• As he bean to rouse himself from his slumber Taylor realized that he was no longer in his warm bed. “Where have I run off to this time.” He wondered to himself as he sat up on the cold concrete floor. Though he could see no walls to the room, due to the combination of thick hazy dust and a lack of windows, he felt assured that he was in the basement. Taylor began to search his person trying to find any clues as to the events of last night. He started with his pockets, reaching into their mysterious depths he found only lint and cloth. It was only after he pulled his hands out of his pockets that he realized what he had in them all along. A thick lock of blonde hair was crumpled in his hand.

    Taylor knew that it was not his hair, he was a brunette. No this hair was all but alien to him. The light dangled and swayed above him as he tried to see beyond it, no luck. With a heavy sigh Taylor forced himself to his feet, dust rolled off of him as he did this forcing out a light cough. “How long was I here?”

    His once pale hand, now soiled by a powdery tan dust, was the first to penetrate the darkness as he stepped through the boundary cast by the light and into the void of black. The first thing he found was a cold metal door with a vertical handle. The refrigerator was a welcome entity, it meant that this was indeed Taylor’s basement. He opened it to search for some cool liquid to calm his nerves. The light didn’t come on, so he probed the reaches for a container, still no luck. Unfortunately he had set up his basement electricity on a separate circuit than the rest of his home. The fridge was hooked into the testing outlet, used mainly to determine if the rest of the house was destroyed by a natural disaster.

    He quickly found the door and played with the light switch in vein. He knew the auxiliary power was the only thing keeping the light on. He finally decided to open the do-
    "Damn this lock"
    He finally decided to open the door. It was beautiful. The sunlight cascaded down on him with a gloriously incandescent warmth. It put Taylor at ease as he nearly floated up the stairs into his kitchen. It was dusk when he arrived on the first floor. This realization made Taylor uneasy, it meant that there wasn’t much light left in the day and he needed to have power for the evening. Dread filled him as he hurried up the stairs and into his bedroom. He checked the readout display for his solar panels, they sat firmly at zero. Another wave of terror hit Taylor as he started to realize that it had been much more than one night. He had batteries that stored enough electricity to last for a week and now those were empty.

    "The girl!" Taylor doubled over in pain as he remembered that there was a girl with him before he passed out. The pain in his head was so intense that he vomited. While regaining his bearings he knocked a picture off of his nightstand. He looked down to be greeted by Maya’s beautiful smile. It brought him back to a simpler time, before he needed to worry about the storm. A time before the lights went out, and the dust ate the planet. When he had her and his land and his money. Her beautiful smile was complimented by a soft form. Her face was framed by her gorgeous blonde hair, it smelled of fresh strawberries. and her skin was as smooth as freshly spun Chinese silk. The world before was a memory, and a memory it would stay.

    Taylor’s reminiscing was cut short by a loud bang. He was startled to the point of death before he realized that the sun was casting its final beams. He ran to close the iron shades, finding one badly damaged and hanging from its tracks. He hadn’t the time to repair it, instead he sealed off the room making his entryway inaccessible. The storm had already begun, it picked up dirt and tossed it through the air strong enough to hurt as it splashed in Taylor’s face.