Abandoned
(This is an unfinished story that I started and promptly abandoned about 8 years ago. I've always liked the idea of post-apocalypse fiction and exploring abandoned, derelict buildings, so this was my attempt to channel that into some kind of story. Unfortunately I never figured out where I wanted the story to go.)
Have you ever had an unusual fascination with destruction and decay? Whether it be a long-term passion for all things abandoned or just a brief thought of "I wonder what this place would look like as a ruin", I'm sure everyone at some point has experienced some level of interest in the concept of seeing the world they're intimately familiar with after decades of deterioration. While some of us simply ignore the thought or don't get involved enough into it to care, and others may be able to scratch the itch through urban exploration or post-apocalypse fiction, no one really ever expects to actually find out what their favorite locales would look like after years without human contact. I sure know I didn't.
When I went to bed last night it was just a typical Friday night like any other. I drove home from the office, met a friend for dinner and a few drinks, watched TV at home for a few hours and went to bed promptly at 11:30 feeling glad that I wouldn't have to be up before sunrise the following morning. When I did wake up I was greeted by intense cramps all through my body, and it felt as if my mattress had been replaced with a bed of nails during the night. Ignoring the pain I quickly rolled myself off of the deathtrap I has apparently been sleeping on, landing in a bed of damp moss. When I opened my eyes I found that I was still in a bedroom of sorts, just one that appeared to have not been occupied in decades. The bed I had been sleeping on consisted of little more than some rotting cloth stretched loosely over a mangled, rusted bedframe, and the moss that I had landed on was covering what was left of hardwood flooring.
"Where am I? How did I get here?" was the only question I could think to ask myself. The room itself almost seemed too modern to be in such an advanced stage of decay. As far as I could tell the style of the furniture, or at least what was left of it, was nothing obviously antique, and what looked like the remains of a flatscreen television and a modern computer tower were among the wreckage lining the floor. I went to dig through the crumbling desk sitting opposite the bed I woke up in, but the whole thing collapsed in on itself almost as soon as I touched it, releasing little more than splinters of rotten wood, ruined fragments of cloth and an unpleasant assortment of bugs. Unsure of what to do, I carefully sat myself onto the edge of the old mattress and stared out the window, hoping my brain would finally wake up and recognize the area.
I sat, trying to think calmly and allow myself to wake up naturally as I gazed out the shattered window. I could tell I was in a single story suburban home, but I had no idea where it was or how a seemingly modern building could become this heavily deteriorated. The neighborhood around me appeared to be in a similar state of disrepair; the houses were all heavily overgrown, the yards unkept, cars rotting in the driveways and pavement mostly reduced to asphalt rubble. I couldn't shake the feeling that something about this area seemed familiar, but my still half-asleep brain just couldn't put two and two together. I knew I didn't drink nearly enough the night before to black out, and I was locked into my house so there would be no way this was just an elaborate prank from one of my friends. I started gazing around the room again, taking a closer look at the broken furniture and the overall layout of the room. As I looked around the room something in my head was finally able to put the pieces together, and almost immediately a sense of dread ran down my spine. I wasn't in a new place at all, this was my bedroom.
As soon as the realization came to me I shot to my feet. "This can't be real, I must be dreaming" I starting saying to myself as I paced around my bedroom, trying to rationalize how the entire neighborhood somehow aged fifty years overnight. I tried closing my eyes and forcing myself awake, slapping myself, basically everything I've ever heard that could be used to wake up from a dream I tried, but to no avail. Unable to awaken from the living nightmare I was experiencing, the only thing I could figure to do was get out of the room and try to figure out what in the world was happening. Taking one final look around at what was left of my bedroom I carefully opened the door, which to my surprise was still on its hinges, and exited out to the rest of the house.
The living room was in even worse shape than my bedroom had been; almost all of the windows had shattered and a portion of the ceiling had collapsed in onto the floor, exposing the entire living/dining area to nature for god knows how long. Almost nothing was recognizable, as far as I could tell everything I'd ever owned was destroyed. If it weren't for the combination of confusion, shock and pure adreneline I would've likely broken down to tears at the sight of everything I've ever worked for laying in ruin, but at this point I knew I had more important things to do. I started digging through the wreckage looking for anything that could possibly have been of any use. While there was nothing worth salvaging in the living room I was able to dig some rusty, but still potentially useful knives from what remained of my kitchen cabinets. After scouring the living space for anything of use I ran to check my garage. To my surprise the garage had held up better than the other rooms of the house, the roof was still intact and there were no windows to allow weather to get in.