First One Standing

By K Divyanand

It was a starry and silent night. The crickets could be heard, the wind blowing over the grass could be observed and the rumbling of tiny stones on the asphalt highway could be noticed. One such peaceful night was disturbed when a high speed car raced across the highway. One fine morning, a boy, who was about to become a man, was seen holding a trophy in one hand and a football in the other and was smiling like never before.

In a school one day, there was a teenage boy who was waiting in the corridor for a girl he likes and wanted to make a conversation with her. On one exciting evening, a kid was trying to learn how to ride a bicycle without training wheels. He falls down form the bicycle and starts crying and that's when a man starts running towards him, yelling "Charlie!" After hearing his name, Charlie suddenly wakes up from his bed and sits straight up, terrified. A few moments later, he realises that it was only a dream where he saw the best and worst memories of his life so far.

The light of morning shone through his bedroom window as he gets off the bed and goes to make himself a coffee. As he goes into the kitchen, through the living room, he notices something peculiar. His mom wasn't there in the kitchen as always. "Mom? Mom?", Charlie keeps calling her name but he would get no response. Thinking that his mom would have gone out, Charlie goes into the kitchen to make his coffee. As he switches on the light, the bulb flikers for a few seconds and turns off. When Charlie notices this, he goes to check the bulb. All of a sudden, he stumbles over some rubble on the floor.

Now, Charlie hadn't seen such a thing in his kitchen before. Being tensed, he goes all around the house to find that it was filled with lots of dust and debris. Then, he gazes out of the window, towards the yellowish-brown sky. This looked a bit mysterious to him because he hasn't seen the sky like that in his whole life. As he lowers his eyes to the scenery in front of him, he almost chokes on his own breath and slaps himself twice to check if he was still dreaming. Unfortunately he wasn't, so he runs outside his house to find one of the wildest things he ever imagined. 

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Vehicles covered with an insane amount of dust, broken roads which were on top of each other, pathways covered with nothing but lifeless grass and dead insects, half demolished buildings with dried overgrowth hanging from almost every corner. Charlie ran involuntarily through the deserted and mountainous streets, with his mind still fixated at the time he peeped through the window. He tried to find some form of life but all he got was exhaustion and discovered nothing.

Charlie slowly walks into, what was supposed to be a park, and sits on a bench. He puts his palms onto his face and starts mumbling to himself, "What is happening around me? Did I miss something last night? I thought me driving a car was a dream but this....this is just...." As he was about to complete his sentence, he hears a loud crashing sound coming from behind. He turns back to see a large building was broken into half and fell upon a tower beside it which almost destroyed both. Charlie quickly gets up and runs back the way he came to protect himself from the surroundings.

A dazed and confused Charlie walks on the streets of the city, which looks to be torn apart by some unknown disaster, calling out for help until his legs give up and he couldn't walk more. His physical state was that he was extremely hungry and his limbs were hurting like never before due to the rock climbing and skip walking he has been doing for hours. But his mental state was what mattered him the most because according to his brain, he was still in bed, dreaming.

After a while, as Charlie was taking baby steps ahead, he finds a book amidst a few stones. He picks it up as quickly as he can wondering if he could find anything in that book that might give him some information about the place he was in. The book was in fact a journal written by someone, which Charlie starts reading. As time advanced, Charlie carefully reads the journal titled "THE JOURNEY AMIDST", which described exactly what Charlie was looking to find out. His facial expressions change from slight happiness to confusion and finally stopping at fear. The fear of Charlie's wildest imagination coming true. The journal summarised that there occurred disastrous catastrophes, that couldn't be termed, all over the world and wiped out all life out of existence. Also, the person who wrote the journal might be one of the last humans to die, as mentioned in it. Charlie's mind was having two thoughts after reading it. Either he is the luckiest or the unluckiest person because he was the only living creature that remained on the planet.

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The sun started to set after a short and unbelievable day for Charlie as he slowly walks towards his home. After reaching home, he directly goes to his bedroom and just falls on the bed, when he puts the journal on his semi-broken bedside table. He cries, with his pillow against his face, as he recollects his memories with all his friends and family until he falls asleep.

One fine morning, a child tries to climb up a tree as his frisbee gets stuck in one of the branches. The same child gets woken up by a strange sound, one night, and finds that all his friends were at his home to throw him a surprise party on his birthday. The same boy, who apparently has become a man, sits near the beach with his friends and has a good time. On the starry night, the man, as he drives a car on the highway, slows down to look at a sign. All of a sudden, he hears a honking noise from behind.

As soon as that happens, Charlie opens his eyes and gets off his bed slowly. Again, he realises that he dreamt about the memories of his life. After the realisation, he remembers that he was the only living being surviving. Instead of taking this fact negatively, he starts to think," Maybe, this is a good thing that I somehow survived. Now I can do things which I couldn't , without anyone's concern. Oh! But what can I do that's both exciting and satisfying in this situation." He goes out of his house, thinking positively, after he washed himself up with, surprisingly clean water.

He goes to the nearby park, sits on a bench, and begins writing a journal of his own. He writes about how he spent the previous day, the surroundings, the journal he found, its contents and the dreams. Every now and the, there were crashing and demolition noises that could be heard. That scared Charlie a little but he keeps himself busy in exploration and in hope of finding something valuable such as another living being.

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Sometime later, Charlie, while walking on what used to be a flyover, trips over some dried creepers and falls onto the railing. As he tries to pick himself up, he notices a giant, convex shaped glass pane was hanging from a building. A few moments later, as the sunrays pass through it, they get focused at one point on one of the dried creeper. All of a sudden, a fire starts and spreads rapidly through the whole creeper network. Charlie gets stuck in the middle of the fire, that was caused. He gets scared and tries to find a way to get out of the spreading fire. Soon, he realises that there was no way he could jump over the fire because it was spreading in all directions, except for one. 

The underside of the flyover didn't have any creepers that grew so there wasn't any fire there. It seemed to be the only way Charlie could escape, so he blindly jumps off the railing. He falls really hard onto the ground as he gets his face blackened by the smoke and also couldn't move his limbs anymore. This was the moment he realises that he lost all his positivity and he couldn't digest the fact that he is the only living being. He shouts on the top of his voice," HELP! Somebody help me!" His voice slowly fades away as he stops shouting and starts to wail, at his fate.

After a long time, Charlie manages to get himself up. He picks up his journal and slowly starts to walk home. Although he was in a massive shock and great sadness, he couldn't help but notice the fact that, even after having such a nasty accident, he wasn't having any serious or fatal injuries. After reaching home, he cuddles up on his bed and tries to console himself from his loneliness and depression, eventually falling asleep. 

On a dull morning, there was a boy who is crying at the funeral of his most favourite grandpa. A man was helping an old lady, who was blind, to cross a wide road. On one gleeful evening, a boy just scored the winning goal and took his team to victory. The man, he started to accelerate the car, opens his window, peeps out of it and shouts, " Woo hoo! This is what life means! No sadness, only joy!"

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Charlie, upon hearing himself shout in his dream, wakes up somewhat moodily. He remembers that he didn't make an entry about the previous day, in his journal. So he sits in the living room sofa and starts to write about his second day. There was no change in the surrounding area and also the weather. The only thing that changed was Charlie's mental pain. It went from bad to worse due to extreme loneliness, hunger and inability to understand anything that is happening with him.

The last person on earth was busy writing his journal when suddenly, there was a knock on his door. This was so sudden that Charlie gets chills down his spine and his hand, gets filled with goosebumps. He slowly walks towards the door, terrified, and opens it. He sees a man, probably in his mid 40's, standing at his doorstep. Upon seeing the man, Charlie bursts into tears and goes and hugs the man as tightly as he can.

The man tells Charlie, "I was just walking by and I saw you through this broken window. So I thought I'd come and say 'Hello'. Oh! By the way, I'm Edward and I live a couple of blocks away from here." Charlie after hearing this was in a state of utter shock and tremendous confusion. He asks Edward in a loud tone, "Where were you all these days? Are you really a human or am I dreaming again? What has happened around me?" Edward simply replies, " Calm down man. I've been here for five days and I still couldn't figure out what happened. Not only me, all the people who are here have no idea of what happened." Charlie then asks surprisingly, " What do you mean by 'all the people'?"

Edward takes Charlie to a food joint which was a few blocks away. There Edward introduces Charlie to three other people. Randall and Clara, both of whom looked like they were in their 70's, and Tim, who apparently was almost the same age as Edward. Charlie mingles along with them quite well as he was finally not being alone anymore. He finds out that Clara has been living there since seven days, Randall, since six days and Tim, since four days. This confuses Charlie as he did not see anyone in the previous two days and questions the same to all the four people present there. Everyone shrug their shoulders to show that even they were not sure why.

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Charlie keeps talking to all of them for hours together and doesn't notice that its almost evening, by the time he's done. He finds them to be pretty interesting characters. Randall used to be a singer who never got the chance to make it big. Clara was not so involved in the talk, showing that she was pretty introverted. Tim and Edward were quite opposite as they wouldn't stop talking, mainly about their surroundings. Charlie starts to have a really good time with all of them but it was still confusing for him that how were there people, found so suddenly.

Charlie and Edward walk home together in the evening. Then Charlie tells Edward about the journal he found on his first day there. He shows Edward the journal, saying, "This feels weird. It said that I might be the last person living on earth but now I met all of you guys." Edward reads the journal and points out that the whole journal was written just in three days, based on the dates in it.

Edward says, "Maybe that person who wrote the journal was alone, just like all of us, during his first three days. He may have found people on the third day which made him quit writing about his loneliness" Charlie is left unsatisfied, after Edward expresses his view upon the journal, and makes and entry of day three in his personal journal. He goes to bed after writing.

A young Charlie was jumping with joy when his father gifts him a play station. An older Charlie, has a near death experience, when he almost falls of the roof of a ten floored building. Charlie and his girlfriend together go on their first trip together to a place very far. A half-asleep Charlie, drives his car on the highway, when he almost crashes a truck full of tools, in front of him.

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Charlie wakes up the next morning, and the first thought he gets was why was he only dreaming about himself and his life's memories along with an unrelated fragments of him driving on a highway. He meets Edward and Randall, walking by his house. He asks both of them, "Do you guys dream about yourself every night?" "Yes. Happens every night" both reply. He then asks them if they too dream in fragments about some unrelated stuff. Edward replies, "Yes, its totally weird. I get dreams about me lying on a hospital bed, right before I wake up." Randall replies, "Yes, even I get dreams about lying in the back of an ambulance and going to a hospital."

The three of them go to the food joint together. While going, Charlie suddenly remembers that he forgot his journal at his home. So he goes back to get it. Somewhere near his home, he hears a loud crying sound, as he was walking. He follows the sound to its source, which was coming from an abandoned looking house. He slowly goes inside, uttering, "Hello?....Hello?" Suddenly, he hears fast paced footsteps behind him. He turns back to find a young boy running towards him. 

The boy hugs Charlie tightly cries happy tears, upon seeing him. Charlie consoles the boy and asks him his name. The boy replies in a sobbing voice, "My name is Billy. I am 14 years old and I have been alone since the last two days." Charlie then takes Billy to the food joint and introduces him to Edward, Randall, Clara and Tim. Meanwhile, as Billy talks with everyone, Charlie pulls Edward aside and asks, "While coming to the joint, I saw three old men coming out of a hospital and two old women gossiping a park. So why are there more old people here than younger ones?"

Edward replies, "Charlie, whatever questions you have about this place, I already told you that I have no answers for them. Now, I ask Randall a lot of questions and I get the same reply from him." He continues by whispering, "But, I've heard a gossip that something happens on the ninth day of a person's stay here." Edward points towards Clara saying that its her eighth day here and could answer better and also tells him not to talk about it anywhere.

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Charlie then goes to Clara and asks, "You have been here since eight days right? So what happens on your ninth day?" Clara, who was joyful until then, loses her smile and becomes serious. She tells Charlie to go away and leaves the place. Charlie doesn't understand her intentions and emotions, so he runs behind her to find the answer. He finds and repeatedly asks Clara to answer him. 

Their argument goes on for a long time when Clara, finally gets impatient at Charlie and yells angrily at him, "People disappear on the ninth day!" Clara leaves Charlie, on an elevated corner of a broken street, shocked and confused. As the sky starts to turn purple-black, Charlie meets Edward and Billy and then three of them walk home together. Billy says Charlie that he had a really good time with grandpa Randall and uncle Edward.

After dropping by Billy at Randall's home, Charlie tells Edward about what Clara told him. "I really don't know what to say now. Clara said that people disappear on the ninth day but she didn't tell me how and why." Edward gets surprised by Charlie's statement and says, "That means, if Clara is saying the truth then, she must disappear tomorrow!" Charlie writes about his day four in his journal and goes to bed, thinking about Clara's statement.

A teenage Charlie, along with one of his friend, pranks his other friend by pulling his pants down, in front the whole class, in school. Around the same age, Charlie tries to drive a car for the first time and almost crashes it into a nearby wall. Charlie and his best friend have a really serious argument about something really silly and end up not talking to each other, ever. Somehow after overtaking the truck, Charlie speeds up his car on the highway with his radio on full volume.

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It was a sultry morning the next day. The sun was shining brightly, as ever and there were sounds of debris falling and walls cracking. Charlie begins to write about his day four in the disaster struck world. He gets accompanied by Billy, after a while, and both of them discuss about their neighborhood. Billy talks about how he gets dreams about him celebrating his birthday on a beach and hearing a life guard yelling at him. Charlie also tells him about how he gets dreams of driving a car on a highway, every night.

"It's strange", Billy says, "These dreams come out of nowhere and I don't think they mean anything." Their discussions move away from dreams and arrive at how much they miss their families. While both of them were busy talking, Tim comes by, scared and exhausted, and tells that he saw signs of a dust storm coming towards them. After hearing this, Charlie and Billy start to cover the walls using the debris lying on their floor. There were a lot of holes to cover, to ensure a minimum safety, and a ton of heavy lifting to be done.

While all this was going on, Charlie completely forgets about Clara and her statement. Sometime later, when Billy and he were almost done fortifying the wall, tiny amounts of dust starts to blow into the house. Both cover themselves with a blanket, sit still and hold onto something tight. After a few minutes, massive amounts of dust and debris start to blow into their house. The gusts were so strong that even the walls looked like they would fall apart. The blanket with which they covered themselves almost blew away, if it wasn't for Charlie who was clutching it with all his might. After a while, the dust stopped blowing and everything was back to normal. Charlie and Billy get out of the blanket and make a move towards the abandoned food joint.

The whole suburb was fully covered with dust and sand due to the storm. The mountainous streets looked a bit natural with all the dust covering them. Charlie and Billy, somehow manage to go to their hangout place and meet Tim and Edward there. While everyone was talking about the storm, Randall appears, looking sad and shocked. He exclaims, "Clara is missing!" Randall continues, "Clara was with me when the storm arrived. I closed my eyes as the storm got severe and as soon as I opened my eyes, she was gone! I searched the whole neighbourhood but couldn't find her anywhere."

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Everyone gather up and begin searching for her in the neighborhood. They search for a long time but don't find any evidence pointing to her disappearance. No one knows how or why did she disappear so suddenly and moreover, how was she able to know that people would disappear on their respective ninth days. Everybody comes up with their own explanation about what might have happened to her but none of them provide the necessary conclusion.

This incident disturbs Charlie a lot, not because of what happened but because of the fact that Clara's prediction was true. A lot was going through Charlie's mind as he walks back towards his home. The dark bluish sky slowly started to light up as the moon rose. As he was walking, he stops in the middle of a street and realises that Randall had been living there since eight days. After thinking about what happened before, Charlie couldn't help but imagining Randall's future as well.

After reaching home, Charlie begins to write about his fifth day. He terms it as the most uncanny and extremely phenomenic day so far. Clearly, his surroundings didn't matter to him that much anymore as he is more worried about what might happen to his friends. Hundreds of such thoughts occur in Charlie's mind as he finishes writing his journal and goes to bed.

A teenage Charlie has been roped into the state soccer team, which makes him incredibly happy. Charlie's father meets with an accident and is in a hospital accompanied by him, who takes good care of him. One day, Charlie comes home, overjoyed, as he just received his first paycheck and wishes to take his family to a nice place, for dinner. The speedometer of the car rises higher and higher when Charlie gets a call from his mother. He throws the bottle, in his hand, outside and answers the call, driving.

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The next morning, after waking up, Charlie notices that the, so called floor of his house, was wet and had puddles of water. He somehow skips out of his house and looks at his surroundings. The sky, he looks at, was pretty unusual as it was greyish-black rather than then being yellowish-brown. The half demolished buildings reflected that colour, with a slightly darker tone, onto the broken and cracked ground. It looked like a calamitous storm was about to come.

While looking at various types of people on his way, mainly old aged, Charlie manages to reach the food joint, as he crosses some of the water logged streets. He meets Edward and Tim, who were discussing about the darkness in the day. Charlie, after all the hardwork that he had done to get there, observes a fact about himself. He interrupts Edward, asking him, "You know, now that we've been here for quite a while, did you ever notice why we never get hungry and thirsty and also not get injured and not feel any pain?" Edward replies unwillingly, "Yes. I have observed that fact in my first two days here but I still can't figure it out, given that this place is so mysterious to all of us. Now you tell me. How would you explain the water puddles and the sudden eeriness of today?"

Tim interrupts both by loosely exclaiming, "Hey look, its Randall along with Billy!" Both of them join the guys in their discussion after the greetings are done. In the middle of a long and heated discussion, Randall, who was talking non-stop, suddenly gets up and starts to walk out of the joint, plain faced. Tim, Edward and Charlie get surprised by this behavior of Randall. They call his name to get his attention but Randall doesn't reply. He keeps walking on the road, with fast paced steps. Charlie, Tim and Edward then follow Randall, after asking Billy not to go anywhere. 

Randall goes through the unnamed waterlogged streets, as if he didn't had any destination to reach. The sounds of thunder start to occur and it starts to drizzle slightly, as the three guys follow Randall, calling out to him. After a long time of walking through water, as the rain and thunder get heavier, Randall paces towards what looked like a seaport, due to the incredibly dented containers and fallen off cranes. The sea water started to crash onto the docks, as Randall walks towards the edge of one of them. 

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Edward, Time and Charlie stand behind a pile of rusted rails and peep through a broken container, at Randall, watching him go towards the tide. The water starts to come over the dock as Randall stands still like a statue on the edge of a dock. The three guys get tensed watching Randall and start to shout his name as loud as they can. Few seconds later, Charlie notices a huge wave, riding along the water, coming in the direction of Randall. As soon as Charlie sees this, he runs towards Randall to save him from the gigantic wave but he trips over some metal pipes, hits his head onto a crate and soon, he blackens out.

