They woke up early to watch the world end together. Ethan put his hands on Sophie’s shoulders and shook her awake from where she was sleeping propped up against the bunker wall. She opened her eyes without a sound, as if she had been waiting for him. She had. She’d been expecting this. Ethan’s skin and hair were tinted red under the soft glow of the emergency signs as he offered her a hand and hoisted her to her feet. Sophie opened the thin blanket draped around her shoulders to him, and he moved into its warmth graciously. Concrete became unimaginably cold at night.


They walked past the rows of sleeping fugitives, and Ethan led them up the stairs to the surface. Sophie knew the way well but chose to be passive in such sleepy, early hours. She shuffled clumsily beside him, knocking into his side as they climbed the stairs, half because she couldn’t be bothered to carry herself with poise anymore and half because that was just what friends do. He reciprocated with one hand steadying himself on the banister and the other brushing against hers every other step.


It was Sophie who stepped forward to work at the submarine-style hatch sealing the bunker off from the world. She took her time, and after a moment the door swung open and the ragtag pair slipped out into the dry heat of dawn. The land around them was desolate and flattened from war. Buildings had crumbled, vegetation had died. Only the public bomb shelter remained intact.

The planes had retreated from their bomb-stricken homeland, the promise of what they would bring when they returned hanging heavy in the air. The collective “They” of the colony had sensed the change in the air and surrendered themselves to their fate. Eventually, they slunk back into the bunker to spend their last days in a dark, damp hole with a hundred other strangers and little privacy. To be fair, Sophie and Ethan had resigned themselves to this fate, too. There wasn’t anything that could really be done about it, but they would be damned if they spent feasibly the last day of their lives in the dark.

They decided two nights ago that on the last day they’d watch the sun rise over the horizon, climb across the afternoon sky, set and give way to stars, however long it took for the sky to bend and collapse around them. For why should they draw their last breaths in the cold dampness of the bunker? Everyone knew that the radiation would penetrate miles down into the earth’s crust.

Tomorrow was the final day. Last night they could feel it. They felt it in the unexplainable turning of their gut, in the pressure that pressed outwards against their eyelids, and the restlessness in their bones. Sophie and Ethan had sat and looked at each other, not a word spoken between them as they prepared for sleep, and they knew. Everyone knew. There hadn’t been a radio broadcast telling them of their fate, no one saw planes on the horizon, there were no messengers pounding on the door of their cement prison screeching about the apocalypse. They just knew. A primal instinct resurfaced, perhaps, but in any case they knew.

“You know how you can tell when a war’s over?” Sophie murmured softly to the sky. There was a hint of dry humor in her voice, dry like the flash sandstorms that ravaged the land and dry like the cracking, parched earth.

Ethan hummed in response, prompting her to continue.

“They only send one plane,” Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, staring at something miles away.

For days everyone kept an eye on the sky, waiting to see the lone plane flying toward them through the twilight. If there was anything the war had taught them, it was the destructive properties of bombs. It was a lose-lose situation of fear multiplying fear. To see a solitary plane was the harbinger of the end. But to see clear horizons meant another day festering in a pit, waiting. Sophie wasn’t sure what she would feel when she finally saw it. Fear? Relief? To Ethan, history class seemed like it had happened a thousand lifetimes ago, but he found just how easy it was to remember the gruesome details of Hiroshima. He closed his eyes last night and a chorus of children chanting “Duck and Cover” rang through his head.

“You know,” Ethan mused, appreciating the way the sun cast its pink and orange hues across the sky, “Not everyone is going to die. Not immediately, at least. If they drop the bomb off far enough away we could make it.” Sophie was shaking her head beside him.

“I thought you said you weren’t afraid to die.”

Ethan didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure anymore.

“It doesn’t mean I want to,” he whispered at last, the wind picking up and sweeping his words away. He paused, swallowing hard as a realization dawned upon him, “Do you want to?” Sophie scuffled her feet, kicking up clouds of dust. She shrugged noncommittally.

“There’s nothing left out there for us,” She said, as if it was the most casual thing to be talking about. Her face was calm, and it troubled him. Hearing anyone talk about the futility of life was depressing, but hearing that sort of thing from your closest friend only made it infinitely worse.

“That’s not true,” he urged, surprising her. Sophie turned to look to him, inquisitively. “There has to be something. The world's so big," he went on, feeling his words get stuck in his throat, suddenly overcome with emotions, "And we haven't seen any of it."

Sophie heard how his voice started to shake and she felt a pang of guilt in her heart. She'd never meant to upset him. She bit her lip and turned back to the sunrise. Ethan sniffed quietly beside her, and Sophie reached out and brushed her fingers over his knuckles. He didn't look at her, but his hand relaxed under her touch and he reached out to take her palm in his.

They stood there watching the sky for a long time, the sun climbing slowly higher. They didn't move, or talk, or even think, they just waited and appreciated the other's comforting presence. They had known each other for years now, and after so many of their friends and family had died, they only thing they had left in the world was each other.

Sophie squeezed Ethan’s hand, and when he looked over to her she was staring at the horizon line, a small, sad smile on her lips. Ethan closed his eyes and heaved a shuddering sigh. He didn’t need to follow her gaze to know what she was looking at. Sophie moved a little closer to him and swung their hands, idly. Ethan glanced at the sky and his fears were confirmed. He looked away quickly, feeling sick. He wondered if they would feel anything when the bomb struck or if they’d just be gone.

“Ethan.”

“Yeah, Sophie?”

She was weeping silently now, the reality finally hitting her, but smiling nonetheless. She’d resigned to her fate a while ago, said she’d meet death with grace and wouldn’t be afraid. Apparently talk was cheap.

“Don’t let go.” she whispered, gripping his hand tighter. Ethan struggled to fight back tears of his own. He took a breath and nodded.

“I won’t.”