As I drove down the lone road, miles from a living soul, I remembered how scenic this place used to be, before the government decided to start bombing their own cities, and putting the country of the United States into a state of emergency, but that was over a year ago, everyone still alive has adapted to the circumstances.

The day it happened though, I remember as clear as day, I was at work, teaching delinquents aged 14-18 how to fix cars. It was third period, and it was another day just like all the others, until the heads of the school came on the intercom, and said “Attention teachers, please check your email as soon as possible” and so I did, and as soon as I logged onto the computer, CNN, my home screen, displayed headline after headline of something more or less titled “Seattle has been bombed, Washington is under a state of emergency until further notice”. When I logged onto my email I was met with an email, from the superintendent of the district, forwarded to every teacher in the district, it said “Today at 9:57 Seattle was attacked, and more missiles have been launched, en route to Orlando, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, by who is unknown, but the government isn’t telling us anything about the issue more than the very basics, please follow the safety procedures attached to this and wait to leave school until every kid has been picked up, parents have been notified”. I was taken aback by this, I knew that we haven’t been on great terms with a lot of people, but I didn’t think we were in enough trouble to be bombed, I didn’t want to tell my kids exactly what happened, so I let them find out for themselves from their phones, only telling them that Seattle has been attacked.

It had been nearly three hours after the email was sent, that all of my students had been picked up, and I was finally able to leave. I hopped into my 1997 Jeep Cherokee and stopped by the gas station, just incase. The roads were packed, people trying to go to every gas station and market in sight, so I decided to go to the store as well, and pick up long term supplies, like food and first aid.

I barely got home before I heard the first emergency alert, the second bomb had hit, and this time in Las Vegas, this one felt the worst, because Vegas was only a few hours from me, and this would cause a lot of problems. With this information I made the difficult decision to pack my supplies into a bag and start taking it out to my Cherokee, and prepare for the worst. Little did I know, the worst would be way worse than I could have ever thought.