It had all started with a single wish, a single thought: "What if everyone else disappeared and only I remained? All this pain would go away." But I didn't know that everyone actually would disappear. I still remember that day as clearly as the sky.
It was April, and the day was already quite hot even at 8 a.m. I was the only student in the classroom, waiting for others to arrive, waiting for the exam to end so that I could go home and sleep. Lately, I had been having difficulty sleeping, and I thought it was because I was stressed about exams. No one had arrived yet; all those wooden chairs were empty. My seat was the first, near the glass wall. I was in no mood to revise the syllabus, and I certainly wasn't in the mood to check my phone, which had several unread messages, from my classmates, my family, and my friends.
I felt like I was alone in this world because of how quiet it was. And my mind could only think of one thing: "No one is here yet. Maybe they all disappeared." I scoffed at my own thoughts. How was that possible? I was being absurd. No one would disappear just because I wished for it. But- "Oh, how I wished everyone did!"
I was drowning in my thoughts when a weird crow sat near the glass wall. For a moment, it almost seemed like it was sitting on the inside, but how was that possible? A crow couldn't get in. I stared blankly at that crow. It didn't have any wings, and its beak looked crooked. My gaze wandered to its feet, and my heart skipped a beat, they were like human feet. My gaze slowly went back up, but now it wasn't a crow. It was a human that looked like a crow, sitting there with one leg over the other, looking at me with those dark eyes. He didn't have pupils, but I knew for a fact he was staring at me. I couldn't move, nor could I speak. I was just staring at it in shock. Then suddenly, it started speaking.
"You want everyone to disappear?" His voice was raspy but had a shrieking touch. A shiver ran down my spine. I was scared to death, but my mouth opened on its own, and before I could stop myself or comprehend what was happening, I had already said, "Yes."
It suddenly started cawing loudly, and the weather outside became dark. Thousands of crows appeared inside the classroom out of nowhere, and all of them were shrieking one word only:
"Disappear, disappear, disappear…"
The only thing I remember is that I fainted, and after that, I didn't know what had happened or how I ended up in my house, on my bed. For a moment, I thought maybe the university management had sent me back home because I fainted, but if that was the case, then why couldn't I hear the voices of my mom and siblings?
Not even the sound of cars on the road outside. I stared blankly at the ceiling. I didn't know what was happening to me, or to the world. It was eerily quiet. No trace of human voices. Suddenly, my mind was struck with the memory of those crows. Was it all a dream? I got up and immediately opened the window. "No, no, no, no, no." I was scared. What if everyone had actually disappeared? Not a single soul was outside. No one. It was as if humans had never existed. Everything was eerily creepy. The silence had engulfed everything.
Was I the only one left here? Or was I the only one who had come somewhere else? I couldn't understand. Just when I was lost in shock and panic, a crow sat near my window. It was dark as the night, and it started cawing, but gradually its caws converted into a human voice, and its words became understandable.
"Go to the camp, selfish," the crow said.
"The camp? What's the camp?" I didn't know what camp it was talking about or where this camp was. Hell, I didn't even understand where I was or what exactly was happening. Had I died, or was it a dream? And the crow had called me selfish, but why?
"The camp awaits all the selfish people," the crow said, ready to fly away.
But I had a lot of questions. What camp? Who's selfish? What was this creature even talking about? I held its tarsus and pulled it back inside.
"What camp? And how am I to go there? You didn't even tell me the location!" I couldn't help my anger, at this creature, at the situation, and at myself. This was all too confusing and too scary. The crow looked me dead in the eyes and said, "The camp of selfish people, the camp where you are supposed to be."
"Okay, okay, I get it, but where exactly is that camp?" This dumb crow was making me so frustrated, calling me selfish and not telling me what I was supposed to do. I wanted to smash it against the wall and scream my lungs out. I wanted to go back, back to my home. "And what world is this? Where's my family? Where's everyone?" I was almost screaming at this point.
"The camp… you'll find it in the place nearest to your heart, but the place that makes you want to die. Everyone disappeared, just like you selfish people wanted. And only the selfish remain now. You and her," the crow said. I didn't realize my grip had loosened, and it abruptly flew away.
"The place nearest to my heart but the place that makes me want to die," I mumbled. But I didn't know what kind of place that was. I had never loved a place, was never attached to a place, nor had a place ever made me want to die. And who was "her" it was talking about? Was a girl also stuck in this world? The thought made me annoyed. Why a girl? Girls are nosy and emotional. I would have preferred a man like me. I didn't want to be stuck with a girl.
I started packing things in a bag to go find that "camp." Luckily, only humans had disappeared, not food. I packed all the essentials I thought I'd need for the journey and left my home, which didn't even feel like a home anymore because no one was there. The air was eerily still. I left the house, looking at it one last time before walking to God knows where.