stop to the endless fear and tensions. Nothing more could happen: we unlocked the most terrible achievement, and a few of us were still alive. Not that we wanted to be.

We were left as partial people, damaged and barely functioning. Our planet was scared and destroyed, only the scraggliest remnants of hybrid plants managed to grow on the crust, only the fiercest experimental animals survived what we had done. Clean water does not exist anymore, the air is not really breathable, but we eat the mutant plants and animals, drink the oily water, and cough the putrid air because there is nothing left for us.

Years and years ago, some rich CEO tried to evacuate the planet. We needed a fresh start, she said, a place where we could rebuild the Earth from without dying. Some people said we didn’t deserve to start over, that we shouldn’t be allowed onto another world until we repaired the effects of our sins on this one. I wasn’t sure who I agreed with: I wanted to live, but I did not think I deserved to, as a member of the most destructive species. In the end, it didn’t matter because a high-ranking official somewhere made the choice for us. The evacuation program was scrapped, the CEO disappeared, the people fell silent. We stayed on Earth and we burned with her.

Chemical debris from the bombs infects us all, and before the End, the UN was trying to help the chemical infections become the ‘Next Step in Human Evolution’, or something like that. That’s where I was, when it all stopped. In a cave, in a box, surrounded by technicians in ratty lab coats and soldiers with atomic pistols, waiting for whatever would happen next.  When the end came, they all just walked away and left me, still locked up.

I waited for two days, because I had nothing better to do and I didn’t feel like putting in the effort to leave. Eventually I did. I put my hand to the crack in the door and stopped focusing on holding my position. That’s all it took, a little relaxing of the muscles and suddenly I didn’t have muscles, or skin or bones or anything else you expect a living creature to have. I became sentient water, because that is what the End did to me: made me a compilation of two elements. I oozed out of the box, leaving my jumpsuit and underthings behind. I reformed on the other side of the box, struggling to pull myself back into human-ish shape. That’s what they call contaminants like me: human-ish. As I finished pulling my left arm into being, I heard a low whistle behind me.

A/n: I’m alive! I finished my undergrad degree and I want to work more seriously on my writing. This is a several part story that I am going to work on and update as I go. What do you think so far?