[AGttA] 2.1: Loneliness

Continued from chapter 2.0, here.
Click here to read the entire story from the beginning.

Axiom 2: Gather supplies.

Journal, it's been close to a week now.  I know this, because I found a calendar covered in cute little pictures of kitties, and I've been crossing off the days on it.  Six crossed off days means that it's been almost a week.

I'm not sure what I'll do when I run past the end of December.  I don't think they're printing more calendars any longer.

Also, have I mentioned how much I hate eating beans?
Maybe I should go back and cross that out.  Despite my complaint about beans, I've got a lot of food built up.  In fact, my supplies situation is pretty amazing, considering that this is the End of the World and all, capital letters very much intended.

For the Apocalypse, I'm having a pretty good time of things.

What have I done so far?  I've caught up on my reading, finally getting through that absolutely huge fantasy series that I've been wanting to read forever.  Good lord, those twists!  I was on the edge of my seat with excitement.

I've also caught up on all my sleep debt, which is nice.  I don't need to wake up each morning to head off to my crappy job, given that my boss, coworkers, and all of my clients all appear to be dead.

I might erase that.  Dead doesn't seem to be quite the right word.  I haven't stumbled upon a bunch of dead bodies, after all.  Everyone just seems to be...

...missing.

I try not to think about that too much.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm rich?  I'm not talking about rich in knowledge or anything like that, either.  No, I'm freaking loaded!  I found a bank, and brought a sledgehammer along with me.  It took a couple of hours of pounding locks off of drawers, but I emptied out the contents.  I literally carried a sack stuffed full of money back with me!  I've always wanted to cover my bed in money and just roll around in it, and now I can do it!

To tell the truth, it just kind of feels scratchy.  And I picked up a couple of paper cuts in places that I'd rather not mention, even on paper.

Still, if I encounter a vending machine that still has power, I'll be able to live like a junk food king.  And if everyone suddenly reappears back on Earth, as if they'd never left, I'll be able to buy a lot of stuff before they realize how I acquired my ill-gotten gains.

I sometimes get stuck laying awake at night, thinking about how much I wish that everyone would just reappear like that, that things would snap back to normal.  At first, this felt like a dream come true, albeit in a weird, twisted way - I had as much time to do whatever I wanted!  Now, however, I'm getting more and more lonely by the day.

Journal, just this morning, I actually considered stuffing some of my clothing with other clothes and making a buddy to talk to!  Seriously, this loneliness is killer.

I wonder if I could find a volleyball in one of the nearby shops and draw a face on it.

Because of my growing alienation, I've been spending more time recently sitting up on the roof.  I figured out how to get up there, and hauled a ladder over here from the nearby home repair store.  Since most of the surrounding buildings have been reduced down to little more than piles of rubble, I've got a pretty good view.  I brought a pair of binoculars up there, and I'll scan around and look for any signs of life.

I haven't seen any other humans - but I have seen a couple other angels, floating along.  I'd call it flying, but they're not really flying - they flap their wings occasionally, but they just seem to sort of stay up in the air on their own.

They look like they're searching for something, I think.  They keep their eyes down, sweeping back and forth.

Whenever I see one getting too close, I duck down to my little base, turn off all my lights, and wait.  I don't know if they're searching for me, but I don't want to find out by bumping into one of them.

I especially don't want to think about using the gun that I liberated.

That's right, journal, I've got a gun.  I even took it outside and spent a couple hours plinking away at cans, getting a handle on how to aim the thing, reload it, and actually hit whatever I'm pointing it towards.  I'm not a crack shot, but it's a shotgun - it seems to hit just about everything in front of the barrel.

I don't know if shotguns work on angels, but I might have to find out at some point in the future.

I do know, however, that shotguns work on everyday humans like me.

That's a rather black thought, but I can't seem to shake it as of late.  Journal, I hope something changes soon - I don't know how much more of this I can take.

To be continued...