Finally, after 45 minutes of walking in total, I get to the edge of the street. I approach the street lamp and look at it. It's a completely ordinary streetlamp besides the botched wiring, but somehow being near it is comforting. Maybe it's that it's a reminder of a world that just was, so recent and familiar, but will never be again. The puttering of the generator also serves as a nice way to break up the monotony of the worm's rumbling that has since become our world's universal background noise.

I look around to see if I can catch what I thought was moving earlier, but the only thing here besides the lamp and the generator is the car, which is completely stationary and not running. I walk up to it and feel the hood. It's cold.

I look into the front driver's side window and see nothing of note. Some fast food boxes and napkins in the passenger seat. An air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. The clear plastic window in front of the dash is foggy, the faux leather wrapping the steering wheel is worn. I walk around the front of the car and look into the front passenger's side window to see the same unremarkable sight from a different angle. I continue walking to the back window, and what I see there makes me stop in my tracks.

It's you. I found you, Lina.

Your body. Your dead body. Your pale, nude, lacerated dead body with scrawlings all over it in black Sharpie, repeating the same words over and over again: "SPARE US".

I try with all my might to throw open the car door, but it's locked. I continue trying different things in the vain hope I can throw open this door and get a closer look, try to get some answers. I jiggle the handle. I punch the window with full force. I throw my whole body at the door. No dice, all I did was give myself a nasty bruise on my knuckles and my side. I look around to see if I can find something, anything to help me get this door open. It's all I care about at this point.

I catch something I missed earlier out of the corner of my eye. A pile of trash, bits of metal and cardboard. It would be silly to think that anything in that pile could help me, but I'm desperate. I dig through it and miraculously find my savior: a spark plug. A friend in middle school taught me this trick. I smash the porcelain cover of the plug against the curb and pick up the biggest piece that fell to the ground. I rush back to the car and throw the piece at the window of the rear driver's side door. Bingo. Broken glass is all over the back seat and the car alarm is going off but I couldn't care less. I reach in and open the door from the inside.

I lift your cold, lifeless head and look into your glassy eyes. A million thoughts stream through my head. This can't be real. How could anyone have done this to you? I look at the deep cuts on your arms and neck and think of how disappointed I am in my own species that we would resort back to the practice of human sacrifice. We should be smarter than this. We evolved past this, or so I thought. For a brief moment, I feel an intense anger, then an anxiety I haven't felt in years. I wish for time to turn back. I pray to God that he would give me some miracle, anything at all to bring you back, even for just one minute so we could say our last words to each other. Realizing none of this would happen, a deep sadness washes over me. And then, just as quickly as they came, the feelings fade, and I'm back as I was: an emotionless, unfeeling husk.

I realize, like with the worm, it was inevitable and nothing can be done about it now. I realize I'm holding nothing more than a cold hunk of carbon. I realize that what I'm looking at is a reflection of what my body will be someday, and because of that nothing that happens in this world truly matters. This isn't you. The paper I'm writing all this down on is more you than this body is. I drop the head back on the cushion of the back seat and walk away from the car.

And I keep walking down the road. Where am I going? I don't know. Why am I doing this? I don't know. Is there any meaning to be found in it? Probably not. But it's something to do.

I'm awake again. I don't know how much time has passed because the sky is still dark. The air still smells of dirt but now with the added component of digestive fluids, and it feels thinner. There must not be much oxygen deep within the bowels of this worm. I'd rather not go out by suffocation, that sounds painful... but what can I do. The world seems completely silent besides the continuing slow, deep rumble of shifting earth. Has everyone else died?

I get up and look out at the valley to see what I can see. Not much is recognizable on account of the worm's intestine walls shielding the area from any natural light. One thing stands out, though: a single street lamp still has power, directly ahead of me at the bottom of the hill. I can't see what's on the road from this distance but it looks like something is moving. Maybe I should go check that out.

