Sunglasses hung from the collar of my crew neck, just like they always did. It was a habit I'd developed shortly after she gave them to me. It wasn't like I actually needed them; No one had seen the sun in over a year. It was never that bright outside considering it was always gray. I guess they were more of a comfort. It was one of the few comforts I had left after Dooms Day.

Vienna called after me, telling me to get off the roof and come eat. I climbed back through the poor excuse of a window and into the room where we tried to keep supplies along with her gardening tools. Of course, even during an apocalypse like this, she could still find some way to baby her precious orange trees. But hey, to each their own, right? Everyone's got their own ways of coping.


"The sun will come out, tomorrow," I sang low as I walked in. Vienna shot me a dirty old lady look. She never liked when I joked about it.

A dimming light bulb hung from the middle of the kitchen. How she was able to see around, I'll never know. Maybe it's an old lady thing. I'm sure I was at least 40 years younger than her and I could barely see the table. I grabbed the two glasses she'd set out on the table and poured us both some water. She brought two bowls topped with 3 tortillas each, setting one in front of me and holding the other for her. White rice. I wonder how she managed to find such a rare delicacy. She's a sneaky old lady, that's for sure.

"When are you going to cut your hair?" she questioned. "For a boy, you look more like a girl."

I flipped my hair to the side. "There's a chemical warfare raging on, and you're more concerned about my hair."

"Shut up and eat your rice," she murmured low, ripping her tortilla. I couldn't help but smile a little.

We grew silent as we ate. You could hear the slight click of rain hitting the roof, then dropping to buckets below. It usually rained once or twice a week, but not very much. We were lucky if we got half a bucket. Everything had been short supply, water especially. So we took what we could get.

I grabbed both of our bowls and put them in the sink out of habit. Every time I looked out the window I realized what a wasteland the world had become. It was pathetic. This used to be one of the most powerful cities in the world. Now, whoever managed to survive is fighting to wake up tomorrow. They go days without eating, just searching for something to hold on to and give them hope. Things shouldn't have gotten this bad.

"Anything interesting out there?" Vienna asked, snapping me back into reality.

"Oh, yeah,” I replied. "The hypothetical garden looks great. We should plant some flowers."

"We need a sun for that first."


“What time is it?” I asked.

She looked around the room. “Looks like a little after 10 A.M.”

“Time to go to work,” I sighed. After so long, this was a routine I was all too familiar with. I went back to our supplies room and grabbed a few things. Whenever I had to leave, I took a gas mask, an old trench coat, gloves, and a few weapons. They were mostly knives.

I walked down the hallway to the door. Memories always flashed in my head of how Vienna's house used to be. There used to be pictures of her family, friends, pets, all kinds of things, and a giant mirror on her green pinstriped walls. Most of those pictures had fallen or were stolen. The mirror now stood cracked, leaning against the bottom of the wall. Even reaching for the door handle, I remembered how she used to get mad at me as a kid when I would forget to close it. Apparently it made her house too hot. There was no use dwelling on it now, but I still did.

“Try not to miss me,” I called, loud enough for her to hear, as I left.

The atmosphere always changed when I shut that door behind me. Any hint of comfort, like Vienna’s house, where you could almost pretend you were safe, was gone. I'd walked out that door dozens of times, but a chill always ran up my spine despite that. Everything had changed. The air was still, yet it masked a number of sounds. It was so silent, it sounded as loud as every single working machine running at once. If you were to drop a penny, your ears would ring.

For the most part, trees and all other plants were dead in my area. Trees that were still slightly alive looked sickly and gnarled. The exception, of course, was Vienna's orange trees. Streets and sidewalks were ripped up. It was mostly dirt or rock. There were still a good number of buildings standing, but barely. A lot of them looked like something you'd see in a text book on ancient history. In a way, I guess they were ancient history. People had just begun to come out into this throw-away world a few weeks ago. You could actually walk past someone again. That didn't mean there wasn't a high chance of getting mugged, though. Baby steps, I guess.

I kept to hidden areas. My job was to look for supplies. I wasn't getting paid for it, either. Worst job ever. Jokes aside, it gave me a lot of thinking time. Thinking was safer than speaking out loud. In a world such as this, you never knew who, or what, else was out there. It's good to know there are survivors, but at the same time, they might not be as excited to see you. Or, if they are, it could be a different kind of excitement; An “oh, look, walking food” excitement, if you will. So I did my best to stay hidden but look for things that could be of use to us.

Gas mask around my face, I walked into some old grocery store. As a kid, they looked like a giant playground, right? Now they looked like a nightmare. Sometimes lights that, for some reason, hadn't died yet would flicker. The good thing was, there were a lot of grocery stores. Or, there used to be. Which meant there still was a chance of finding a can or something.

It was still raining, and the sound of raindrops hitting the remaining parts of the roof or whatever decaying debris below the openings was intensified since there was so much space and the ceilings were high. This was a little unnerving and made me a little paranoid, but now wasn’t the time for that. I lightly stepped around, looking for any objects I could. Numerous empty stands surrounded me. Some were standing as though nothing had changed, but some were bent, tipped over, broken, and things of that variety. The closer I looked, I noticed most of the shelves’ off-white paint was chipped. I kept walking, searching down isles for signs of anything.

Lo and behold, after some fifteen minutes I found a few things: sugar, two bars of soap, a bag of granola, and a purple plastic cup. It looked like it had dirt on the outside. I could probably clean that off, though. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone, and I didn’t have time to think about it either. The next thing I knew, shelves started crashing from all sides. Grabbing the stuff, I ran as fast as I could, not exactly caring how loud I was; I’m sure those stupid shelves muffled me anyway. I found a hiding spot and waited what felt like years, but was probably only 10 minutes, until I was convinced I could get back to Vienna without almost getting killed again. I shifted my eyes, looking all around, wondering if someone else was in the store. Most of the time, when things started falling like dominoes, it was because part of something finally broke down or decayed enough to break, hitting everything else in its path. Hence, Domino Effect.

