One Year On - Eighteen (Rhys)

                                    

                                          


                          
Rhys
                          
"Alex?" I lean in past our door and try to find him, just like I always do when I finish a shift of work. "Alex, you in?"
                          
But I get nothing. Just a resounding silence greets me. A painful silence that hurts my chest. Of course I don't get a response. Alex barely even exists anymore in my world. I get it, I suppose, he's spending a lot more time with Rachael. I presume romance is blossoming, and I'm happy for them. If anyone deserves happiness, it's them.
                          
Only...I am left behind.
                          
I'm lonely, lost, sad as all hell. That's the truth of it that I won't admit aloud. Life here is good, it's better than living on the road, but something is missing for me. I guess I'm constantly hunting for a happiness that isn't going to happen.
                          
Maybe there is no happiness in the apocalypse.
                          
Others look like they have happiness, but it might be just an illusion. Maybe we are all just trying to convince ourselves that we're all doing well. Just so we don't all succumb to the cloud of gloom that is constantly hanging over my head all the time.
                          
If we were all like this, realizing the truth, then nothing would get done. We would all just lie down and wait to die. Which is very depressing.
                          
I flop onto my bed and stare up at the ceiling to stare at the cracks that are slowly forming over time. I'm not expected to work now for at least another fourteen hours which means I have a long stretch ahead of me. Hours and hours of nothingness, time I have no idea how to fill. I can't even seem to make any new friends, it just doesn't happen for me. Maybe others can instinctively sense the heavy weight on my chest and it puts them off me before I even have a chance.
                          
Or perhaps I haven't really tried.
                          
A deep crack in the ceiling catches my attention, one that's more frightening than the others, and I find myself staring at it for ages as the walls close in around me. What is this? What am I going to do? I know that I'll never have the life that I originally dreamed for myself, the adulthood where I was supposed to become someone important. but at this rate I'll have no life at all.
                          
If I don't have something to aim for, something to look forward to, then what is the point of it all?
                          
"Go out," I tell myself sternly. "Meet people, find a purpose."
                          
But for some reason, even the thought of moving off of this bed is impossible. It's become a task that my body won't be able to deal with no matter what happens. Even if a fire lit under the bed I don't think I'd be able to move.
                          
I'm heavy, everything aches, I'm stuck.
                          
"Alex, I need you right now," I murmur to myself. "I need someone to just see what the hell is going on with me."
                          
But he isn't here and I'm starting to think that he won't be again.