From "The Judas Syndrome" by Mike Poeltl

Days after the Apocalypse ravaged the earth, Joel finds Gil staring into the abyss behind their house...

 “Don’t know how much longer I can keep it together.” His voice was hollow. “I don’t know. The sadness, everyone’s sadness… I hear them, their cries in the night, the walls can’t contain it. I can’t listen to it anymore.” He began to jerk as emotion overwhelmed him and the tears came. “It can’t go on like this, Joel, I know I can’t.”

I joined him at the glass door and watched the darkness distort all that I loved, all that we were...  The sky was as the earth, muddied, wretched and dark. You could suffer a case of vertigo from staring for too long.

Standing there, remembering all that this view once offered- the beautiful vistas in the fall, the lush greens of the summer foliage, the crisp whites of winter snow- I realized that memory was all that remained of this place. In my mind’s eye I saw the sun come out and cleanly sweep over the trees and the lawn, the field and the pool; all that I knew were there, but could no longer see through the thick black rain falling hard from a bitter sky.