I start walking down the length of the edge of the precipice, doing my best to keep my balance on the unstable ground as I make my way to a spot where I can jump down without hurting myself.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, I finally find a spot I can jump down from. I do it and start making my descent the rest of the way down the hill to the disparate lamp. I can't lie, I'm feeling pretty anxious; my legs are weak and wobbly, but I steel my resolve and continue forward, marching towards whatever this stray beacon might hold for us for me.

The lamplight is dim, but as I grow closer to it it feels as bright as the sun. My eyes have already gotten used to the lack of light in our new worm gut surroundings, so "light" in general is practically a foreign concept at this point.

Closer now, I can begin to make out the faint shape of a car.

A little closer. It's a red car.

Closer yet. Looks like a early-2000s model Toyota Corolla. I can also see a gas generator next to the street lamp- someone probably jerry-rigged it to keep it on as long for as long as the motor will power it. It probably goes without saying that the power grid is completely nonfunctional, but why would someone go this out of their way to keep a street lamp on?

Continued in Part 3

Well, here we are, Lina. The eternal worm is about to devour Appalachia and us with it. We stand on the precipice watching the impending destruction. I wish you were really here with me right now and I wasn't actually talking to this blasted piece of paper, but that's just how things shook out, I guess. And you might think I'm being metaphorical and deep or something, but no. I'm being completely literal. there is a giant worm descending from the sky, its girth spanning hundreds of miles, mouth agape, about to take out a chunk of North America from eastern Kentucky all the way down to the northeast of Georgia, and we are just about at the epicenter. There's not enough time for us to escape. We are staring at the end of our lives. These are our final moments.

You know, the sunset is very pretty despite the giant worm and everything. People are screaming and panicking in the valley below, fighting each other for resources and rushing around in the vain hope of escaping, crashing cars into each other... Yet here we are at the top of a cliff face, overlooking it all in complete peace and serenity. We know how to embrace what they cannot.

My heart is racing and my body shakes, but in my mind and in my true heart, I feel nothing. I am completely calm and completely numb. Whatever happens from this point doesn't really matter. I can't control it. No one can. What is one supposed to do when he hears his home is about to be eaten by a giant worm, that it is approaching so quickly that there's no time to try to find somewhere to escape to? There's no point in panicking. I just accept that it was apparently inevitable (because why would it happen if it wasn't?) and watch the show.

The worm draws ever closer. Must be about 3 miles away. The sun is disappearing. I lay back on the grassy hill. It's getting cold. I really wish you were here, Lina, because maybe we could

I'm really missing you right n

It would be really nice if you were here in person, Lina... in a strange way, this is kind of beautiful, and I wish I had someone to share it w

I try to close my eyes but find myself unable. I stare down the throat of the insatiable worm. It must be 2 miles away. The sound of people panicking is dying down. Maybe they're finally starting to realize they can't avoid this. Maybe they're even coming to embrace it.

Still staring at the worm.

It continues to draw ever closer. It must be one mile away. I hear a banjo playing softly. Plucking a quick one out before the eternal worm devours Appalachia. That has a nice ring to it.

The worm now fills the entire sky. Most of the light is gone, but looking at the horizon, it looks like we have about 30 seconds before it makes landfall. The banjo still plays. The end is coming.

The ground shakes. It's here. It's starting. People are praying and singing hymns. I should probably go down and worship with them. I am a believer, after all. But I like it here up on the cliff face. The banjo is still playing.

Slowly we sink deeper into the worm's digestive tract. The air smells like dirt. The ground still shakes, but with an intensity that remains the same as when it started, so I quickly get used to it. Some have already succumbed to the earthquake and sunk into the earth, never to be seen again. For now you and I are safe at the top of this hill. The banjo has stopped, and the only audible sound is that of the worm's continuing feast.

I find myself strangely calmed by the darkness and the low rumble of shifting earth. My eyes drift closed and I start drifting off to sleep. Maybe by some miracle I'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be okay, and if not, that's okay too.

Continued in Part 2