DISCLAIMER: I'm temporarily using this account (it belongs to my cousin) to publish short stories. If interested in more, here is my reddit account: u/burnmycrotch
He ran fast, as fast as he could, winding through multiple hallways
Heart beating in his ears, his breath becoming ragged
He could feel it coming up behind him
Slowly, but surely,
He couldn’t run forever...
He woke up startled, claustrophobic, unable to breathe - the contraption on his face felt like it was choking him; he ripped his mask off- only to choke on air.
With a wheezy groan, he slipped the mask back on, allowing the built-in filters to purify the air into something breathable, if not exactly clean.
He lay back down, exhausted. Getting up was getting more and more difficult these days. His body was old; too old. He hated getting out of bed; there was a mirror opposite his bedside to remind him of what he looked like. His family insisted they keep it there, and he was too weak to move it on his own. He put his feet down on the wooden floor, knees creaking as he did so. The dust swirled at the disturbance, only to settle again once more.
His pajamas hung on his skeletal frame, thin wisps of hair poked out from atop his head. He glanced down at his hands, somehow still surprised at their appearance - leathery and wrinkled, with the odd spot or two. His eyes, somehow, were still clear - cataracts had not clouded his vision just yet. For that, he was grateful. Parkinson’s had set in, however, making it hard for him to open doors or feed himself - which is why there was no door to his room.
It was funny how no one warned him that ageing would feel like being a boy trapped in an old man’s body; he sometimes wished he spoke to his own grandparents for their advice, back when they were alive.
“Coming for breakfast, Gramps?” His grandson poked his head in, and the smell of Actu-bacon wafted through the air. He frowned; he would much prefer the real thing, but pigs, along with most other animals, had died out years ago. God, he missed the taste of actual meat.
“No thanks, kid, plain pancakes is good for me.” He sighed, feeling the old, old creak in his bones as he took a few steps forward, only to collapse into the waiting wheelchair.
As he went through the house, he always looked around - his memory seemed to be getting worse, but he was able to remember the distant, if not so recent, past. Pictures of his son and daughter were up on the wall, along with their spouses - both sets had passed away, along with his wife. He remembered attending their funerals; all of the victims of some form of lung cancer. He remembered the day his wife passed was the day he wanted to stop wearing the mask, but his family refused to let him take it off. He heard his great-granddaughter cry in the kitchen.
He remembered the day of his son’s funeral; the sky was overcast, the ground muddy. His grandson was young, but had already stepped up as the man of the house. He, however, was already broken. His son was the last to go; all three of them suffered, dying slowly. The very air killed them.
Strangely, he even remembered his boyhood days, though those memories, too, slowly fade. For example, he could remember when the sky was still blue, and not grey. When the sun was bright, instead of hazy. When only the sick wore masks, when filters were not a necessity, when cats and dogs roamed the street, when spiders and insects were not precious life, but unwanted pests. He remembered government notices to various companies, calling for a reduction in pollution, in production - there were only so many resources to consume, so many environments to pollute. Most private companies, however, paid little heed. Soon, the government followed suit. Money was pushed into space travel, into finding a new home, rather than the one they currently have. He remembered the day masks became mandatory - when cancer became as common as the cold; people began to drop like flies because of the very dirt in the air. Oceans lost their colour, and he remembered seeing fish floating, belly-up, in the grey, tepid water.
He enters the kitchen, lost in thought, only to see his youngest granddaughter flail her fists about, trapped in the high chair. Before he could reach out to comfort her, she rips her mask off in infant fury, howling. She starts coughing immediately. His grandson drops the pan and runs to her, forcing her to put the mask back on, despite her attempts. “Hush, baby, you don’t have a choice. We can’t afford to leave just yet, now can we?” He said, soothing her. She hiccuped, still pointing at her grandfather, fidgeting in her baby seat, wanting to get up and walk around.
There was a knock on the door. “Hello, Mr. Smith? This is Channel 1 News, and we would like to have an interview with you, sir! We would like to speak to the oldest being on Earth! How does it feel, knowing you’re one of the few pre-Pols?”
He shook his head at his grandson, indicating that he did not wish to have guests at the moment. His grandson went to the door, baby in his arms, and blurted a random excuse to do with age. He heard the reporter begin to argue with his grandson on the importance of this interview, because who knew how long he would stay alive?
Sitting in the wheelchair, he sank his head in his hands. How did it become like this? He remembered the day the jellyfish began to die - creatures hundreds of years old, getting washed up on the beach; the oldest tree, a giant cone tree, falling to the ground - its very roots were rotten. He remembered the sea washing up bodies after bodies - creatures that were able to survive the depths of the ocean, except the ocean too, was not spared from humanity’s mistakes. The oldest creatures, ones that had weathered millennia of climate change, of natural disasters, died at humans’ hands. He felt tears drip down.
It hurt being the oldest one.