My food supply left alongside the humans. The world stood frozen in time permanently scarred by the hubris of mankind. I watched it happen slowly. First, the pandemic took millions of people and no one seemed to bat an eye. They all kept arguing amongst themselves. For me this was helpful as I was able to hide in plain sight as long as I looked and acted as neutral as possible. The fighting continued and more diseases started. They would ignore the newest variant or the news contagion because it didn’t effect them directly. The death toll rose from millions to hundreds of millions to a point where it became easier to count who was left instead of who was lost. As each human succumbed to their end more and more animals returned to the land once stolen from them. Within 5 years I found myself outside the door of the final known human on earth as they took their last breath. 

 Existing after the end of mankind was quiet. The internet and power remain to this day as no advancing technology or humans were around to require it continue to change to protect it. The infrastructure in place did not need to grow to accommodate new life and new challenges. I was pleasantly surprised to still have access to the luxuries of the twenty-first century but not unfamiliar with a time long before power so I was prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was the time capsule the internet would become. For the first few months after the end I could find new content. Scroll social media and look at a new topic and read articles or comments but quickly it all became quiet. It became a reminder of the halt to the progress that they all pushed themselves to reach. No one was making the next best thing, life stood as it was. 

 The world became overgrown. The earth was retaking what was lost in the pursuit of human existence. In the beginning of the After I spent my time traveling to collect the supplies left behind. At each hospital or donation center I found enough to get me to the next one but after a certain amount of time it became obvious that without humans to replenish my energy that I was going to have to face something I had not known in my almost a thousand years of life. What would it mean to be a vampire who could not feed? It was a cool fall day, the leaves fell quietly to the wet morning ground as the sun shined through the trees and warmed my skin when I had the last of my sustenance. It had taken years to get to this point, I realized very early on I would have to ration. I knew the day would come and I tried my best to scour the resources I had to try to find others like me to no avail. 

 I was it. I shared this world with the animals and plants but never another human soul. I was alone. In all the years of my life I was never able to find another like myself. My maker was destroyed very early on and I kept humans as my company until the failure to age became obvious. So there I was no food, no other human or supernatural being, just myself and the leaves about to experience the true unknown. I made my arrangements to see what would happen. After the first few days I could feel my body weakening. I prepped my small cabin to be as secure as possible on the off chance an animal decided I would be their food. In this new world it didn’t seem necessary for animals to come after me as their food supply wasn’t disrupted by the pollution it once was. I locked myself in my home and barricaded the door. I secured the windows but made a point to leave the windows open so I could see out of them. Somehow my body knew what was coming. 

 I laid in my bed and felt my body give in. This was the beginning of the end, change, unknown. I had lived through so many things but never once thought I would learn what it meant to have nothing left of my life as I knew it. I could feel my body start to slow, my muscles began to atrophy and the motion inside my body came to halt. Somehow my mind was able to continue. I told myself to move just a finger or twitch any muscle but my body would not comply. The last movement to go was blinking. I had hoped that when that happened my eyes would shut so that I could fade into darkness but this was not the case. My eyes remained open, my mind awake and my vision crystal clear. I laid there and watched as dust became to grown in thickness around me. The light would change along with the weather and I quickly lost track of time. I was trapped motionless with my thoughts and my sight. I could hear the world around me, the animals coming close to my defenseless body with nothing but a wall between myself and their razor sharp teeth. I would hear the terror of flesh ripping when one of the prey fell victim to the hunt.

 Every crunch of ground under the paw of an animal, every scream in the night, every sniff in the air knowing they were close to something withering away I could feel into my soul. Worse than even that were the demons I could not outrun. The demons in my mind I had to face. I was an immortal alone, powerless, frozen in time but wide awake to face everything I had done in my existence. There was no end for me, no peace, no rest. I hear and see all; until the handle on the door turned.