"From Apocalypse to Anu", Epic Fantasy, L. Danley - Opening Scene

[Lora D.]

        Nobody ever shows the bodies.  In all the post-apocalyptic films a billion people always manage to magically disappear into thin air, leaving the survivors to walk the earth in isolation.  Believe me, that sounds like heaven compared to the present situation. My name is Cody Armstrong. I am nineteen years old and even before what I’ve come to call the Great Extinction, I was all alone.  

         I didn’t start out that way.  Until I was eight, I had lots of friends.  Then we moved, and I skipped three grades.   The school didn’t want to do it since sixth graders don’t really hang out with eight year olds, even smart ones, but I was bored with third grade work and wanted to excel.  I threw myself into my studies, and my parents became my source of companionship. 

         All my grandparents died before I was born. Like me, my parents were both only children, so it was just us.  We formed a tight knit clan.  The Three Musketeers we called ourselves.  Father, mother, and son. 

         “Cody, come and get it!”  I can still hear my mother calling me down to Sunday breakfast.  That was the day she always made my favorite: fruit-filled waffles and Canadian Bacon. 

            “What’s on the schedule for today?” my father would say.  Sunday was the day we did things as a family.  The zoo, the beach, an amusement park, a day trip somewhere.  We did it all.  It was heaven, but it ended all too soon.

         I entered college early and by the time I was eighteen, I had graduated and gotten a job as a computer programmer.  I had just moved into my own apartment when there was a knock at the door one night in March.

         “Are you Cody Armstrong?”  Two uniformed police officers stood in front of me.  I wondered if I might be under arrest. 

         “Yes,” I said tentatively. 

         “I’m sorry to bring this news to you,” one of the officers began.  The rest of what was said has become a blur in my mind.  The only thing that registered was that my parents had both died instantly in an automobile accident.  In the weeks afterwards, I cleaned out my childhood home, keeping a few of their possessions and selling or dumping the rest.  The photo albums, my father’s gold watch and his favorite tie, my mother’s favorite vase and the apron she wore when she cooked.  That's all I have left of my parents now. 

         The sale of the house plus my parents’ life insurance gave me more than enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life, but I continued to work anyway.  What else did I have to do?  I hadn’t been any better at making friends in college and since I worked from home, I didn’t have many chances to meet people.  Whenever I did go out, I wasn’t very good at making connections and no one paid me much attention.  I was the invisible man.