End of the World | Teen Ink

End of the World

February 28, 2020
By Anonymous

Ethan's eyes open suddenly, he wakes up in his bed sleepily. Ethan gets out of bed in his shorts his legs a little weak from sleeping. He grabs his phone, gets dressed and walks downstairs. He doesn't hear anyone at all. “That's weird,” he thinks it's 7:15 a.m., my sisters should be awake by now. I walk into my oldest sister's room and she's not there either, and he knocks on his mother's door. His mother doesn't answer, he knocks again and she still doesn't answer. Ethan starts to get worried and opens her door walking in looking at her bed to see if she's there. His mother is nowhere to be seen. 

“Mom?” he asks. There's no answer, he starts to worry even more. He runs into his sister's room bursting through the door. She's not there either. 

“Where is everyone?” he yells. One of his three dogs comes running to him and jumps up to him. 

“Hey Jacey… do you know where everyone is?” he asks, not expecting a response. He whistles for her to follow him as he walks downstairs, Jacey follows him downstairs and another one of his dogs Murphy is at the bottom of the stairs. Murphy is a big white curly-haired dog, Ethan walks to the front door and opens it. He whistles and says 

“Come on, dogs, let's go outside.” All of his dogs run outside. He realizes that the power isn't working and starts to freak out. 

“For real where is everyone and stop messing around I'm getting scared!” He yells through the house. There's still no response,  he runs outside to where all of his dogs are and waits in the backyard with them for someone to come out. He waited for a good 5 minutes and no one comes out still. 

“C-c-come on dogs let's go inside,” He says nervously. He starts to worry everyone really is gone. He and his dogs walk inside and he grabs a knife from out of the kitchen and slowly walks through the house doing a quick search through all the rooms and all the closets. He finds nothing, nothing at all. He realizes that he doesn't hear any outside noise other than his dogs, no cars, and no people. He walks outside and down the street still holding the knife, when he gets to the stop sign he stops and yells 

“Hello is anyone out there! Anyone...at all.” He takes one more step into the street then stops turning around walking back to his house. He gets to his house opening the door really scared and freaked out. He walks into his kitchen putting the knife down on the counter. 

“Where are you guys!” He yells getting frustrated. He runs through the house checking every possible hiding spot there is. He sits down on the couch and pets his dogs. He sits in silence hoping that if he just closes his eyes everyone will come back. After about two minutes of him sitting there, he stands up and walks up to his room. He grabs a baseball bat and a baseball helmet his grandpa gave him when he was only three. He goes back downstairs to the front door opening in walking out and closing the door behind him. He starts walking down the street again once getting to the stop sign he makes a right toward the high school. Ethan lives right next to most of the school, but all of them are only less than 10 minutes away. He walked to the high school first looking around to see anyone, he found nobody. Next, he walks to Wayne trail, the elementary school from fourth to fifth grade. He walks up to the main entrance. He pulls on the door, it doesn't open. He looks through the glass doors and doesn't see much, he takes the baseball in his hands and breaks the window open walking into the building. 

He yells down the hallway, “Hello is anyone here!” He only hears his own echo. He starts walking down the hallway his bat ready to swing in case anything pops out at him. 

“Where is everyone!” he yells down the hallway as he walks. He eventually searches the whole school not finding anyone there at all. He walks back outside into the school parking lot, he starts walking towards the middle school. The road that leads to his school is usually pretty busy but there is no one is there like everything else. When he finally gets to his school the doors there are locked as well so he breaks through the window here and walks into the building. He walks down the hallway hoping to find someone, as he's walking down the hallway he hears glass break on the other side of the school. Ethan has never been the kind of person to believe in ghosts but his first thought when he heard that noise was ghosts. He gets his bat ready to swing again hearing footsteps walk down the hallway slowly when he hears them get close without looking at what he's swinging at he jumps around the corner swinging that bat and hits someone right in the head and knocking them to the ground. 

“OW! THAT HURT!” yells the person Ethan hit. “Blake?” he asks tilting his head sideways. “Ya it's me or at least I think so you just hit me in the head with a baseball bat,” Blake says in a frustrated tone. Ethan pulls blake back up to his feet and they start walking down the hallway.

