Chapter 1: The Day The World Changed

"Sí, ya voy, mamá." David hung up his phone, putting it away in his pocket, sighing. This had been the fifth time his mother had called him today, a day meant to be a hangout with his friends. What he saw as not more than simple teenage fun was a story of difference in the Maldonado family. His mother ruled like a tyrannical caretaker, a curfew set in stone for each three son. David counted himself lucky his older brother had swayed the tyrant in his favor.

He glanced back at his friends, seated in the middle of the food court. The emptiness made it fit more in favor of a grand ballroom, the way they seemed miniscule in its bright grandness. David approached, hands hidden in his pockets.

"Yo, David," called one of them. "What's up man? You gotta go home?"

He shrugged. "Just some dumb shit, man. I dunno what it is, I just know she wants me home."

A chorus of groans followed, each child wallowing in vexation and ire. In essence, there was no judgment more final than that of a parent.

"You need a ride home?" A girl offered. "My dad's picking me up, and it's not like he hates you."

"Nah, I'mma skate home."

The girl furrowed. "You sure? It's gonna rain soon, and if you get sick-"

"My ass ain't gonna get sick." David assured. "And even then, I can still do P.T. on Thursday. It's not like I'll get fuckin' cancer or some shit."

"Alright then, your funeral."

Further discussion followed, in attempt to stall David's dismissal. Topics ranged from homework, to teachers, to getting teachers fired. Nonetheless he left, looking back at the entrance of the mall in his exodus. The warm lights shone on the dark pavement, the smiling faces of his friends inside, distant. He stared somber, unsure of why, before riding off into the darkness of the street.

Within the hour he left it had rained, and it was raining yet. The roads lay empty vessels of faded black, the street lamps illuminating a golden orange. He looked left, noting the absence of the homeless, all apart from their discardments and belongings. Winter in Carson was never loud in contrast to Downtown Los Angeles, and quiet was common in the later hours.

However, quiet assumed there would remain a living presence. The quiet David saw himself found the absence of all except Earth's very own.

Soon he walked, the pavement too slick from rain. The wind froze his dampened clothes, turned his fingers to ice. The January wind was all but forgiving. Close to home, a pit opened in his stomach. A rotten, wary feeling that ate away what called his calm. He shook his head, powering through, merely three hundred feet from home. 

David knew he was alone, only accompanied by the rotating rain and the pat of his shoes on concrete. He felt a pair of eyes behind him. Walking turned to a brisk. