3 Months Post-Apocalypse…
Neo sat at his usual spot at the top of a building, overlooking the city where he'd grown up. The only sound was the constant, faint crunch of sour lemon candy between his teeth. It had become an obsession at this point—he'd raided store after store, and now had stacks of the stuff piled high in his apartment.
His pitch-black hair waved freely in the wind. His face was a mask of stillness, and his eyes were dead calm.
He'd done everything he could think of since the world vanished. Phones, internet, radios—all dead. He'd driven to nearby cities, honked horns, lit signal fires, shouted until his voice gave out. Nothing. No answer. He'd stopped trying just three days ago.
"Curtis would've liked this," he murmured to the empty sky. "Just the two of us and all the sour candy in the world… heh." His laugh was dry, self-mocking. Talking to himself had become a habit—a way to scrape back some echo of a human voice.
The only thing that kept him from completely unraveling—or maybe the thing that frustrated him most—was what he called *the chill*. Every time he teetered on the edge of breaking down, or felt the suffocating weight of the silence pressing in, it would wash over him: a cold clarity from the crown of his head downward, steadying his breath, numbing his panic, forcing him back into an unnerving calm.
At first, it enraged him. Who would want to stay sane in a world like this? He'd even tried… to stop living. Out of sheer frustration. But he couldn't even sustain despair—the chill intervened every time, cooling his desperation like water over a flame. It felt like mockery. Like some unseen force was toying with him, insisting he endure.
He tossed his last piece of candy into his mouth, stood up, and suddenly screamed into the wind.
"AARGGGHHHH—ahhh!!!!"
And there it was. Like a frustrating toothache spreading through his skull. The chill.
"Dammit!" he hissed. It wouldn't even let him scream properly.
Turning on his heel, he walked back down the building, returning to the numb routine of scavenging and pointless searching.
---
Another 5 months passed.
He was back on the rooftop. His hair was longer, his eyes darker, shadows pooling beneath them. The last five months had been spent reading himself hollow.
"I think that was the last comic store," he said to no one. "Still nothing on green lights…" If anyone were listening, they'd think he'd lost it. But maybe, just maybe, he had.
He'd decided, a while back, to research what happened eight months ago. His first stop was the public library. He'd fallen asleep on three different books within an hour. They were either too complicated or painfully boring. With no one to guide him, he'd wandered, hitting stores for anything that could hold his attention or at least keep the boredom away.
That's when he found it—a comic book store.
It was almost like a revelation. He could actually read these. He didn't fall asleep. He devoured them—comics, manga, web comics, anything with pictures and dialogue and worlds that made sense in their own broken ways. He'd cleaned out one store, then another, reading like a man starving. He called it research. It felt like survival.
"Hmmm… right. I'll be nineteen in a month," he muttered, a faint, broken smile touching his lips. "Definitely not getting a cake this year… heh."
The sound of his own laughter was strange in the stillness. "Maybe I could bake one myself. Yeah. That sounds… interesting."
He pulled himself up from his spot and headed straight home.
Stepping inside, the emptiness still brought a sharp, instant ache to his chest. He kept the apartment painfully clean—every surface wiped, every item in place. Sometimes he dreamt of his mom walking back in, scolding him for the mess that wasn't there.
He walked into the kitchen, pulled a baking guide from a neat stack on the counter, and opened it. He had a month to learn how to bake a cake.
It was something to do at least.
-------------------
"Okay, that's it".
"Heh… I actually did it. Looks good at least," Neo said with a tired smile, staring at the cake he'd finally managed to bake after so many tries. The first two weeks had been a cycle of frustration—even with the guide, he couldn't recreate the taste of his mother's cake.
After his father died, she'd made birthdays a ritual: cake, a silly hat, singing. He used to cringe. Now, he missed it all so much.
"I miss them, dammit," he whispered.
His eyes dropped to the cake. Suddenly, anger flashed through him—hot and sharp. He swiped a hand across the table, sending the cake flipping to the floor before the chill could even begin to soothe him.
"Why me? Why?" he asked the empty room, voice low and cracked.
After a long silence, he finally stood up, fetched a pack of sour candy from his room, and headed to his usual spot on the roof. He couldn't bear the silence of the apartment anymore. Every corner held a memory that made staying indoors too difficult.
Thirty minutes later, the candy was gone. His mind felt clearer, almost peaceful. He remembered the mess he'd left at home. "Better go clean that up," he muttered to himself.
As he stood, his balance suddenly wavered. He stumbled, catching himself just before face-planting onto the concrete.
"What's thi— Oh."
His eyes caught sight of his legs. They were dissolving, fading into soft, green motes of light—like fireflies rising from his own skin.
"Hahahahha... hah"
A hysterical laugh burst out of him. He let himself fall onto his back, staring up at the sky as the feeling spread, warmth and numbness in equal measure. There was no pain. And the chill, ever-present, wouldn't let him panic anyway.
"Finally," he breathed, a genuine smile touching his lips as he closed his eyes.
His eyes caught sight of his legs.
They were dissolving, fading into the same soft, green motes that had taken his family. A hysterical laugh burst out of him. "Finally."
But as the warmth spread to his chest, the 'chill' erupted—to calm him, still he paid no attention to it.