The Last Moron On Earth

Follow the Sun.

I woke up with a start in my room.

Not in the lumpy bed of my shitty Pomona apartment, but the lumpy bed of my childhood room of my parent's shitty house.

I slowly turned my head to gaze across the room; turning my eyes in my head brought forth too much pain. As a matter of fact, everything hurt; every breath brought stabbing fire to my lungs, every turn agony to my sore muscles, and every twitch a hammer to my aching limbs. Life is just a series of....ugh, life is fucking terrible.

The blinds were closed over the windows, but it was clear that there was a good deal of light behind them. The old clock on the dresser had it's batteries die long before my arrival, so it wasn't of any use. With a heavy groan, I rolled off the bed to my hooves.

It was a mistake.

My limbs buckled under my weight, and I came crashing to the hardwood floor in a sad, painful heap. With more groans, a few swears, and a long sigh, I resigned to just lay there until everything sucked less.

<***>

I slowly opened my eyes, becoming aware of the world of pain I was in. Again. But things did indeed suck less, and I found that, given time, I could slowly rise to my hooves.

The red rays of the setting sun shone through the window's open blinds, and I could see myself in the large mirror that acted as the door to my old closet.

My fur coat was matted down and filthy with sweat and grime; the longer hair in my 'wrists' was horrible tangled and almost black with all the accumulated filth. My hooves were a nightmare, cracked and worn down, with the strange looking flesh in the protected hollow being raw and bloody. Both my mane and tail were a greasy, knotted mess. Worst of all were my eyes, angry red veins snaking throughout each massive orb.

God, I look like shit....

I watched the pitiful creature in the mirror slowly blink its eyes, before turning away from it.

Despite my protesting body and groaning stomach, I was in desperate need of a shower.

<^*^>

I had to bathe in a tank we'd kept outside; my father used to keep water in said tank so we could generally keep a green lawn despite water restrictions in times of drought (which is to say, all the time). While I certainly wouldn't drink it, it was clean enough to suit my needs; after falling into the large tub, only the groaning of pipes accompanied the manipulation of shower handles. It stands to reason that with the vanishing of power, water utility should follow.

Whatever...

With my neck resting on the side of the tank and my hooves actually reaching the bottom, I wasn't in too much danger of drowning should I nod off, so I closed my eyes and just rested.

Of course, I expected that my father wouldn't be exempt from whatever took everyone, but I think deep down I wanted that to be wrong. I wanted to find him sleeping in his room, like usual, but the world doesn't care what you want; the house was empty, and everything was in its place. Well, almost everything, as the door had been kicked open, but I assumed that might have been me.

As the sun dipped lower and lower in the sky, it took with it some of my pain and soreness. I figured running from Oceanside to Whittier would have killed me as a person, but I guess horses have more endurance than we do. Still, I was still sore as hell, and needed to rest, so I grudgingly rolled out of the tank. Entering the house, I went about lighting all the candles my mom used to keep. She never lit them, she just loved having them around to make the house look a little less dreary, and my dad never took them down after she'd passed. There was no way I'd have the dexterity to handle matches or the zippo we'd kept in a kitchen drawer, so I'd grabbed a beat up old torch from my dad's equally beat up old truck.

It was pretty cool, the weak candles provided a ton of illumination compared to the darkness surrounding the house. A shining beacon of survival in yet another dead city.

Whatever. I popped open a can of peaches, and munched on some really stale fruit cereal ('Confruity crisp'. Yum.). I didn't bother heading back into my old room; many a night was spent on the couch, and I just didn't want to face that sad horse in the mirror again.

I woke up gasping. I still felt tired, but everything was bright. And, oddly warm. Hot even. With a few swift blinks, I knew something was wrong.

And there it was.

That sick, familiar plunge in my gut. That old, old sinking feeling. The weight of colossal fucking failure pressing down on me. Flames crackled mockingly. The candles. Stupid me needed to leave those *fucking** candles on.*

I rolled off the couch, and sank to the ground. Thick black smoke did little to cover the angry fury consuming my shelter. With a sick crack, the ceiling leading to the hallway buckled, flaming debris raining down.

I turned and ran.

Recalling that I had walked the entire fucking distance here, I hastily grabbed my dad's keys from their perch in a bowl by the door. Running outside, I was greeted by the cool night air, and relatively fresh air.

I collapsed outside, gasping and hacking at the end of the driveway. As more cracks followed, the flames grew, engulfing the entire house. My house.  Home.

Gone forever.

I fell to my ass and cried.

Gone forever and its all my fault.

I cried angry tears, cursing God for taking everyone, that weird plane for being weird, Sam for being a cunt and above all, myself.

I cursed myself for being left behind. For leaving the only other leads to survival behind with those eerie fucking planes. For trying to make sense of the senseless. For not thinking ahead. For thinking I could think ahead. After everything I've been through, I'm an idiot for pretending otherwise.

You can't fight fate; it'll fight you, and beat you. And keep beating you down, until you accept that you can't win against the world.

-<>-

Eventually, the fire began to spread. With irate roars it grew and grew, reaching sickly trees and neighboring houses.

Everything once pointing to the existence of me was gone, ash and soot to be scattered in the winds. Forgotten and lost with the rest of Humankind.

I was dead, and my body didn't know it yet.

With the ghost of tears in my eyes and a ferocious blaze in my rear mirror, I drove away, towards the first orange glances of the rising sun.

I smile back and shake my head. I never liked that house at night.