I was only nine years old when the city caught fire. Nine years old, a young age to have everything a person knows ripped away from it, to force a child to survive on its own.
The bomb fell five years ago today, or at least five years is what I have kept track of. Time moves differently when you're alone. I've searched up and down for survivors in the city, through broken storefronts and abandoned homes, nuclear wreckage left behind by the radioactive apocalypse, but all I can gather is that my mother and I were the only ones left. I can only assume that the rest of the world shares the same fate, with no relief, no military, no help, only us to survive in the annihilated cityscape.
We were in the metro when the bomb fell. I heard the explosion, an ear splitting bang followed by a blinding flash. I was scared and confused, only a child, not knowing what was going on. People were screaming, faced with their inevitable doom. The purging flames of the weapon engulfed the station, followed by a complete silence. I awoke to find my mother beside me, still alive; to this day unable to tell you how given my best efforts, but we stayed alive. I wish I was able to say the same for the rest of the people in the metro, the men, women, and children caught in the atomic inferno, charred to coals, a horrific sight, and the smell, the smell of the radioactive human flesh the people caught by the blast emanating that day, a truly sickening stench.
My mother had grown invalid upon the blast, rarely speaking and near still as a statue; beside the solemn rise and fall of her breast as she breathed. After the cataclysm, I carried my mother to the closest habitable building in the wastes. It happened to be an actual house that took took the least damage. A small one bedroom home we have been living in for the past five years, only leaving to scavenge for useful items such such as food, water, home repair items, maybe medicine when needed. I've scoured all over the concrete jungle for all sorts of items to pass the time, especially books. If a book was saved from the fire, I read it.
The knowledge I've learned from the books I've read make me think about something. What if, since my mother and I were the only survivors, what if it was something that ran through the family? What if a gene was mutated somewhere down the family line? What if it was something my entire family could survive? I thought about the inferno failing to take us, the resistance to the radiation that plagued the city since that day. I've had this thought for a while, I needed to get to my fathers home to find my sister. To find out if she was still alive. Maybe she could have survived. Maybe she knows others. Maybe she could save me from my loneliness and desperation, but I was never confident in making the journey to the suburb outside of the city where my father lived. I was weak.
I let out an angered cry and kicked the superhero action figure I scavenged from a mini mart across the dirty carpet of the bedroom where my mother lay. I was angry for being so weak, I was angry at my cowardice, I was angry that I lived.
"Go."
I heard a soft voice utter from behind me. I already knew who it was, who else could it be? There was no one else.
"Go."
My mother repeated it. She wanted me to venture to my father's home in the suburbs.
"I'm not strong enough." I told her.
"You've lived this long."
She was right. I needed to go. I needed closure.
I set some water and a few open cans of food by her bedside for when I came back. I hopefully wouldn't be long. I grabbed my backpack, and headed out the front door, toward the truth.
........................................
I had been walking for a time, through abandoned homes and burnt out office buildings. I had decided to duck into an old convenience market, in hopes of finding a drink. I was so thirsty, so tired. I rummaged around empty shelves and barren cabinets, empty being the operative word. Nothing was there, nothing edible anyway. I scanned the small store, apart from the entrance doors there was an office door by the checkout counter. The store was lined up and down with shelves, devoid of any kind of beverage. In the back was a soda fountain, I walked up and pressed my hand to the button. Nothing.
"That was hopeful." I muttered aloud.
I turned around and made my way to the door when it suddenly slammed shut. I reared back. "What on earth?" I thought to myself swinging my head around with enough force to make my body follow. Everything in the store was dissipating, the shelves, the soda machine, anything not bolted to the ground. The check out counter flipped to block the office door, with a loud thud. My heart was racing, it didn't make any sense. My mind was screaming at me to run, but where to? I was trapped. I ran to the door and started beating on it, hoping to break it. A handprint appeared on the door, smearing a red paste on the inside of the door. I ran my finger through it. Blood. A high pitch squeal started resonating within my ears, loud enough to shatter the glass, if it weren't only in my head. I could hear the screams from the background of the pitch, louder, louder, louder. I clasped my hands to my ears but it wouldn't stop, growing, the pain spreading throughout my body like a virus. I fell to my knees. Blood was running down every wall spelling out different words, "afraid," "weak," "small," and the largest spelled out in a menacing red, "ALONE." I didn't know what was happening, the noise kept increasing in volume, I felt as though my head were about to burst. I fell completely to the floor in a ball. I was squeezing my ears closed so tight I was hurting myself, I was squeezing my eyelids closed so heavily I was seeing stars, but the noise wouldn't cease.