Edward and Tim watch Charlie open his eyes, after a long time, and help him get back to his senses. Charlie, once he felt better, asks both of them about Randall. Edward, with a frown on his face, says, "Charlie, brother. Both of us ran behind you towards Randall but you blackened out. By the time we reached you, the wave hit the dock with extreme force and pulled away a lot of stuff along with it, including our dear Randall." Charlie gets really upset after hearing this and feels bad about the fact that he had a chance to save Randall from getting pulled along by the wave.

The sky started to turn to the usual yellowish-brown, after the storm ended, as the three friends walk home, drenched. They meet up with Billy where Tim agrees to take Billy with him to his home. As the light started to fail, Edward and Charlie walk home together, talking about what happened earlier in the day. Charlie says, "Edward, after what happened to Randall today and Clara yesterday, I've realised how one feels when they've lost someone very important to them. As the world gets smaller and smaller, I feel that its better to have those people around you with whom you share a special bond. From the time I was found by you, I've shared some of my best moments with you in the short time we've spent and I'm proud to say that you are one of the most wonderful persons I've ever met and I don't want to lose you as well."

Edward after hearing this, smiles at Charlie and gives him a hug as they reach Charlie's home. He writes about his sixth day in his journal and terms it to be more eventful and disastrous than the previous day. As he goes to bed, he thinks about Edward and how supportive he was to him all along. Suddenly, Charlie realises a shocking truth about Edward. The next day was Edward's ninth day in that place. He falls asleep after sometime and begins to dream, as always.

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Prior to the starry night, in then evening, Charlie storms out of the house with his mother, yelling behind him, as he drives away with his car. He stops at a liquor store and buys two bottles of beer and gets going towards the highway, as the moon started to rise. Charlie wakes up on his seventh morning and realises that he didn't dream about his life's moments anymore. Also, the memory fragments of him driving on a highway were getting more and more conclusive as he faintly remembers about what happened that night. 

He goes to the food joint where he meets Tim and Billy. Billy was devastated from the time he got to know about what happened to Randall. He asks them, in a sad tone, "Uncle Tim, are you also going to disappear just like Uncle Randall?" Tim preferred not to answer that question just because he wasn't sure about the truth and was scared, for even he knew that it was Edward's ninth day. Sometime later, Edwards arrives at the joint. Four of them start to talk about people disappearing and try to theorise the phenomena, with the facts they posses.

Tim, at once, turns towards Charlie and says, "Hey Charlie, I forgot to tell you something yesterday. While Randall was being pulled away by the wave, he was muttering something to himself, the whole time. I tried hard to listen what he was muttering but all I heard was the word 'LIFE', before he was gone." Edward confirms this statement, saying, "Yes, I heard Randall saying that as well but I don't know what it meant....." As Edward was about to continue, he abruptly stops talking and puts an expressionless face, with his eyes staring into oblivion. Few moments later, he turns to Charlie and says, "Charlie, why don't we take a stroll around."

Charlie gives a concerning look towards Tim, who nods his head in agreement with Edward's statement. Both of them then leave the joint and walk towards an unknown destination. Edward keeps talking about the dreams he got last night, "You know buddy boy, I think those dreams we get as memory fragments, they mean something. Because I saw that I was surrounded by people, who were crying looking at me as I slowly closed my eyes and woke up from my bed, this morning." Charlie, though being interested in Edward's narrative, was more concerned about his future so he keeps his senses alert, for, he didn't want to repeat his previous mistake.

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It was a very hot day with the sun blazing above their heads. It looked like the dried growth in the surroundings could catch fire at any moment. Yet, no one ever felt thirsty, even after walking in such heat. Edward and Charlie were walking through an abandoned road when Charlie smells something pleasant. He diverts his attention from Edward's talk to tracking the source of the smell. Soon he realises that it was the smell of gasoline, that was coming from a gas station, ahead of them.

