Graphic Novels/ 1°L LVA

The loneliness of a complete stranger. Help?

Wednesday, the 38th

Last night I found a hospital to sleep because I was very tired. The hospital was very old, dark and gloomy, but I still needed a place to sleep, so for that place would do.  Today I got out and looked around  to find somebody to talk to or something to eat. The place was desert and I didn’t understand what had happened and why I saw nobody. I needed an explanation.

After a while I finally found something, a bicycle, I was tired but still used it, after all it was still better than walking. I decided to follow the road to see if I could find a supermarket or a farm or even a dead animal by the side of the road to eat, and luckily, I found a small village.

The houses looked completely empty, as if no one had been there for more than ten years. I searched the house and found canned beans and some other stuff that could be useful in my journey, like duct tape, a lighter etc.. It was starting to get dark so I got back to the hospital, and was greeted by surprisingly… nothing! (yup yup) I’m starting to get lonely in here.

Monday, the 50^th

It has been  more than 1 week  that I haven’t been anywhere and I am starting to get bored, but hey, in one of the empty house I found a cowboy hat, everything is better with a cowboy hat, right ? I named him Mickael, loneliness can kill a man after all so I’ll need someone to keep distracting me, he is a very talkative hat. Damn! He has such a beautiful voice.

…

I think that I’m starting to get crazy.. but I’ll keep the hat though.

I found a barn and I finally found a living being, a horse was staring at me and didn’t move.

He just stared, he didn’t look afraid though, maybe he is used to seeing humans  approach him, feed him and ride him, well it’s a horse after all. I wonder how he survived all alone without anyone to bring him food but it’s just a detail I guess ?

Along with my new friend and Michael, we decided to go forward, since the road was blocked on the side by various things like cars, pebbles etc.. with the hopes of finding the surviving civilization…if it still exists, after there is no guarantee that there are other people alive. But I want to believe, after all why would I be the only one left alive ? Sometimes dying is better than staying behind, in the realm of the living. But still I’ll survive, continue to go forward and I’ll see what happens, I just hope to find someone soon.

Maxime-Adrien

ALL ALONE

Albert wakes up alone after 2 months of coma, in a deserted hospital. He doesn’t know that an Alien civilization depopulated the world, almost …

He goes out of the hospital and looks at the surroundings. « What happened here ?! I can’t see anybody , no bird, no wind, no noise … No life! I must go tand see if my parents are safe. » Around him everything seems to be desolated.

He’s walking, near the road, sweating and sobbing. “I have walked for thirty minutes and I haven’t seen anybody! It’s the first time that I have felt so lonely, I mean really lonely.” Suddenly, in front of him, he sees a bike, abandoned on the side of the road. “Thank God, a bike! Mom, Dad, I’m coming!” He rides the bike and goes to his parent’s house…

He doesn’t meet anyone on the road and starts  being stressed. “ I’m really all alone ! One minute… Think, think, think ! Why did they leave?  Is the area dangerous ? What happened? A war? A nuclear crisis? A plague? So  many questions to which I can’t find answers for now. I hope my parents are alright.“

He starts to cry. He has never felt so miserable, and desperate. “I need to find them, but not now. This area might be dangerous, but I’m too weak for the moment. I have to sleep. Tomorrow is another day…” He walks to his parent’s house, and notices that they left all their food. “Weird…” Then he collapses from fatigue, on the dusty couch.

Text day , he wakes up early on the morning. Nothing seems to have changed , he is still  alone. “ I need to move on and find my parents or anybody that would be alive. I have no idea of the place where they could be. But first I need to find a faster mode of transport than the bike.” He opens the barn door…

He finds himself facing a horse who seems to be healthy, the first living being he has found for 24 hours. “I have never really liked horses, but I kind of love this one.” He opens the horse’s box and grabs his reindeers. “Come on buddy, don’t be scared, everything’s okay. We are going to travel together for a long time, we need to go to Atlanta, to see if my parents are there, safe.” He rides the horse, it’s a little difficult and goes out of the barn.

