text: Omar stretched out his arms and yawned. Through the opening of the cave came the burnt orange light of the dying sun. He stood and looked down at Carmia who was still asleep. Should he wake her? Should he lie back down beside her and hold her tight? He knew she lay naked under the six or seven blankets they had stolen from the abandoned Bed, Bath and Beyond store. It was all that was left over in the looted remains of the place. The lucky ones, the ones who had prior knowledge the sun had died and Earth was next, made sure they supplied themselves with everything they would need to survive as long as they could. By the time Omar and Carmia got to the outdoor shopping mall every store was stripped down to the floor. They were lucky to find these blankets, a pillow and a saucepan hidden away by someone else, he supposed. Were they going to return later to pick up their stash? Perhaps they were dead like the countless others who they passed in the street on their way to these mountains. Panic. Suicides. Fear. Once the news came out that Earth would perish within a year it didn’t take people too long to revert to their animal instincts of survival. Everyone for themselves! He walked quietly to the cave’s opening. They were blessed to be able to make it to this cave alive. He hated killing her but they had no choice. The woman in her thirties had beat them to this place. She even had a gun which by fate or fortune when she pulled the trigger to kill him nothing happened. The safety was on and as she fumbled to click it off he rushed her and plunged his walking stick through her heart without even thinking. Something within had overpowered him making him lunge forward toward her. Instincts. Pure animal instincts. The sight of the blood, the woman’s eyes filled with surprise as they began to cloud over. And the way they just threw the body down the cliff as if throwing out a piece of trash. He leaned over the precipice and puked. He had to do it to protect them. He peered through the thickening haze. If there is a God, forgive me for killing her. He stood, wiped off the spittle from his lips and looked back at Carmia. Let her sleep. Their love making last night seemed to have gone for hours and exhausted both of them. They both exposed their raw passion for each other that surprised even himself. It was as if he was a wild animal filled with lust as his tongue plunged deep in her mouth, his hands touching her every part of her body, caressing at times, probing at others. They were caught in some type of a wild sexual frenzy feeding off one another’s emotions and primal needs. She was like a raging fire as her lips began licking the sweat off his chest, sucking on his nipples then pressing hard against his lips while she grabbed his hair as she drew him closer, closer. He ran his fingers along the small of his back and felt the scratches her fingernails etched deep into his skin. Was is so absurd to think he loved her and would do anything to keep her? Would she keep him? Did she love him as he did her or was last night just a purge of pent up sexual inhibitions? After all, he really didn’t know her. They had only met three days ago. He was rummaging through an upscale neighborhood going house to house foraging for anything to take with him for his trek to the mountains when she came at him with a knife. Damn might have killed him if she hadn’t tripped over the leg of a overturned chair. She put up a good struggle, but eventually he won. Did he regret punching her? Not then. But now, yes of course. His first inclination was to leave her there lying unconscious in that house’s living room and let the crows pluck at her flesh if the dogs or cats didn’t get to her first, but he was far from a killer. When he looked down at her lying there a wave of sadness fell over him. He was an accountant for Christ sake. A man of reason and moral integrity. He never killed anything in his life. He left the house then but after taking a few steps toward the sidewalk he turned around and went to her. He was hoping she had regained consciousness and left but no, she was still there. A trickle of blood was oozing from the corner of her mouth. Her upper lip was beginning to swell. She looked pitiful. Helpless. He went to the kitchen, turned on the tap and wet a nearby washcloth. Yes. The water as electricity was still on. It was as if in this apocalyptic chaos the rudimentary essentials; gas, electricity and water remained alive while man slowly died off. But no cell phones. Why? He wrung out the washcloth and went to her. She moaned a bit and slightly shifted her head. She was no beauty by any means. Nor was she ugly. Average looking he’d say. Average body with a bit of a bulge around her stomach. He was no prize either. Overweight for being thirty. His nose angled just enough at its end for his sister to tease him growing up by calling it a ‘ski slope.’ Perhaps in a different life, a different time he would have turned out differently but today, right now in this moment he didn’t care. He was alive. A woman who he had just met and shared a sexual experience he had only fantasied about all his life was lying asleep twenty feet from him. If anything he would not die alone. The white orb of what was the sun was barely visible through the thick gray haze. The air was getting cooler by the day. Temperatures were dropping from eighty degrees to fifty. The last newscast he watched before the cable, direct TV and regular television went dead stated that Earth was now experiencing the result of its sun collapsing upon itself over a thousand years ago. There was no hope. Earth was dead. He was dead. Carmia was dead. He walked over to her, slipped under the layers of blankets and laid beside her. Her eyes opened. She smiled. He embraced her as if at any moment a wind would come and sweep her away. His eyes meet hers. “I love you.”