As they were walking towards it, Charlie notices something shinning on the hot ground. It didn't take him a long time to figure out that it was gasoline, leaking from the gas station. He looks at Edward and asks him to turn and go the other way but Edward doesn't listen to Charlie's words and keeps talking some random stuff to himself. Charlie tries very hard to persuade Edward to go in a different way, even pulls Edward from behind to stop him but Edward just doesn't stop. As Edward was nearing the gas station, Charlie's tension increases ten fold as he keeps trying his best to somehow make Edward go away from the gas station.

Suddenly, Charlie notices a tiny amount of smoke being generated from some dry grass nearby, due to the extreme heat. To his horror, he sees the gasoline flowing slowly towards the smoking grass. Seeing this, Charlie yells at Edward, who was still busy talking to himself, to turn around and get away from the gasoline. When the gas station was just a few feet away, the leaking gasoline makes contact with the smoking grass and gets ignited. As the fire starts to spread along the line of gasoline, towards the gas station, Charlie pulls Edward, with all his might, from behind but falls under his own force onto the ground. He helplessly watches Edward happily walking past the gas station, as he yells, "AFTERLIFE!" As soon as Edward yells, the fire reaches to the source of the leakage and what follows is a massive explosion in the area which almost blinds Charlie as he covers his face to protect himself.

A shockwave gets caused which lifts almost all objects in the surrounding area, including Charlie, and throws them a long distance away. This all happens in a few seconds ad Charlie, horrifyingly watched Edward being engulfed by the soaring flame and black smoke. Charlie's stunned and helpless expression proved that he wasn't successful in saving Edward, his best friend. Being extremely dejected and depressed, Charlie slowly walks home, with his face, camouflaged with a plain night sky. He quietly picks up his journal, writes down the incidents of his day seven and goes to bed without having any sort of thought, as his mind became devoid of thoughts, after what happened earlier.

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Charlie, that night, dreams about what happened after he yells at his mom when she calls him. He throws the phone, angrily, on the seat beside him. he throws it with such force that the phone's screen gets broken and it falls into the small gap between the seat and the door. Charlie sees this and bends over to that side to find his phone when suddenly he hears a loud honk from behind. Charlie, suddenly wakes up from sleep and realises that it was morning already. His first thought was that the memory fragments he dreams about were getting more and more conclusive as he spends more time in this world. But he was not able to remember what had happened and when did it happen, if it did.

Sometime later, Tim comes by, feeling downhearted, along with Billy, who was confused as to what was happening around him, all the time. Tim tells Charlie, "I heard about what happened to Edward yesterday. I'm sorry about that", he pats on Charlie's shoulder while talking. His tone gets more and more depressing as he continues, "Anyways, I'm here to drop Billy off, as you know that its my ninth day here and its highly likely that something might happen to me as well, just like others. So, I didn't want to leave Billy, stranded alone in these kind of surroundings. Would you take care of him on my behalf?" After Tim completes, Charlie's eyes fill with tears as he goes and hugs Tim tightly, who pats his back, asking him to be strong. Tim then leaves the house and walks down the street, unsure and sad about his future.

Charlie decides to stay home that day, along with Billy, as he preferred to spend some alone time at home rather than going out and reliving the unhappy moments again. Charlie clears his mind of all thoughts and talks with Billy about soccer, school life and video games. As time passes, their discussion shifts to Billy's memory fragments. He says, "These dreams are getting weirder and weirder. I see myself in a beach with my parents one time and I'm in the sea with a lifeguard yelling at me the other time. Also I saw a couple of people swimming towards me as I was going deep into the sea." Charlie says, "Wow! That 'is' weird. I don't know what it means but I'm sure that as you spend more time here, your dreams get more conclusive. A similar thing happened to me." Charlie then tells about how his memory fragments got more and more clear and were proceeding towards a possible end as time flew.

