The Last Day
1250 Words
I didn’t cry. Not today. Not when the last student hugged me after tutoring. Not when I brewed my final cup of overpriced latte in the café. Not even when I logged out of my virtual classroom for the last time.
Today wasn’t a sad day. It was the last of a thousand exhausting days. And the first of something else. Something lighter.
Seven months.
That’s how long I let them take from me.
Seven months of waking up to new threats, updated articles about me, and newspaper clippings slid under the door like warnings carved into flesh. Seven months of no podcasts, no playlists, no dumb sarcastic jokes. The version of me that used to laugh at her own thoughts was gone—burned out and buried.
But I survived it. Silently. Alone.
And today?
I sold the stocks.
The ones I’d researched since I was fifteen, invested in quietly, grew like a secret garden. I sold them all. Every chart I’d stared at until my vision blurred? Paid off.
I could buy a 5BHK flat in cash. Probably two.
I’d already invested in land. Rental units. Smart assets.
No one knew. Not until now.
I reached home, still in my uniform—coffee-stained apron, ink on my hands, hair tied like I didn’t care.
“Can we talk?” I asked my mom, my voice calm but shaking inside.
She looked up from her knitting, eyes searching me for damage.
Then I told her everything.
The money. The work. The walkers. The threats. The nights I cried without sound and the mornings I worked without rest. I told her about the silence I carried like bricks in my chest. About how I didn’t run—I built.
Then I told Dad.
He blinked. And then again. And then just stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
“You did this?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
“Alone?”
Another nod.
He didn’t say I’m proud. He didn’t need to. The way he looked at me—that said it louder.
For the first time in months, I didn’t feel like a haunted girl pretending to be strong.
I felt like Liv.
The real one.
The one who made it out.
The air felt different the next morning.
Not lighter, not heavier—just still. Like the world was holding its breath around me.
I didn’t wake up to a new article. No torn newspaper at the door. No digital alerts. No bold-font warnings. For the first time in months, my name wasn’t used like a threat.
I ate breakfast at the table. With my parents. My mom made tea. My dad asked about interest rates. It felt normal. Scary normal.
I cleaned out my tutoring bag. Said goodbye to the spreadsheets I used to chase rent. Deleted three apps I’d been juggling side jobs on.
Then, I sat at my desk. The one near the sliding window—the one I never stopped watching through.
It was 3:00 AM now.
I wasn’t waiting. Just… curious.
I clicked open the case file again, the one I had saved in a hidden folder named “Junk Recipes.” Cute, right?
The last edit was from three weeks ago.
Subject has stopped responding. Losing interest. Will reset if necessary.
I didn’t understand it then. I do now.
Reset.
Like a button.
Like a game.
3:02.
I leaned closer to the glass.
Nothing.
No movement.
3:03.
Still nothing.
And then—
A glint.
Metal?
No.
Eyes. Watching.
A single man. Not marching. Just standing. Right across the road. Still.
Like he’d been there all along.
He raised a hand slowly. Not a wave. A signal.
And smiled.
I froze. That smile wasn’t human.
It was knowing.
Like someone who’d watched me rebuild my life, brick by brick.
And now?
He’d come to tear it all down.
He smiled.
But this time, I didn’t flinch.
Didn’t run.
Didn’t reach for the hammer.
Instead, I smirked. A quiet, sharp thing. The kind that says I know who I am now—and you can’t break me again.
Because the Liv I built?
She doesn’t scare easy.
Not anymore.
No one will believe me. I know that. They didn’t the first time, and they won’t now. But that’s fine. I stopped needing witnesses a long time ago.
That’s why I bought the mini fridge.
The new one—sleek, silver, mine. Fully paid, not on loan anymore.
I bought it back when I started juggling jobs, thinking I needed somewhere to keep snacks.
Truth was, I just needed something to control. A small, cold space that was mine.
Now it holds one thing:
That milk bottle.
The one they left the first night—the night I saw the walkers.
The one I never threw away.
No sour smell. No rot. Just... there. Like it never aged.
Sometimes I open the fridge and stare at it.
Sometimes I whisper to it like it’s some kind of cursed relic.
It doesn’t answer, obviously. But it hasn’t left either.
Neither have the cherries.
Every day since Yara died, I’ve bought a few.
No reason. I don’t even eat them.
Sometimes I place them beside the bottle.
Sometimes I count them.
Once I drew a smiley face with them on the kitchen counter and cried like a child.
Maybe that’s how grief works.
Or maybe… it’s a ritual. My own twisted kind of memory-keeping.
But today—today felt different.
Today, I looked at the milk bottle, gently closed the fridge door, and whispered,
“Try me.”
“Do you two want to move out?” I asked casually, stirring sugar into my seventh coffee of the morning.
Mom looked up from the dishes. Dad paused mid-scroll on his phone. They exchanged a glance.
“I mean it,” I added. “I can get you both something nicer. Quieter. I have the money now.”
They thought about it. Really thought about it.
Then I said, “But I’ll be staying here a little longer.”
That’s when they shook their heads.
“We’re not going anywhere without you,” Dad said.
Mom added softly, “We’ll move when you do.”
I smiled. It was the kind that almost reached my eyes.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Just… don’t tell anyone. Not about my assets. Not about anything.”
They nodded. No questions. I loved that about them. They didn’t understand everything, but they trusted me.
Coffee drained, hair barely brushed, I grabbed my messy backpack from the hook by the door. Zippers open, one pen already leaking ink. Very me.
As I headed out, Mom called after me, “Take care, Liv!”
“Always,” I said, stepping into the hallway.
The lift had just arrived. I jogged a little, backpack bouncing behind me. When I got to the door, I saw it closing.
“Wait!” I shouted, instinctively sticking my foot forward to trigger the sensor.
But it didn’t stop.
The doors kept closing—fast, hard, mechanical.
Slamming shut.
If I hadn’t yanked my foot back in time, it would've crushed my ankle.
The backpack wasn't so lucky.
Trapped between the doors, half-in, half-out. The metal dented around it like a bite mark.
I stared at the lift. Breath caught.
That wasn’t a glitch.
That wasn’t normal.
It was intentional.
And for the first time in days, my smirk cracked.
- Writer
