Chapter 7 - Fire

It feels like I’ve only slept for an hour or so until I suddenly wake up, the scent of smoke in the air. Rubbing my eyes, I realize all around me is a familiar orange glow, spreading all across the remaining buildings and growing closer to me. The air is getting thinner and hard to breathe. In a panic, I grab my stuff, but it’s too late. The concrete building I’m in begins to crack. The walls seem to wobble, the foundation finally falling apart after months of barely sustaining the harsh new environment following the nuclear blast. I can’t make it out on time and everything crumbles down on top of me. My body is crushed under the weight of all of the fragmented concrete and other rubble.

I can’t breathe. I can’t move. It hurts. I desperately try to move my arms and legs and pry myself back into the open. Burning hot fire sears my skin, spreading and growing larger throughout the area, and I scream in agony. With all of the strength I have left, I pull myself away from the fire, and thrash and kick as hard as I can to loosen myself out of the heavy pile of rubble. New cuts, bruises and scrapes form all throughout my body, the crimson red blood flowing from my wounds staining my worn clothes and the unforgiving ground around me.

Why? Why was I chosen to go through this torment? For the past few months since my world changed and turned upside down, I haven’t died just yet. I crawl away from the spreading fire and stare at the destruction, the fire seemingly eating everything in its path. I can’t even cry anymore. I feel numb– everything that happens now seems to be just another loss of the little hope I have left.

I eat the last of the rations I have saved in my bag, and stare at the cloudy night sky, not a single star in sight. My body only grows weaker. My bones feel like they’ll crumble any second, the pains throughout my nerves a futile cry for help in this newfound hopeless world. Lying down on the ground, I watch the clouds float by as my hazy mind comes to rest once again, the only escape I have left from this cruel world.