As the sun started so set, Charlie and Billy got to know each other well as they spend the whole day talking. Charlie tells Billy about how he spent his lonely days before he was found by Edward on his third day and how it transformed into a wonderful friendship, how he was trapped by various emotions when he found out about the mysterious ninth day phenomenon. "A roller coaster ride of emotions and adventures." as Charlie described it. He then turns to Billy and says, "Billy! Today is my eighth day here and I don't know what might happen tomorrow. I think that there might not be anyone who can take care of you once I'm gone. So, I need you to be brave and live here all by yourself, without depending upon anyone because that's what big guys, like you, do. They sustain on their own. If you think that I'm just letting you go then you got it all wrong. I don't want you to go through all the pain I've gone through. For that reason, I'm giving you my journal. This is an account of my life since the first day and probably my last day here. So, whenever you feel lonely, just go through it as I will always be with you in the form of my journal." Saying so, Charlie writes about his eighth day and hands the book over to Billy.

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After Billy leaves, Charlie goes to bed, thinking about what might happen to him the next day. Surprisingly, when Charlie wakes up the next morning, he realises that he hadn't dreamt about any memory fragments the previous night. "What a strange start to a strange day!", he murmurs to himself. As he was about to get off his bed, he notices some stones, on his floor, slightly vibrating. Few moments later, the vibrations become a bit larger in magnitude, which could e felt by Charlie as he was trying hard to keep himself still. It doesn't take him a long time to figure out that it was an earthquake, he was experiencing.

The loose and semi-broken bits of various buildings start to tumble and fall off, rubble and debris on the cracked ground shake violently as the quake gets severe minute my minute. Charlie, not knowing what to do, runs down the stairs in his house, to go outside. As he was running across the living room, to reach the front door, he stumbles upon some debris. Exactly at that moment, a small crack on the floor, gets expanded to a huge size. Charlie, after stumbling upon the debris, loses his balance, due to the quake and falls into the darkness of the wide crack that got created. His screams of help, faded into the darkness, along with him.

It looked like he was falling into a deep, dark tunnel which had no end at all. Charlie was rolling in random directions which looked like he messed up a space walk. After a while, Charlie, somehow was able to stop his rolling and swinging, and steadied himself as he continuously fell into the darkness. He looks around to find something but all he was able to see was the colour black, surrounding him. As Charlie was shocked and confused at the consequence of the ninth day, he slowly starts to lose his consciousness and blackens out.

Sometime later, Charlie, as he was trying to gain consciousness, his subconscious mind, starts to open up the facts which eventually lead Charlie, visualize the truth about the end of the world and also, 'THE FINAL MEMORY FRAGMENT'. He is shown all the events that he has been a part of, for eight days, the only difference is, he was being shown all this by his subconscious. Because of that, he was able to relate his eight days with the time before the world ended, so he thought. That was when he realises that he dreamt about his life's memories only for seven days, signifying the seven minutes, the time period in which his subconscious, stayed awake. 

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After he finishes, reliving the most exceptional eight days of his life, he gets visuals of the last memory fragment and what happened before Charlie woke up, alone in his room and the world. As soon as Charlie hears the loud horn from behind, he immediately gets back up and sees that he was speeding towards a big truck ahead. Since he didn't have enough time and distance to apply the brakes, he turns his steering to his right. He somehow manages to dodge then truck but loses control of his car which skids on the highway, creating a screeching noise, and rams into an electric pole. He hits his head onto then steering, very hard and his whole body gets squeezed as the car suffers enough damage to do so. 

After that is done, the last thing he realises was the truth behind the word 'AFTERLIFE'. The word described the destination he was due to arrive after his journey through the dark tunnel, ends. After knowing the truth about few things, Charlie slowly opens his eyes, on the tenth day. He looks at a clear blue sky with birds flying around and trees swaying due to the wind. He felt weightless and notices that he was floating in the air. As he lowers his eyes towards the ground, he sees many tombstones but one particular tombstone made him think of what lies ahead of him. On the tombstone, he sees the name 'Charlie' engraved on it. That was the moment where Charlie realised that the world never ended in the first place, but what ended, was his life, in a car accident.

THE END

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By K Divyanand