Prompt: All Are Gone

Alright, here's my first response to the prompt. I just finished it! I'm not editing it, so excuse typos.

The night was bitter. He traced the old carvings on the wooden bar, finding faces where there were none. It was a simple trick of the eye and seeing them let he know he was sane. He was eye level with the stout glass of scotch. The ice cubes glistened in the amber liquid and he could smell the smoky scent of burning wood even from where he stood.

If he closed his eyes he could recall the way it sounded when crowded; the bustle of people behind him, bumping into one another, the occasional scrape of a barstool against the old concrete floor, the laughter of people who had a bit too much, the occasional fight that would arise and then fade into nothing, leaving the air in the bar thick with tension and nerves.

His callused finger traced around the rim of the glass. There was no time for reminiscing. He couldn’t linger here long but the temptation of that one last drink was too much to resist. He picked his head up from the old wooden counter and lifted his glass up to the bartender that wasn’t there any longer.

“Here’s to you Johnny.” The liquid burned his throat in a way that fulfilled the deep seated need to stay here and get wasted. It’d be easier than facing the reality of what was around him.

“They are all gone now.” The only sound was the echo of his own voice as he spoke. He slid the barstool back and let the glass linger on the bar. He slipped a ten dollar bill next to the glass and pushed his wallet into his back pocket.

Currency didn’t mean much anyway but this last ten spot he was leaving on the table did. It was a farewell to the old life; to his old ways. He looked at the overturned tables, the half destroyed chairs, the old jukebox against the wall that wouldn’t play anymore even if he spent days trying to fix it. The nuclear plants had all been disarmed after the on the west coast of the United States. The land was considered hazardous but it was the only place he could think to go. Surely if there were any signs of life, they’d be trying to find survivors or they’d be trying to contain the damage that was done.

It’d be a long lonely road, but it was all he had left. Gas mask over his face, inhaling the scent of the scotch he’d just consumed, he walked outside into the bitter cold darkness of Philadelphia and started walking down the street. It was pointless to try to drive, almost all the gas stations had been drained when people tried to flee the cities for safer waters after the war had begun. Buildings were charred remains of what they used to be. When humanity had been tested, they had failed. Particularly in the United States things had crumbled quickly. When the fossil fuels ran out, when the wars from the east spread into the west people forgot unity and dispersed taking an “each man for himself” attitude.

This had only left the world in chaos. The people who’d survived the looting and the wars were either mad or lucky. He liked to think he was a little bit of both. He’d always prepared for disasters. His friends and family had laughed at him but now it would seem he had the last laugh.

Something about this victory seemed incredibly hollow and shallow. He wished that he could go back in time and save a few of his friends. His own fear had gotten the best of him and when the battle has broken out, the bombings had taken place, the looting had overcome the cities, he hid away in his cellar. It had only been two weeks ago he’d emerged unharmed to find the world in ruins.

At first he had mourned for the world that was lost around him but then he felt angry for what humanity let it become. They were all to blame, including him. If they had banded together and stood as one the world wouldn’t be this way. He was determined to redeem himself.