When I first woke up, I thought I was alone. Alone, in the desert, not knowing what had had happened to my family, or the city, not the entire state of California. Was I even IN California anymore? All I remembered was the demolition, it played a loop through my head. Lucia, her, always her, that girl I love. Her with me, in that abandoned amusement park. Her beside the ferris wheel, looking up at it, her form so small, so insignificant against the towering wheel. And when she turned back to me, there were tears in her eyes, just like the tears she got when we would watch the stars. And then the bombs, out of nowhere. Fire like I'd never imagined it could be, all around us. In the noise I lost her, yet she still held tight to my hand, and everything was white. The more I woke up, the more I remembered. The last minutes, flying through the white... I swear her hand was still in mine, it was so vivid. And then I saw her body. She had always told me how little she'd felt. Why she cried at the stars, and the ferris wheel, the rain. And that's all I could think of as I stared down at her lifeless shell next to me, her hand still in mine, still warm. So small and beautiful... It's funny how she'd felt so insignificant, so tiny, and yet seeing that soft hair spread out on the sand, the icy blue eyes open like birds wings to the sky; Lucia in death weighed on me more than the heaviest burden ever could. Turning away from her, I looked out at the desert. The sun was setting, orange fingertips sliding through thick black smoke on the horizon. I swear I could hear her laughing, her sighing. The ghost of her voice kept me company as I let myself follow her to wherever she had gone. I sat with her body for days, letting the sun abuse us both. My body was giving up, my heart already had. And on the last night, my fingers still entangled in hers, I lay there and looked at the stars. Their glittering lights spread out to spell a thousand bitter stories, but the only word that I could read were two:
THE END.