3 Days later , Al’ and the horse are together on the Atlanta highway. “Oh Lord, the city is empty… Where are they? Has the entire state been evacuated? I remember  that this place was always crowded, when I was younger! How far will I have to go to find a human being? I feel like I am the last man on earth, but It’s too early to say that…”

Solitude

A man riding a horse arrives in an empty town completely destroyed. He supposes the same thing happened here. Four day before Tomy woke up in the hospital with nobody in. He searched in the entire hopital looking for someone for more than five hours.  But always nobody. Tomy was scared to go out because of what was written on the door : « Don’t open, dead inside ». However he had to. He will always remember the smell  of the dead bodies which grabbed him at the throat. At that moment, he just thought the dead were behind the hospital but he was wrong.  The dead bodies were evrywhere : in the streets, in the houses, in the shops… And he saw people who were worst than the smell. He decided to leave the town to go and see if all the country was touched by the « virus » which killed everybody. On his way he found a horse, maybe the only survivor with him.  And now he is here.

Tomy crosses the ruins of the town. His horse seems weak. Maybe he is tired of walking. Suddenly he remembers the river where the horse drunk. And what if it was contamined ? He sees a barn and goes in to let his horse rest.

Tomy puts Jolly Jumper in a box. « Stay here » says Tomy to his horse, « I will find you a medicine  and you will be okay ». He doesn’t really know if everything is gonna be okay and he is really scared of what could happen to Jolly Jumper. How can he save his horse from a thing he doesn’t know ? How can he save him whan nobody has been saved ?

He doesn’t know where he is and he doesn’t know if there is a hosptital in this city ; he will searche all day if he has to. Tomy is determined not to let  the horse die, he is the only survivor with him, the only friend he has. Tomy feels weak and the sun which shines on him makes him  weaker than the other day. He finds a bike on the road and takes it ; he will be faster.

He doesn’t want to enter in the houses of people but he is really hungry of hasn’t eaten for two days. The appearance of the houses is also destroyed but inside, it stays clean and lovely. Tomy thinks of his house which might have once been full of love and laughters.He misses a lot his wife and their kid.

The worst for him it not tot know if they are alive. when he wakes up, he expects to see them next to him but they are not. And after discovering all the dead bodies he had searched them, looking  all the dead,  but he didn’t find them, so he hopes they are still alive. For the moment he has to find food and medicine.

Tomy has found no food in these houses, and no medicine for Jolly Jumper. He is completely desperate. But at the end of the street he sees a hospital. His legs begin to find strength and he moves faster. He hopes he will find in the hospital something to save his friend. After the horse will have enough energy they will continue to browse the country. Maybe all is not lost.

Mathilde  et sarah

Standing in the Harrison Memorial Hospital yard, I look around. Leafs and papers whirl around me, the wind leading them on the dry yellowish grass that squeaks under my feet. It is as desolated as the room I woke up in, no birds singing, no nurses, nobody. The weather is quite hot, heavy: I would like to take my shirt off, but I am scared of what I could find. When I opened my eyes, my whole body was sore, I could barely move, I could not even smile. I started moving my toes first, wondering if I could walk. Relieved, I sighted and bend my legs. Then, I figured that I had a scar on my right cheek, a large and painful scar, though it seemed healed.

As soon as I tried to get off the bed, I immediately felt a sharp pain from my shoulder blades to my waist, as if someone had almost beat me to death. I yelled for help, screamed even, crying and praying for somebody –anybody- to answer. Silence, silence was all I could hear, and for once in my life, I found it comforting.

I am sweating, my whole back is wet. Maybe I will find a shelter if I keep walking – maybe I will find someone- far away-

away from this dreadfully dull place.

I feel like I am walking on an endless road. Why am I alone? I don’t even know if it’s Monday, or another day of the week, I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know if we are still in September. That is probably the only thing I recall. I remember dropping my daughter Elizabeth in kinder garden – it was her first day. She was keeping her tiny fist tight around my jacket, whining and begging me to take her back home. Home. Do I still have a home? Will my loneliness continue forever?

As I keep walking – I can feel my knees bending by themselves- I notice a bike. I seize it and start riding, painfully. Is it a symbol of hope?

