Deserted Wasteland [ Bear & frightorflight ]

[HeyThereLittleBear]

Once upon a time was always the best way to start off a good fairy tale story. Sadly, this was not a fairy tale. It was a grim reality that had to be faced. It had seemed like years since she had first seen the news start talking about the possibility of war. Somehow, because the war wasn't in her front yard, she hadn't truly cared about it. Why should it matter to her? At that point, her life hadn't been changed in any way from this possibility. None of her immediately family was enlisted in any form of the military, and her friends were few because she spent most of her life at work. Honestly, she couldn't say that she would have cared much about the war even if it were happening in her front yard. She was hardly home anyway, so why would it matter to her if an empty home had its yard wrecked?

The young woman shook her head, a shaky hand reaching up to rub at what was left of her hair. If she hadn't need to go to the basement to get some old files, she wouldn't be alive right now. Living in itself was a blessing to her. Fear had locked her in this room, because she knew what would be out there. She'd seen so many shows on television that talked about what would happen in the event of a nuclear war. What she would see up there... It was something she was sure that she could take, even though she knew she could take a hell of a lot. Those people, those poor souls... No, they weren't the poor souls, her mind corrected. She was the one who was the poor soul. They had died fairly quick and painless, but who knew how Lily would die. There was a chance that the radiation would kill her off. Or maybe she would kill herself when she saw what was out there. Or maybe one of the blisters on her skin would get infected. She didn't know much about taking care of a burn... Hell, now that she thought about it, she didn't know much about anything, really. This world was going to be something completely different. Changed in ways that she couldn't think of. She didn't have the imagination or the want to.

But as much as she dreaded her trip into the outside world, she knew that it was inevitable. She permitted herself only a few more minutes in the fetal position, letting tears cleave paths through the ash on her cheeks. She thought of the life that she was leaving behind, thought of how she should have spent more time with her family, how she had missed out on possible chances at being more happy than she was before it happened. She should have accepted her brother's offer to hook her up with a friend of his. She should have checked something off of her bucket list. She should have... No more. Something inside of her was strong enough to put a cap on the "should haves" and opened up inside of her one that was "would have". She would have to leave the shelter of this room, with its charred contents and cracked walls. She would have to find someone else because she couldn't make it on her own. She would have to find water - clean water - to drink, and something to eat. Her hands, no longer shaking, wiped the tears from her cheek, feeling blisters burst beneath her touch. Lily forced herself up to her feet, her steps unsteady at first but growing confident as she neared the staircase.

Every step seemed to take more energy than the next, and she could see dirty light at the top of the staircase. It didn't look like the light that came from light bulbs, and it certainly didn't look like sunlight at all. It looked... Diseased. When she reached the point where she could see beyond just the staircase and the surrounding walls, she took a sharp breath in, her eyes growing wide. What had been a fairly large city was reduced to charred foundations and ash. Fresh tears welled in her eyes and she tried to hold them back, her eyes taking in the rest of the damage. Bodies littered the streets like a demonic child's charred playthings and cars were unrecognizable from anything else made of metal. The air smelled foul, a mixture of charred human flesh, burning rubber, radiation, and god knows what else. The light had proved to be sunlight, filtered through dirty clouds that looked as bad as the city did. They hung low, grumbling softly and promising rain soon. A shiver ran through her spine at the thought of what type of rain would come from those clouds. They said pollution in the water created acid rain. What would radiation in the water cause?

Lily forced herself up the stairs the rest of the way, feeling like her legs had gained fifty pounds in just moments. She strode cautiously out of what had been her workplace, her arms clutched tight to her chest, her hands holding each other nervously. Did she dare even call for someone? Would anyone have survived something like this? An old T.S. Eliot quote rang through her mind, about how the world would end. He promised a whimper instead of a bang. Boy was he in for one hell of a surprise. Lily's lips opened, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. Her heart pounded in her chest. The words were there, but fear had captured her once again. She closed her eyes, feeling ashamed of herself. She had been changed so much by something that had lasted only a few minutes. Before, she had been bold, always speaking her mind. She had been a good person to have on your side, but not at your back. Now, she was too scared to even call out for someone? She chided herself internally, trying to insult the strength into herself. Her tongue unstuck and she called out, her voice wavering and scared, "Hello? Is anybody... Out there?"