I found an old fire escape ladder attached to a wall, where it led to an opening I could probably fit through. There’s no guarantee walking through the front door would be safe, so this was the alternative route. It looked like it was dark enough I wouldn’t be spotted as easily. If I was, they probably couldn’t get to me in time anyways; after crawling, climbing, freefalling, and all other kinds of stunts like these for so long, I was fast at escaping. This put me around 10 feet above the ground. I jumped down, quickly balancing before I could fall over, and thought of a way to get home.

Sticking closely to other decrepit buildings was the goal. They still brought back memories of walking by them so many times as a kid. The difference was, most of the time you wouldn’t look twice at them; they were just there. These buildings didn’t hold a lot of significance until they were barely holding themselves. People used to go into these buildings. If they went in now, it could collapse or there could be some airborne fungus that would be incurable since medicine wasn’t as easy to get now. They were unstable, just like the rest of the world.

I took a back way to get back to Vienna’s house. This basically took me to the backyard, if you would even call it that; it was all dirt and rocks now. It was interesting. Looking at her house compared to those that surrounded it, you wouldn’t be able to tell someone was actually living there. Only small things were noticeable, like the lack of damage done to her roof and less broken items lying around. In a way, I suppose it was a camouflage. I walked up the back porch steps, taking notice of how aged they looked. The funny thing was, she’d had it restored just a few years ago. It had looked brand new. Chemicals had eaten away at the wood, just as it had around the rest of her house. She had this old rocking chair, because most old people do, and it was still there. The problem was I don’t think she could handle being out here longer than a few minutes, even with a gas mask. I would’ve brought it inside for her, but I was uncertain of what it would bring with it. We’d adjusted a little to the air since most of the windows were broken, but I still didn’t want to take any chances.

“Did you miss me?” I called, as I peeled off the mask and the coat.

“Oh, you left?” she retorted back from what I assumed was the living room.

“Oh ha, ha.” I smiled a little and was glad she wasn't there to see. I hung up the coat, took out the items I found, and tossed the mask in the room somewhere. “I come bearing gifts.”

I walked into the living room and set them on a small coffee table in front of the couch she was resting on. Sighing, I slouched next to her. She sat up a little and examined the things.

“Soap,” Vienna said, surprised. She got up and shuffled her small frame out of the living room, and into the kitchen. She was probably storing it somewhere, along with the other things. I crossed my arm to my shoulder, which felt a little sore for some reason. Then I froze.

“My sunglasses,” I said numbly, as I felt my head go light. I shot up, bolting back to the supply room as fast as I could, throwing things around.

“What’s wrong?” I heard her say from the doorway.

“My sunglasses,” I repeated. “They’re not here!” I looked for a long time in the storage room, rummaging through my coat and everything else I could get my hands on. I even looked at things I hadn't even brought with me before. It was a bust. I ran outside, searching for the aviator sunglasses I had with me at all times. I continued looking outside, over and over. Being outside for as long as I had was already not good for my lungs, or anyone else's for that matter. There were all kinds of chemicals floating around, waiting to latch on to someone and infect them. It was different when you were inside a shelter. I'm not sure why exactly, but the odds of getting infected lessened. But out here, out in the open, you were fair game.

I felt my breathing increasing, like the anxiety attacks I had when I was 8. My hands started to shake as well as my vision, and it felt as though I had a block of ice in my stomach making me sick. I fell to my knees, grabbing my hair, I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“You idiot!” Vienna hissed through the window. “Get back in here!”

I sat there, palms on the ground, for another 5 minutes, until I forced myself to get up and go back inside. I sat at the table. My head, which felt three times heavier, was in my hands as I propped my elbows. I kept a dead stare into space and let out a shaky breath.

I heard the sound of the chair next to me being pulled out, and knew Vienna was sitting next to me, probably wanting an explanation.

“Who wears sunglasses when there’s no sun, anyway?” she said, probably trying to help.

I kept my gaze. “They weren’t just sunglasses.”

She stayed silent. Despite that it felt like the words were cutting my mouth everywhere possible, like ice shards, I continued.

“They were my orange trees,” I said, hoping she would understand. “My best friend gave them to me when we met a few years ago. I always told her I would throw them away because they weren’t my style and made me look stupid. I haven’t seen her since the day this all happened, and I don’t even know if she’s alive. They were my only connection I had left of her. And now, I won’t see them again either.”

She rubbed the top of my back sympathetically. I didn’t expect her to say or do anything because I wouldn’t have known what to do either. She got up and started to cook. I just sat there, going through my mind over and over of where I had been, where they could have fallen, how stupid I was to not notice they were missing the second they were gone. It seems childish to be so wrapped up in a pair of sunglasses, but they were the only thing giving me hope that maybe, just maybe, I’d get to use them again; that maybe things could get better.

I don’t know how many minutes, hours, days passed, but I stayed in that mental state. The sunglasses were my one connection to hope and, it sounds ridiculous, being still human. I was a zombie for the most part, but I still got what needed done to be done. There were still obligations to be completed, even if it became a struggle to find the motivation to do them. Besides, I owed it to Vienna for taking care of me all these years.

What snapped me back into reality was a knock on the front door. It didn’t register to me what was going on first; no one knocked anymore, or at least I'd thought. Vienna wasn’t home, she’d gone to trade oranges and that takes all of her day. There was no possibility of it being her. Cautiously, I opened the door. There she stood in front of me, alive. She was even holding my sunglasses. Behind her, I could see a little break in the clouds.