The Lost Chronicles Of Pangea: Apocalypse

One David

David brought the hover bike to a stop at what looked like an abandoned gas station. It was covered in heavy layers of dust and traces of damage could be seen in almost every notable corner. The past twelve hours has been quite stressful for David, Lilith alternatively slept and woke up more times than he could count during their journey here. But this journey has been anything but easy.

Somehow communications was still being jammed or blocked, he could not reach his father or sister, or even his mother and brother. While David was immensely worried about them, he had to worry about his own survival for the time being. But the journey to this gas station almost made it seem like that was an impossible goal.

On their way here, they were not attacked by any beast or monster, but somehow the soldiers were still tracking them. David has had to drive past, and over numerous check points that had soldiers waiting with orders to capture or kill on sight. Their immediate response after the incident with the car was actually commendable, but David was beginning to hate the sight of uniforms with the amount of bullets he has had to dodge in the previous ten hours.

But thankfully the day had come to an end, and David was sure that the soldier themselves knew that it would be incredibly stupid to chase after someone at night. However that did not mean that they were out of danger, because with the sun going down the world becomes the play ground of beasts and monsters.

David made his way into the store behind the gas station, it was completely ransacked and smashed to pieces, a foul stench permeated the air and David was able to see dried stains of blood on quite a few surface areas of the store. It was impossible for one person to have that amount of blood and spread it every where in the store, there had to have been multiple people who have been killed here.

The windows and doors of the place was in shambles and most of its shelves were leaning on the ground or actually in pieces. David held his gun up as he looked around more carefully, there were traces of recent activity in the store, he was not sure how long ago the paw prints littered on the dusty floor was made, but David was sure it was quite recent.

He went deeper into the store, moving towards the back where their storage was kept, but with every step he took the stench In the air got thicker almost to the point of being unbearable. David tried to breath through his mouth, it that seemed to make it a whole lot worse, he needed both hands to hold his gun, so he had no choice but to brave the nauseating smell. Eventually David got to the storage room and pushed the door open. The blast of hot air that flew out had an even thicker stench that David was forced to relieve his stomach of its contents in a rather pitiful manner.

After a few rounds of dry heaving David was able to look up, the room was dark and David could hear tiny movements within it, almost as if someone was trying to hide. David dared not jump into conclusions, because doing that would relieve him of his life faster than he could say biscuits.

“Hello!........is there anyone in here.”

Almost as soon as he finished asking the question it dawned on David that he had done something incredibly stupid. The issue of someone being in the dark storage room aside, what if it was a monster or something worse. David raised his gun higher in alarm and set his body in the right direction, if it comes down to it, he wanted to be able to make a run for it without any obstructions. As luck would have it, the light switch to the storage room was outside the room, however when David flipped the switch he couldn’t help but exclaim in a startled voice.

“Yeeaaaahhhh!!”. The fact that his screaming was almost high pitched enough to be called screeching, the sight in front of him was a lot worse than his voice. David was so shocked that he rapidly moved back and fell on his ass in shock and fright. There was a mountain of corpses pilled and packed into the storage like boxes of stored condiments waiting to be sold.

Those bodies were most definitely human, and they were all in various state of decay and rot. Their flesh was Greg, yellow and oozing pus and whatever it was dead people oozed when they were dead. But the more horrifying sight was the arm thick and long maggots currently boring holes through the dead bodies as they feasted at their leisure.

David felt the urge to vomit again, but nothing came out as his stomach had already been emptied of its contents. David heard foot steps behind him, but he was to shocked to look away at the necrotic sight in front of him. Of course David has been subjected to a series of weird s**t since this morning, and he has had to survive quite a lot of danger since he “awakened” however no body developed balls of steel or a heart of iron in just one week. Regardless of how much he had seen, David would still be affected by something like this.

“This is disgusting and quite unpleasant to look at.” Lilith said from behind him, then she walked up and closed the storage door with a bang, cutting of the scene from David’s eyes.

She looked at him on the ground for a few minutes and shook her head, it was quite a mystery what she was thinking about at that moment, but David was sure it was more along the lines of how much of a wimp or disappointment he was. Her next words only seemed to prove that train of thought.

