Fact:The End Changes Everything and Nothing

ooOoo

Dr. Penelope Lane Walker, a fifth year surgery resident at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, is prepared for the end of the world. Has been for a long time. It's just a thing she does -- prepare and stock up and train and prepare some more. When the D-day happens (as she knows it would, obviously), she finds herself armed and ready, and the owner of a three-acre patch of forest bisected by a creek and a large, expertly hidden and well-stocked underground bunker ready for use. She had the whole thing made both for herself and her parents, who are in England and have been there for years, but whatever.

She was born in a filthy rich family, to parents who are simultaneously indulgent, eccentric, and avoidant.

Frankly, she's had worse Before. Not that she would ever talk about that.

Anyway, doomsday prepping is an expensive hobby that Penny Lane Walker could well afford because of her loaded parents, and because of her job (which she was able to get into also because of her parents), and for that she's thankful. And after that video-assisted thoracic surgery that she helped her mentor conduct on a certain King County Sheriff's Deputy named Richard Grimes? Well, that just justifies everything, doesn't it? Turns out she hasn't been preparing for nothing, after all.

Though whether that is a good thing or a bad thing still remains to be seen.

Almost immediately after scrubbing out of Rick Grimes's surgery, Penny files an indefinite leave and heads for the hills. Or the creekside, as the case may be. Never let it be said that Penny Lane Walker is an ungrateful woman though. She has a couple of "bug-out bags" immediately delivered to Sir and Mrs. Reginald Walker, all the way to Wiltshire, England. Her parents may have been more willing to send her a couple thousand pounds every month rather than, well, to actually be with her, but she's reasonably sure they love her... in their own weird way.

But there lies family drama. Which is so not relevant, so Penny spends an inordinate amount of time ignoring it.

She reaches her property within two hours on the old dirt bike she'd bought for the express purpose of bugging out, and arrives at midday, which is just perfect. Georgia has way more trees than one would think, and it's easy to get lost if you don't know the lay of the land. Which she does, but it doesnt hurt to be safe. She trudges through dried foliage and scorching heat for what seems to be hours, and finally sees her destination: the dilapitated remnants of a car smack dab in the middle of the property. Its wheels and axels are gone, and the car is more of just a rusty body laying low and flat on the forest floor. She looks around, decides the surrounding area to be safe, and lifts the lid off the car's trunk, revealing the five-inch thick steel door to -- you guessed it -- her bunker.

The end happens soonafter, and it happens with all the chaos and death that the doctor expects, though dissapointingly without the charactetistic grandeur she'd imagined; none of the large-scale sense of convergence like a symphony's finale. The end of the world is supposed to be significant, after all. Biblical, even. It is a concept that has been theorized and contemplated since the beginning of man's first coherent thought. Prophesied and discussed and dreaded, even anticipated by some. And in all the stories that she remembers, the End happens with that distinct, all-encompassing air of importance and grace that can almost be called beautiful.

But the End, she figures, is probably not meant to be beautiful. Or particularly ominous or foreboding. Its significance is just a delusion of humanity's characteristic arrogance. The End is just what it is. It isn't a symphony, it isn't a piece of theatre, and it definitely isn't a story. It isn't the Revelation, either. Yes, the world dies in violence and pain. With rape and murder, cannibalism and theft, torture and injustice, all the heartbreaking and despicable acts that if put to film would probably bring the whole world to tears. ...And yes, the dead do indeed "come to life," just like Biblical canon, if one were the type to view the facts according to their beliefs instead of the other way around.

But Penny thinks about it, really thinks about it, and realizes that the End isn't that big of a deal after all. It isn't even really the end of anything. It was more of a Change than an End. So people do heinous and truly reprehensible things now. So danger lurks at every corner. People have to kill for food, for shelter, for anything. People are monsters, out of choice or circumstance.

But that's just business as usual.

Humans have always been monsters.

ooOoo

A/N: I AM ON A ROLL!*rolls around like a log* Reviews are love! And suggestions are welcome!