FLASHBACK: Blake's morning

 


Blake wakes up in his bed like he does every day, he rolls over to his side grabbing his phone and turning it on, But his phone doesnt turn on. He puts his phone down putting it on the charger and walks downstairs into his living room. He walks into the kitchen and opens a cabinet grabbing poptarts and setting them on the counter. No one is at home when he wakes up so it's just a regular day for him. He takes out the toaster and plugs it into the wall, Blake puts his poptarts into the toaster and pushes the lever down, but it doesn't stay down, he pushes it down again, again and again, and it doesn't work. “Oh great the power must be out,” he thinks. He opens his poptarts and eats them cold which he doesn't enjoy as much as he would if they were warm. He walks back upstairs, and he gets dressed and ready for school today. Blakes lives close enough to the middle school to walk but it is a thirty minute walk lazy so he takes the bus. He walks down to his bus stop with his backpack and waits for his bus. After waiting about 5 minutes he starts to wonder where the bus is. He walks down the road a little bit looking for his bus and he still doesn't see it or anyone.

“NO!” he yells thinking he missed the bus. Blake starts running to school, when he finally gets there he tries to open the doors but they are locked. 

“What?” he asks himself. He looks through the glass to see if anyone is there. The hallways are empty no one's there, he knocks on the glass and still sees no one. Was there no school today that thinks to himself? He heard glass break on the other side of the building and it makes him jump, so he picks up a rock and breaks through the glass as well, and walks into the building.


You know the rest of it, now Ethan and Blake are together and they both are trying to figure out what's going on and why there isn't anyone around or why the electricity isn't working. 

“Okay so you woke up this morning and no one was home except your dogs right?” Blakes asks Ethan. 

“Exactly I woke up and there was no one there which isn't normal for me. I know your parents aren't home in the morning but mine usually are,” Ethan says. 

“Well if me and you are still here, that means there has to be more people right?” Blake asks. 

“Right there must be more people around if we were here, so we just have to find them. Ethan says looking confident. 

“We need to set up a camp somewhere where we both go at the end of the day so we don't get split up.” Blake says. Ethan thinks for a moment. 

“Well my house is pretty close and it's pretty big. It has four bedrooms and a basement so maybe we can do my house.” Ethan suggests. 

“Well your house is right by the high school, isn't it? Maybe other kids will go there and find them.” Blakes says. 

“Okay so my house it is, but before we go let's set up signs that way in case anyone shows up here they'll know where to go.” Ethan says. They spend about an hour putting up signs that say 

“THERE ARE MORE DON'T GIVE UP! Go to high school and on Cherry Road the third house down is where we are located” 

“Great, now if anyone shows up to the school they'll know where they need to go,” Blakes says as Ethan and blake start walking back to Ethan's house. When they get there Ethan's dogs go kind of crazy and jump all over Blake. Once they settled down and got used to him being there Blake and Ethan sat down not knowing what to do. It was about 3 pm and they didn't really know what they should do their parents and everyone they knew and loved were gone, and they had no clue where they were. 

“We should probably put posters up at the other schools too.” Blake says breaking the awkward silence. 


“Yeah, you're probably right… I just don't like how no one is around except me and you. I want to know where my family went.” Ethan says sounding a bit upset. 

“I get, but we have to keep moving on. If there are other people out there we need to find them and we need to stick together. If we were the last people on earth then… we should all be one big family.” Blake says and stands up and stretches. 

“Come on, let's split up you go to Fort Miami I'll go to Fairfield,” Blake says. 

“Are you sure you want to walk all the way to fairfield?” Ethan asks. 

“Who said anything about walking?” Blake asks with a mischievous smile on his face. Ethan already knowing somethings up says 

“Oh no, what are you thinking?” Ethan asks Blake.

 Blake laughs. “Where are your parents' car keys?” Blake asks. Ethan gets a huge grin on his face as he runs into the kitchen to the rack where his parents keep their keys. He grabs his mother's keys. 

“They're right here,” Ethan says with a smile. 

“Then what are we waiting for?” Blakes asks. The two boys basically run outside to his mother's red Honda, Ethan unlocks the car and gets in the driver's seat. 

“Nope, Im driving. I have to go further, I'll just drop you off,” Blake says. Ethan knows he's right and moves to the passenger side of the car. Blake gets into the front seat of the car and starts the car with a huge smile on his face. 