I recognize the streets I live in. It is desolated as well, a nasty smell is tickling my nostrils. It smells like mould, as if a corpse was festering nearby. The street is similar to the hospital yard: the grass is dry, burned by the sun and breaks under the wheels of my bike like glass. The window panes are shattered and the door is open, same for my neighbors’ houses.  Has everybody escaped? Even if it happened, why would no one come for me- why would Karen not come for me? I brake and stop in front of the porch. My heart pounds at such an extent it might explode. My hands are sweaty, my entire back is wet, my shirt drips. I leave the bike in the garden- I mean what is left from the garden- and push the door. It squeals, increasing the pace of my heartbeat. I am shivering: what will I find behind the door? Will it still look like my home?

“Karen?” I shout, still trembling. “Elizabeth?” I wail.

I wipe my tears in a wide and almost theatrical way. I must keep my mind clear if I want to survive, if I want to find my family. I should get to my garage, there is a drawer there, where I hide one of my guns- just in case. Being a cop helps sometimes. I turn on the lights- well, looks like the power is still running. I open the drawer: the gun is missing. Maybe Karen used it, to defend herself and our daughter from whatever made everybody flee  the city. It does not matter, I can take my father’s shotgun, the one he offered me when I became a cop. It’s loaded, and there is a box of extra bullets on the drawer. Another sign of hope I guess. I should pack a surviving kit, I need to get out of here. I leave the garage, grab my wallet – there are around fifty dollars and my ID- a flashlight, a box of matches, a Swiss army knife, a flask and some old biscuits I found in the kitchen – there is nothing else. I take a quick shower- I had nothing to fear after all, the only scar I have crosses my face. I change and leave the house.

A nice vacation

Walker woke up from his dreamless slumber to the feeling of the burning sun against his eyelids. His blinking eyes were tearing up because of the blinding light. He felt the urge to close the blinds. He weakly stood up, but as he reached out, his legs gave out and he fell to the ground. He stayed on the floor for a few moments, trying to put himself back together. His head was aching. He tried to reach the alarm bell near his bed. He pulled on it several times but no one answered. What was he doing here? He began to walk through the empty corridors and wondered why the building was deserted.

As he stepped out of the hospital, he was overwhelmed by the heat of the sun. It felt weird because his last memories were of a harsh winter. The grass had been covered in a thick coat of snow. There was a road sign which was indicating the name of the building: Harrison Memorial Hospital. .

A newspaper was whirling because of the windy breeze. He caught it and looked at the headlines. They read: “EMERGENCY ALERT: Tornado warning. Compulsory evacuation of the state of Alabama. First tornado will hit the 21^st. Citizens will stay out of the state until the 26^th.” This was the edition of the 19^th of August of 2036. Although he was not aware of what day it was, he assumed that the first tornado had already hit since everyone was gone.

He had to get out of the state before the next tornado arose. There was a large road in front of the hospital.  He only had one option: following the path until he arrived in a city, where he could get some supplies.

The trudge would be long and difficult.

The air was incredibly heavy and humid. Every breath he took felt uncomfortably warm. On the side of the road, he caught a glimpse of a bicycle. A flood of memories came back to him. He remembered the reason why he had been hospitalized. He had ben hit by a car while riding his bicycle. As he looked at the bike, he decided that no accident would keep him from riding one again. It would be faster to travel with it anyway.

After what seemed like an excruciatingly long time in the unbearable heat of summer, he finally entered a neighboring city. It was utterly devastated. Windows were broken, roof tiles had fallen. The wobbly doors of the houses did not offer any protection. He came in one of them, seeking for provisions. He did not find any. He did found a hat, however, which proved to be very useful against the rays of the sun.

Walker felt uneasy being all alone in this ghost city. Why had they left him to die here?

When he heard the neigh of a horse as he neared a stable, he felt quite relieved.

“Hey there, my friend,” he said as he gazed at the whining horse. He quickly saddled the stallion and they rode away from the barn.

It was now a race against time. He did not have any food nor water. Only his fellow companion could keep him away from loneliness and hunger, if need be. As they rode fast on the highway, they passed by the destroyed buildings and cars.

“What a nice vacation.”