The Interview

20 years had passed since the human world died, rose, then died again. Nature had begun to reclaim the sterile city landscapes sculpted by man. Unmaintained streets yielded to weeds, then grass and other flora spread until there was more crack than asphalt. Trees outgrew their concrete prisons, lifting sidewalks. Shattered shopfronts yawned with mossy teeth, overgrown metal shelves with their contents long expired. Skyscrapers leaned at odd angles, some supported by their sturdier brethren.

A single man walked the barren streets of the once-grand city.

Loneliness is a poison. It rots the mind. The absence of companionship and human interaction can drive one to insanity as surely as physical torture or harsh chemicals. Imagination runs wild, conjuring up voices, hallucinations, even companions.

So, as he picked his way down the street, he chatted comfortably with Nancy from channel 9.

"How did you survive the first attack?" she asked, pointing a shimmering microphone in his direction.

"I didn't. Or rather, I wasn't near it."

She looked quizzically at him. "What do you mean? 90% of the population was instantly infected regardless of location, and nobody survived more than a month after."

"I was in orbit, the original ISS. When we received orders to immediately cease operations and return to Earth, I was told to remain behind for another month until the replacement crew arrived. Standard protocol."

He sighed, eying several rusted cars blocking his passage down the street. "The EMP knocked pretty much everything out soon after. I got life support back up and running pretty quickly, but the radios were all shot. At that point, my choices were to either take the capsule back down or bide my time. Plenty of food and water, so I waited."

The man spotted an overgrown subway entrance. With luck, there would be a matching exit on the other side of the impassable street. The steps dripped with moisture, and as he made his way down, the man pushed aside dangling roots which had found their way past the ceiling tiles in several places.

Even in the subway, roots covered everything. A rusting train car sat in the middle of the station, and the steady beat of water dripping made its way to him from deeper in the tunnels.

Hopping the broken turnstile, the man paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. The station had two tracks, with mirrored exits as he'd hoped. Both tracks were flooded with stagnant water, and he swore under his breath at the thought of wading through it.

As he began looking for something that would allow him to cross the second set of flooded tracks, something made him pause.

He turned to Nancy, eyes piercing in the gloom. Like his other hallucinations, her form didn't follow physical laws. She stood, visible as if in the noonday sun, and her clothes shifted in a breeze he could not feel. The thin skin of water on the floor, undisturbed by her presence, reflected her ethereal glow.

Reflected. Hallucinations do not project light.

He thought back on their conversation. From what he had been able to gather, the infection which had rendered nearly everyone on Earth mindless cannibals before slowly succumbing to the elements had occurred instantaneously, as she said, and human civilization's collapse had followed soon after. He had no way of knowing exactly how many people were infected though. Strange as it was, that wasn't the most important thing he recalled from their conversation.

The man selected his next words with care. "What do you mean, the first attack?"