“Do you know how to drive a car?” Ethan asks nervously. 

“I’ll learn soon enough!” Blake yells as he puts the car in reverse and pulls out of the driveway slowly trying not to hit the curb. He turns slowly getting the hang of it, he drives down the street Fort Miami, dropping Ethan off.


Blake continues to drive to Fairfield, once he gets to the school he gets out of the car and tries to open the door, but like all the other schools the doors are locked so he breaks through another window and starts putting up posters to trys to look for more people. He hears the scruff of someone's shoe on the tiled floor. 

“Hello!” he yells. There's no response so he goes to investigate without a weapon to protect himself. He walks down the hallway slowly not wanting to make too much noise when he turns the corner he gets punched in the face. 

“OW! COME ON, AGAIN?!” he yells frustrated. “Why is everyone so paranoid!” he yells. 

“S-sorry I didn't know it was another person.” a female voice says. “

What?” Blake looks at who said that. It's Anaya, another one of his best friends. “What are the odds of two out of three of my best friends are still here?” Blake and anaya laugh. 

“Wait, who else is still alive?” Anaya asks 

“Ethan is still alive, but have you seen Noah?” Blake asks 

“No, I haven't, but let's be honest, if we were looking for Noah, why would you go to school?” Anaya says. 

“Yeah that's a fair point, but have you seen anyone else around?” Blake asks. 

“Listen, Blake, I woke up an hour ago and I don't want to keep answering these questions, okay? So, let's just go wherever Ethan is and go from there, sound good? Good.” Anaya says. 

“Okay but you don't have to be so mean about it,” Blake says innocently. 

“Blake, I don't think you understand this. My family is gone, they vanished into thin air, okay? They just left. So, sorry if I'm a little mean, I'm just upset,” Anaya says. 

“Yeah, I know, but all of our families are gone, too. It's not just you," Blake says. Anaya doesn't respond and walks out of the building. 

“Are you coming or not?” Anaya asks blake. Blake runs after her and when they get outside, Anaya sees the car. 

“How did that get there?” she asks confused. “Oh, yeah, we kinda stole Ethan’s mom’s car, but it was gonna be the car he uses when he turns sixteen so I don't think she'll need it if she's still alive.” Blake says as he gets into the car. Anaya gets into the passenger side of the car.

“Are you sure you know how to drive?” She asks him nervously. “With no other cars on the road, it's actually pretty easy.” Blake says as he starts driving them to Fort Miami. Neither of them talk much on the way there. Blake wanted to say something but knew he shouldn't, so he stayed quiet until they got there. Once they got to the school, Blake honks the horn twice and waits for Ethan to come out. When Ethan gets out he has a bunch of paper and coloring supplies. He opens the backseat door and puts it in there and sees anaya. 

“Oh, awesome, you found Anaya,” he says as he gets into the backseat of the car. “Anaya, where were you when Blake found you?” Ethan asks Anaya. 

“I was at Fairfield looking for my little sister, hoping she would be there… sadly she wasn't,” Anaya says. No one talks for a few minutes and when they get about halfway there a deer jumps in front of the car. Blake slams on the breaks just before hitting it and everyone screams. Right after the deer goes by, a wolf follows it, chasing it down. 

“Woah, where did they come from?” Ethan says looking out the window watching them go by. “I have no clue,” Blake says as he starts driving again a bit slower now. 

“Wait. A wolf and a deer just come out of nowhere after the entire world disappears, except for us? This sounds a lot like a movie I watched one time,” Anaya says suspiciously. They get out of the car once they get back to Ethan's house. 

“What happened at the end of the movie?” Ethan asks. 

“Well, the world ended and it sorta went back to like Indian style type stuff like before electricity,” Anaya says. 

“Well, whatever happens, we can make it through together-” Blake walks into the house and sees noah another one of these best friends eating a bag of chips in the kitchen. 

“WHAT!?” Ethan yells. 

“What? I saw your guys' signs,” Noah said innocently. They all stand there with their mouths open looking at their best friend eating chips in Ethan's kitchen. 

“Are you guys just gonna keep standing there or are you gonna say something?” Noah asks them all. They all walk in and sit on the couch. 

“Okay, Noah you go first, tell us what happens when you first wake up," Ethan says to Noah.



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