Her voice sounded almost like that of a child who had lost their parent. It showed her weakness, her fear, and her hope. She stepped more into the street, repeating her call. In the corner of her eye she saw movement, her heart leaping. Sadly, it was only her own reflection in a badly cracked mirror. Things had definitely changed. Her hair, which had been in beautiful golden curls, was pretty much gone. In its place, she could see stubble and blisters from where she had been burned. Her face was similarly covered with injuries, her green eyes watery and wide. Her eyebrows were burned away, making her look like some sort of freakish alien. Her business suit was burned and torn horribly, but she had already known that. Her fingers reached up, feeling the skin where no blisters were. All gone. All of the beauty she had prided herself in. Gone. Her nails dug into her skin, her eyes welling up with tears. Lily tossed her head back and wailed to the sick sky, her voice carrying through the charred remains. She screamed until her lungs gave out on her, her chest and throat screaming at her in pain. But she felt better. She was by no stretch of the imagination okay, but she was... Better.

From around the city, she could hear cries of agony that mirrored her own, like other creatures coming up from the dark to announce their being. Some were different, shrieking with assured madness that brought a shiver to her spine. The world around her was a charred mess that stunk of burning rubber, hair, and flesh. It was almost as alien as the face she wore now, her eyes taking all of it in slowly. She couldn’t allow herself to enjoy the reprieve of madness as some had done. It wasn’t something she could permit, and she didn’t have the conscience to say she hadn’t seen the warning signs. The news had told her everything she’d ever needed to know – war was at hand. War had begun. And she had survived the first wave.

The idea of stepping out into this new world that she lived in was sickening to her, her eyes glancing back into the building where she'd been hidden away in. The idea of crawling back into her hole and curling up was extremely appealing, her mind already picturing just how easy it would be to squirrel away and let herself die a slow death through dehydration, hunger, or madness. Lily forced that idea away with a shake of her head. No. She had survived the first wave, and she wasn't going to live through that only to curl up and die. She was stronger than that, dammit, and she wouldn't accept defeat just as easy as that.

She forced herself to take a step, and then another, heading out into the streets that were now unfamiliar and haunted with the living who wished they were dead. All around her she could see the evidence of where people had been. Charred remains here, a bone there, the outline of a person on the wall. It dredged up old memories of macabre tales she'd once read - The Black Cat, mostly ran through her head. Would she be haunted by these people now? Would they continue to follow her and slowly drive her mad? Or would she take on the story of The Telltale Heart and hear the beating of their hideous hearts?

 

[frightorflight]

For most people the war started when that first bomb struck. For Jack it started twenty minutes before, when he saw the satellite images of the missiles leaving their silos. He saw it all happen under a mountain of steal concrete and granite. When it was all said and done however. They had to leave the mountain. They left in convoys. They had been ordered to go North to Alaska, The missiles had not struck there, and once the nuclear winter was over it would be very hospitable. That is were civilization would survive. Jack never made it. he fell off a cliff and everyone thought that he must have died in the water blow. Now he sat on a river bank, cold water running over him, he wondered, having survived the beginning, would this be his end?

He thought about his family, his sister, his parents, his cousins. All dead. All of them gone. Maybe he should die to. Just let the family die. As the icy water ran over him, and a numbness slowly flowed up form his fingers, it seemed like a good idea. How could his broken body struggle on any longer. He had to though. It didn't matter if a thousand or a billion people died in those blasts It didn't matter if he was the last member of his family or the last man on earth. He had to survive because he saw it. People had to know about that moment. It was the only hope to stop it form happening again.

He turned his head. He still had his rifle. with all the strength he had left he tried to grab it. His fingers were to numb. He put it in both hands and rolled up onto his hands and knees. Slowly, he crawled out of the water, up onto dry sand. He looked up at the sun and the cliff wall above, the little warmth form the sun felt good. Slowly he struggled to his feet. He stood their like a dead man held up by string. He took one step, than another, and another, he began to struggle along the rive side. He would not die. He would live. He looked up at the cliff wall. it must have been more than a hundred feet tall. His body was broken, but he was alive. He was meant to be. Nothing could kill him now. He was lik a cat with a million lives. One for every person who died, one for every person it was his job to remember; and one for every person that needed to be saved from the next horrible rain of fire.

He looked up at the sky, "I'm a live, you here me! I am alive!" Weather God or fate or who knows what had kept him alive he didn't care. He was alive. He began to struggle off through the woods. He would survive.