Everyone thought it was the end of the world, and for most, it was. But seven people were left - Lucy, Greyson, Glen, Sloan, Wren, Evelynn and Priscilla
Sloan was tired. The apocalypse had ended, but the stress and trauma of it remained. He didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t know how the others could still go on, making plans of escape and plans of survival. They had been through the same things that he had, some even worse. He was horrified that they were fighting for their lives and their existence. Sloan was tired, and no amount of rest could ever help him except until the end of time. And so it was for him.
Glen was hungry. He wanted to eat all the food left in the bunker. He knew they were rationing and one person was only supposed to eat a certain amount of food a day to be able to sustain them for as long as possible. Every night, he dreamed of feasts and buffets and delicacies of all sorts and eventually he could not refrain. At night, he broke into the pantry and ate as much as he could. The next morning, they found him blue in the face, foam dripping from his mouth, dead.
Greyson wanted to survive and he was ready to do anything for it. He sat up late at night plotting, planning, doing anything to survive, but only for him. He had no intentions of helping the others. He thought that if they really wanted to live, they would make some effort to help themselves. They weren’t his responsibility. There was no need for him to help. He owed them nothing. All he wanted was to live. As he went through his things, he hoped that the others didn’t notice that all the extra resources were with him. He chuckled to himself, knowing that the others wouldn’t survive if there was another attack. But alas, he turned around and saw the livid face of his wife, his bag open at her feet, a dagger in hand.
Wren was furious. How dare her husband keep the rations, the weapons, the medicine, all for himself. She couldn’t believe it. All the times that he stayed up late, he was planning his own escape, planning to leave them stranded there, planning. When she walked into that room, and found the bag of weapons that Greyson had kept from her, a sheen of red clouded her vision and she saw herself reaching into the bag and pulling out a dagger, feeling no remorse.
Lucy wanted to forget. She distracted herself from the chaos outside by making efforts to make herself look more alluring. She felt good about herself when she walked past a group and drew all the male gazes towards her. She wanted to feel beautiful, inside and outside, but mainly on the outside. She couldn't wait to show her transformed self to Greyson. She was sure he would love the new and improved Lucy, it was the same beauty which had attracted him towards her a little more than a year back. But now she felt like everything she did, all the shopping, makeup, treatments were all for Greyson. It felt like a borderline obsession. Lucy decided to think nothing of it and show her make over to her lover. Alas, when she went to his bunk, she saw the bloody sight of Greyson, his wife, Wren, looking at the dagger which had pierced her beloved’s heart. Lucy was overcome by grief and in the fit of the moment, grabbed the nearest thing she could find and hit it on Wren's head. But she wasn’t satisfied. She kept hitting till her hands were covered in the red tint of murder. And in the end, that was too much for her to handle. She lifted the dagger from her lover’s heart, swept a loving hand over his hair, and in one clean motion, dragged the blade over the pale skin of her throat.
Priscilla was confident that she would escape. Her family came from a long line of lords and had all the riches and luxuries money could afford. She had no doubt that she would leave this hellhole without the help of the others. How were they better than her anyway? With all the riches at hand she could easily flee and settle into yet another luxurious and comfortable life in a safer place. Priscilla was also undaunted by her lack of survival skills, because what are servants for? They would distract, she would run. Little did she know about the condition of the people outside the doors where the motley group was hidden. She quickly gathered her belongings and a few extra parcels of food, and walked out of the bunker with her head held high. The barren land had no mercy and that was the last they saw of her.
Evelynn was jealous. She was jealous that Sloan was dead, that Glen got to eat all the food, that Lucy was the prettiest, that Wren and Greyson had someone to love and of Priscilla’s confidence. She never got any of this, either by her own action or by fate. She always felt like the world fell short when giving her anything. But as she walked around the bunker, seeing all the corpses left to rot, she felt a sense of pride, pride that she survived and they didn’t, pride that she had something that the others did not, pride that the circumstances had worked in her favor. She lived in the bunker in peace, so absorbed with the fact that she survived and the others didn’t that she made no effort to help herself. She lived off of pure adrenaline for three whole days before she collapsed, her vice, the end of her.
The last 7 people in the world were Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Lust, Pride and Envy. And in the end even they did not survive, but it was not the apocalypse that killed them.
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