It started a couple of months ago. It started out just a couple of us here and there, but became more noticeable when we traveled to a nearby town, and nobody was there. That’s when we started panicking, until some strange doors showed up at our school. The doors weren’t the strange thing, though. The strange thing was that somebody’s parents opened the door from the other side and asked their child to go with them.
I later learned their daughters’ name was Pam. Pam asked, “Where? What’s going on?” They simply answered, “Evacuation.” Pam stepped forward to join them, and the doors closed. This had happened all across the world. Parents coming from a strange door, suddenly with no notice, and took their child to the other side. It has been so long since we’ve seen grown-ups that we didn’t question any further. We called it “The Evacuation Phenomenon” or TEP for short.
Day by day, week by week, month by month kids were taken with their parents through those strange doors. Some would think that since we knew we were all going, we would go into chaos, doing all those last minute things on our bucket list, but we didn’t. We still went to school, still went home or a friend’s house or the library. The only thing to indicate that something was different was the sudden dwindling in people and the silence.
Oh, the silence. The silence stretched to Mars, to Jupiter, to Pluto, and back. When we finally figured out what was happening, it was like our voices disappeared into oblivion to never return again. In fact, some of us felt like we were in oblivion itself. I always thought we were just waiting for something big to happen, even before people started disappearing. Something so big, the aftershock would be too large to handle.
That’s kind of what we’re in now. Aftershock. Waiting for the cleanup to be over. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Always waiting. Of course, cleanup wasn’t all quiet. There were tears and hugging. I guess one good thing did come out of the disappearing, though. Nobody committed suicide. No laws were broken, just silence and waiting.
Doors to Heaven, 6-8, p. 1
Now there are only two of us. The third left yesterday. We didn’t have any way of communicating to other continents, but we know. We don’t talk, though. In fact, we don’t even bother with school now, haven’t for a while. We’re sitting on a porch, looking up at the sky. I wonder how the clouds can look so bright and happen when the two of us feel exactly the opposite. The sun will go down soon, to Europe or something, not that anyone will see it there. I let out a silent breath and look in front of me.
My eyes widen a fraction and I poke the girl next to me. She looks down to see exactly what I'm looking at; two large doors framed in gold. We glance at each other, locking eyes for a millisecond, and wait for them to open. My right hand finds her left one. It’s a silent code we started. When the doors appear in front of you, you hold hands with the person nearest as a way of saying good luck. We don’t know what for.
The doors open and my heart immediately flips. I don’t know whether I'm disappointed or relieved.
“Taylor,” a caramel colored female and a tall raven haired man say in unison. She lets out a breath, this one not silent. She turns to me and wraps her arms around my neck.
“Good luck. I’ll see you there,” she whispers. In a moment, she is gone. I sit there for a minute before I feel something wet on my hand. I didn’t even realize I started crying. I’m now the last person on Earth. My feet will be the last to trespass on the world’s soil. My heart is the last to beat in millions of miles. My lungs the last to steal the Oxygen from this solar system.
I’m now full out sobbing, quietly of course. I put my face in my hands and wait for this moment to pass. A couple minutes later, I'm on my feet, my face stoic. Then I walk. I walk past my old school, my old house, my old bus stop. Old, old, old. Everything’s old.
I keep walking past sunset. I’m still walking in the morning. I begin to wonder if I sleep walked because I'm not the slightest bit tired. I start to think about my past. I think about my best friend, Hailey, who left a couple months ago. I think about Dean Peters, who I’ve had a crush on since as long as I could remember. Dean had been my first and, well, only boyfriend. He was one of the first to go.
Doors to Heaven, 6-8, p. 2
I feel like little red riding hood in the forest, only no wolf shows up because I'm the only one left. No grandmother waiting for me at the end of this trail. I’m all alone now. Everyone left me. They walked away from me the same way I'm walking away from my town. To a new world, or town, however you look at it. I don’t know if I’m headed east or west. I guess it doesn’t matter either way now.
Is it weird my feet don’t hurt? Is it weird I'm not tired, or thirsty, or hungry, even though I haven’t eaten anything in a day? I feel like a robot. All I can do is walk. I see the sun come up and disappear again. Does the sun enjoy loneliness? Is that why it keeps leaving? I’ve walked for weeks now, and I'm not even entirely sure I'm still breathing anymore.
I start to wish. I wish everyone was still here. I wish the grownups hadn’t disappeared ten years ago. I wish I could think coherent thoughts and that I could stop, but I can't. I manage to stop for a second to realize I’m in a city with skyscrapers, possibly New York, possibly some unknown state that just has sky scrapers. I continue to walk.
I lost count of how many towns and cities I've past. The sun goes up and down, up and down, up and down. My feet move repeatedly left and right. I see another town coming up. As soon as I step foot unto the town’s abandoned Earth, I fall. My knees hit the pavement, but I don’t feel the ground. I realize I've been crying the whole time I've been walking. For the weeks I’ve been walking, I've also been crying. I crumble into a fatal position on the ground.
I’m fairly sure I'm shaking. I feel nauseous. All the exhaustion and thirst and hunger have built up and are tearing me apart from the inside. I’m almost certain no sane person could take this. Suicide may not have been committed since TEP, but I'm pretty sure anyone would rethink it if they were me. But they’re not. They’re not here anymore. They’re probably having a party behind those stupid doors while I’m here, alone and forgotten.
They all abandoned me. Every last one of them. No one even tried saying no. Not even once. It was like they were in a trance and just stepping through those mysterious doors. Those
Doors to Heaven, 6-8, p. 3
stupid, idiotic doors. Always the doors, and the silence, and the unspoken upsetting feeling about all of this mayhem. My shaking has stopped, but the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I look up to see two things that have both ruined my life and, now, have saved it. The doors to Heaven. The familiar gold trim brings fresh tears to my eyes. Finally, after being alone for so long, I get to finally be with others. I manage to push myself off the ground to my feet which ache like I've been walking for weeks, which I have been. Then they open.
“Adriana,” the man and woman standing there say. They each hold a hand out to me, the other being on the doors. I take in a deep breath and let it out. It isn’t quiet this time, it sounds like a blow horn in a library. This is the end of the everlasting silence. The beginning of something new and exciting and extraordinary. I will no longer be lonely, I will no longer walk, I will no longer wish. I will just live.
I will be able to see what’s beyond those extravagant doors. I will see Hailey again, and Dean, and Taylor. Maybe I’ll even say hi to Pam. I’ll get answers and be happy, joyful. I’ll start school again and maybe the classes will be taught by actual grown-ups, not machines like we used here, on Earth. The world that will soon be abandoned, just like I was.
I feel a smile growing as I take my last look around Earth. I look directly in the sun for once, not caring of the consequences. I look at the lifeless sky and the ghost town I'm in. There’s a playground not far from here. I bet children used to love to play there. It looks exactly like the one near my house. I look back towards my parents.
They’re not what I expected they’d look like. My mother, short-ish with curly blonde hair. My father, tall with straight brown hair. They’re still smiling at me, hands outstretched.
“Come on,” my father says.
“It’s time,” my mother adds. My smile grows bigger as I take the last human steps Earth will ever know. I close the distance between us quickly and take their hands without hesitation, letting them drag me into the world beyond the doors. Into the blinding bright white. I silently say goodbye to the abandoned world.
Doors to Heaven, 6-8, p. 4
Doors to Heaven, 6-8, p. 5 I was the last one to walk the Earth and I have stepped through the doors to Heaven.