“Are you a man or what? There are kids on Pangea who have seen a lot more dead bodies than that, though the maggots were not as big. But still get yourself together and barricade that door. You might not notice, but the usual flies that are supposed to accompany dead bodies with that level of decay are missing. Now I don’t want to speculate, because it’s almost dark and flies are not nocturnal……but it would be wise to secure this area and fast. The flies are not the only thing dangerous around this parts.”

David was startled enough to pull himself together, but that could just be because he was more terrified of Lilith than the unknown. It took David about forty minutes to barricade the entrance of the store by stacking the shelves over each other. Then he moved whatever was left of it, over the door to the storage room effectively sealing and isolating that last of the store away from the rest.

Since they were inside a building, then there was no need for them to raise the tent, however under Lilith’s supervision he had to set up the tent for her to sleep in. Then immediately after that was done they had a rather heavy dinner, before she went into the tent and zipped it up without a word. David was left outside with his only companions being a room full of corpses and three tortoises.

Even though David was somewhat exhausted from driving all day and his back hurt a lot, he could not muster up the peace of mind to fall asleep. The day has been one traumatic experience after the other, there was only so much he could take. He pulled his knees close to himself as big fat drops of tears fell from his face.

“I want to go home.”

But where was no home, was it the island that was now most probably a few miles below the surface of the sea, or was it the quaint high class neighborhood in an African country where the most bizarre thing to happen would be a snake swallowing millions from an exam office. Where was home?. A lot of people say home is where the heart is, home is with your family, home is with your loved ones. But where was that, which one was real, was it Pangea or was it Earth.

As a Pangean David was already exposed to amazing things, and they had all become a part of his life. But on Earth David was just a little introverted with a penchant for manipulating and playing games with people. On Earth he was the different kind of African kid who learnt how the world worked at an early age and changed to fit the system. He became too intelligent for his own good, his Ego was so much that he doubted anybody could stand toe to toe with him in a game of wits. He saw humanity for what it was, benign, petty, greedy, and easy.

He learnt how to use his words and his actions to make the world spin In any direction of his choosing. If he had more time he would have probably grown to be a successful but rather shrewd, and manipulative person. He would have ended up alone. But on earth David was just seventeen, young and no matter how wise, he still had traces of childish naivety and delusions. He had dreams, he had plans, but now he had nothing.

David of Pangea was……is nineteen, after all this was his body, but now David was not so sure who was who. Nineteen plus seventeen did not make him thirty six, two lifetimes were not enough to make him a grown up when he was very much a kid in both. But his story was more complicated than that.

Who was real and who was fake, whose life was a dream and whose life was a reality. For all of his confusions David sorely missed Earth, both of him. Earth was normal, Earth even with all of its complicated issues was simple. There was a clear path, a future, a dream. But now there was nothing but darkness, a decent into the unknown. Death.

But even with the situation on Pangea the main question remained, who am I. David wanted to believe he was Pangean, he wanted to believe that this world which was currently trying to kill him was home. But then what about Earth, that big blue enigma with seven continents and seven billion people. Which was home.

David felt a splitting pain in his head as both part of him went to war with each other, the pressure on him seemed to increase with each passing day, as more things just seemed to get wrong. It has not been long since he escaped from the island, but non of his experiences so far has been pleasant. This life was hell, and within that hell David was stuck in an unending battle of discovery. He felt his head vibrate and pain washed down his entire body, this was not his body evolving, but his body breaking down under the pressure of having two minds, two souls in it.

David could not scream, but he could not stop either, he was tired of having so many differing thoughts and reactions to things, it was a special kind of torture not knowing yourself, being indecisive about every little thing because you have become the voice at the back of your head. There was no conscience, just you. It was just you to argue with yourself, just you who would want to go right, but will suddenly move left and then move right again.

David arched his body as a spout of blood spilt from his nose, his eyes and ears were bleeding and his heart pounded so hard he felt like it was going to explode. David had a coughing fit and with each cough that wrecked his lean frame a glob of blood and saliva flew out of him. Somewhere at the back of his mind David knew he was dying, he knew that if he was not able to find s middle ground between his two minds and their differing personalities he would tear his body apart and be completely left with nothing.

But David did not care, he needed closure, he needed a conclusion. There has to be one David standing tall in the end, whoever that David is will be the real David, and the other David will be just a dream, an illusion. But as determined as he was his body could take no more, and like an engine that was overheating his body shut down and he went into the dark.