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She remembers the little things: the sound of running water from the kitchen, the clink of the dishes as he had rinsed the bubbles and neatly stacked them to dry. She remembers the feeling of the warm evening breeze in summer as it had washed over her. It used to bring the scent of grass and eucalyptus.

One day is vivid among those she remembers. Winter: a cold, wet day. She had wrapped herself in layers to fight off the chill as she had walked home in the dying light. Rain had been falling for most of the day, but she had been granted a momentary reprieve as she had stepped off the bus. She remembered the tip of her nose being so cold, like it had been a chip of ice. When she had finally reached her floor and trudged through the doorway of her apartment, her whole body had been aching. She had been spending so much time in the office, so many days flying past while she had worked on things that, at the time, had seemed to have such great importance.

The apartment had been cold. The bathroom window, left open before she had left for work, had let in the wintery air. She had closed it and then had turned on the shower. Her nose had still been cold, but a wave of steam from the hot water had made it tingle. She had trouble taking off her clothes because her muscles had felt frozen, but she had eventually managed to get everything off and then let the water envelop her. She had imagined it as a sort of chrysalis encasing her in a protective cloud of steam and heat. She remembered the feeling of her muscles unclenching and her mind unspooling. The world outside had ceased to exist for her as she had transformed. All that mattered was the peace she had felt in that moment.

She remembers the big things, too: The way the sun used to looked before it had been hidden away behind a perpetual cloud. She remembered the colours of the world, a vibrancy that she had taken for granted. Now, a screen of brown and grey had fallen over the world, the brilliance of everything just a memory.

Most of those who remain believe it started with the fires. She remembers the apocalyptic images that had grasped the world’s attention. These images had been dramatic, sensational, and so it had been only natural for people to believe this had been the turning point. In truth, it began long before that.

She remembers the deaths that followed. First her mother, who had died alone and starving soon after the stores had run out of food. It had been too expensive to ship things anymore, even essentials. The world had been hoarding oil, knowing that the time had finally come, and it became a jealous and petty place. The world they had built retreated, shrinking more and more with each sluggish day that passed. A slow march towards the death of the world. Governments began collapsing, and a darkness crept over everything. Then she heard her brother had died. His wife called her one morning, sobbing into the phone. This was back before the phones failed. He’d gotten sick, but not sick enough for the overwhelmed hospitals to take him in, and he died at home in a country that used to be called ‘lucky’. The internet eventually failed, the landlines following soon after, and it was like a great fog had rolled over the outside world. She could only assume the rest of her family had gone as well, because even if they had managed to survive, it was unlikely they’d ever see each other again.

When her husband died, it was such a quiet thing. He’d cut himself trying to barricade their house from the looters that had begun to spring up in isolated packets, and despite their efforts at keeping it clean the wound had soon become infected. The fever had made it seem like there was a furnace just beneath his skin. He’d become delirious, calling out for her, begging her to come back even when she had been right next to him, pressing a damp rag against his burning flesh.

Now she was alone. She spent her days scavenging and foraging, picking over the scraps of a dead world in the hopes of surviving one more day. She wasn’t sure why she did it; everyone she had loved, her reasons for living, had been taken from her. Even the little one, who came into this broken world too early. She had not given him a name, and had buried him in what had once been a garden. A lack of sunlight had left the place silent and barren, but she remembered its beauty, how the butterflies and bees had once seemed to float in the colours and scents.

She always tried to get back to her hiding place before the sun went down. Her eyesight wasn’t very good anymore, and it was even worse in the dark. After eating her simple dinners, she would read books with flashlights that she could charge using a hand crank. The solar-powered ones were useless these days. Recently, she had been reading a book where radiant knights filled with the powers of a storm fought incredible battles in the sky. She read mostly for herself, but occasionally, she would also read for the ones she had lost. In those moments, she liked to think of them gathered around her in the cold and the dark, huddling together for warmth, their eager eyes hungry for the story. The little one would be there too, in his father’s arms.

When she finished reading, she would sit in the darkness and let herself remember. She had been alone for so long. But she still remembered the world as it had been.

In the darkest part of the nights, when she mourned for a world she had lost and which could not be made right again, she let herself drift in the soft currents of her mind, and remembered.