"Why won't you just shut up!" I screamed.
And then silence.
I opened my eyes. Everything was totally silent once more. Everything had returned to the state it was in when I entered. "What just happened?" I asked myself, although I didn't have an answer. The world was getting to me. I was starting to lose my mind, implied that my mind was even still mine to lose. I stood up, aching, and walked out of the store. I left the gas station thirstier than when I had entered, but more determined than ever.
.........................................
I had left the city about three miles back, yet you could still see the broken skyline of downtown. The countryside seemed to be less affected, yet maybe it was just because there was less to be destroyed that created the illusion. I walked along the ten mile stretch of road connecting the city to the town my father resided.
I saw a figure in the distance, no, not only a figure, this was a person. A human being standing in the open field. I didn't think, I just ran to the person. I had seen another person since the cataclysm. He was a little ways away, and my entire body was telling me to stop running, but I couldn't. I needed to talk to him. I approached him. He was just standing there in the clearing, he looked like he was rubbing his eyes, his back slightly hunched over, making small noises. I thought he might be crying.
I put my hand on his shoulder to grab his attention, but that turned out to be the wrong idea. He spun around with great force, knocking me to the ground. He, no it was an it, let out a loud cry, smoke escaping from his mouth. It's skin was pink and black, charred by a fire. It's eyes were gone, all that remained were pitch black sockets, smoke steadily escaping from the holes. It's face was scratched, but free from any blood, with skin under its fingernails. My heart raced, my breathing became heavy and frequent, I told myself to run, but I couldn't find myself doing it.
"Why are you scared, child," he asked in a startling, loud, demonic voice, "you're just like me!"
He started laughing, a twisted, sinister laugh, and exploded into thin air.
I started crying, I couldn't stop. I was going crazy, I could no longer trust what was real or fake anymore. I was trapped, held in a prison of my own mind, a prisoner in my own personal fire and brimstone from which I could not escape. I just layed there crying.
I was alone.
...........................................
I had finally made it to the suburb where my father lived. Dirty and deteriorating hollowed out buildings lined the streets. The town was seemingly empty and very quiet, only audible was the soft whir of the breeze rolling through the town. I pondered what the shade had told me, trying to figure out what he meant. I know the shade wasn't physically real, but it was real in my mind. It was a real manifestation of something in my mind, something that my subconscious may have tucked away. Something so painful I had locked it away in the recesses of my mind forever. I quickly dismissed any thought of it. None of it was real, my mind was not to be trusted. My only hope is that my sister had too survived the blast.
I walked miles to get to my dad's old home, past broken street lamps and bricked cars. I walked along the cracked street, I had done so much walking in the last day. I just wanted some rest. I couldn't stop now, only a few more blocks until my fathers house. I walked past more wreckage and desolation before finally approaching the door of the house. I hadn't much hope, but regardless I needed the closure. I needed to know why I survived. I knocked on the door, unsure why I didn't skip the formalities, and the door just opened. I stepped in, the inside was dirty, it looked like a tornado had just run through. I wish that were the only case.
"Hello?" I called out to no response.
I walked upstairs past incinerated furniture and momentous flung about, and then I found them.
Huddled together were two frames of human beings, wearing burnt and tattered clothing, the bones of my father and sister. I fell to my knees, tears forming in my eyes. Everyone else was dead. Everyone. I saw something in my sister's clutches, a small dirty teddy bear. I reached out to grab it, but immediately ripped my hand back.
My hand was pink and black.
My father and sister's skulls rotated toward me. They uttered in unison, "what have you become?" They had the same voice as the shade did. I ran to the washroom, a half broken mirror was over the sink. I looked exactly like the shade. I closed my eyes, waited a few seconds, and opened back up. It was the same.
In that instant I remembered everything. I wasn't killed in the blast, but my mother was, and I was turned into an abomination. She had been burnt to chars, but I carried her to the house anyway. Not wanting to believe she was taken from me, while I remained living as an inhuman mutation of my former self. I was creating memories that didn't exist, I was sending the true memories to the back of my mind forcing myself to forget. I repressed those memories faced with the thought of total loneliness. Faced with being an abomination.