Author : Kimberly Raiser

She stood there, in the middle of the empty street. The first snow of the season just beginning to enter the path of the street lights. Not a sound. Not a cry. Not a single human to be found. The street was bare of chaos, bare of life. It was as if nothing had happened, and nothing ever would again.

They came in the night, the night before. She couldn’t remember where she was when it happened, she only remembered waking up to the silence, and the cold. There were scorch marks on the pavement, on the sidewalks; perhaps where people had once been walking, or shopping. Cars were parked in the streets, like a still snapshot in a photo album, but with no people. Only cars.

The snow was beginning to accumulate.

She kept walking, hoping to see someone, or some thing that resembled life. There was nothing but more scorch marks. She noticed the lights on in the bakery. She walked inside. There were pies and cookies and cakes on display on top of the counter. Plates on tables of half eaten pastries, with half empty glasses of milk, and tea. But no people. Again, scorch marks. On the chairs, and the floor and one single faint handprint on the counter. It looked small, like it had belonged to a child. A tear formed in each of her eyes. She held her hand over the tiny handprint.

A sharp pain had ripped through her side. She felt wet, but when she looked, it was nothing.

She walked from the store. She heard a faint humming, but nothing in sight.

She continued down the empty, dark street. She turned the corner. Ahead was where she once lived. A beautiful little flat with pine flooring on the second story, overlooking the city park gates. It was quaint, but it had been a nice place to call home. She wanted dearly to be under her warm covers once again. She longed to hear the hustle and bustle of the streets, or something, anything.

Anything but the silence.

***

Death can come with a furious thunder or it can envelope with the sweet scent of jasmine wrapped in the wings of an angel.

***

She lay there. Under that street light. The gaping wound in her side cauterized by the brilliant heat of the robots unseen laser, yet she bled, furiously. She had blinked her eyes just once more, looking down the street at the emptiness, seeing everything in one single instant. The snow was falling above her, onto her, the streetlight warming her face. Somehow she had been missed, slightly. Somehow she had lived one second long enough to see that she was the last, and then—she was gone.

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