“It is something I doubt I’ll ever get used to,” I think while I pad slowly through the broken glass bottles and soggy newspapers which litter the pavement. Stale gusts of air from the vents on the sides of the concrete wall power through the thick pollution, brushing my hair out from behind my ear. I cut it short last month, shoulder length, to keep it out to my face when running. I miss my long hair. It is 4am. The street is deserted ; totally oblivious to the destruction going on around it. I hate this street purely because I used to like it so much. As a family we would walk through the roadside stalls in the mornings on the way to church. Freshly baked bread would waft delicious fumes in the air, making our mouths water. We would beg until mum would buy a loaf. I miss that oblivious pleasure. I was so ignorant of my privilege. How unaware we were of the future was bliss. Every day was leading on to another, life was a sure thing. Now, only God knows wether I will even live till tomorrow. My religion went out the window when this all happened, if there was a God this would never have happened, people wouldn’t have died and my family would still be here. The doctors told us this would save us, that the vaccine would protect us. Now even they are dead. God who?

It used to be a city, now, an empty swimming pool littered with collections of buildings and broken pavements. Lack of movement, of any viable signs of life have caused the walls to grow tired and sullen. Entire buildings slouching into a depression. Overhead, a dense fog surrounds the towering apartment buildings, storming through the windows and engulfing any airspace left. My lungs slow to an unbearable pace as I hold my breath the air grows thicker around me, I can practically feel my heart beating out of my head. Carbon dioxide building up, filling all the crevices in my airway. i let out a breath, a cloud of mist follows, its cold tonight. My eyes devour everything around me contrasting it to what it used to be. The corner dairy, the library, my school even, made prime real-estate for ghosts. I faintly smell stale sewerage and the mustiness of unattended front yards. The oder slips through the wind unrestrained. Nothing smells good anymore. In the dim light given off by the moon, puddles implode into glistening droplets under my footsteps. An illusionary essence of change looms over an unchanging city; cold and untouched, an ornament in the trophy case of the worlds many tragedies.

I think back on my old life when I’m most alone, in the shadows. And although I hate the dark, I am the safest I have been all week, by myself here in the caliginous alleyway. I blend in with the presence of darkness, flowing with the gusts of warm city air that gyrate through empty earth space up to the vault of heaven. The squelch of water in my shoes follows me like a silhouette. Every step, its there. My fingernail scrapes on the concrete side of the gutter as I go to grab what looks like a piece of clothing, a top maybe. After holding it up I see that it is stained and holy. Crumbled up, I toss it back into the drain, it wasn’t my size anyway. A matter of minutes go by while I briskly blow through the streets like a breeze with no trace of me left behind. If I was caught I would be experimented on, butchered for the sake of “science”. What bull***t! They want to know why I am alive, why I wasn’t wiped out by the Cleanse.

Back arched and eyes wide, I survey the area before standing up again. A sharp ache shoots up the nerves in my lower leg from the glass poking through the holes in my shoes. But that pain is the least of my worries. A light flashes past my feet, a guards flash light. I bolt into a sprint. The moment I realised I wasn’t going to die I ran, and until now, I haven’t looked back.

I have been alone for 366 days. Exactly a year and one day ago I lost everything.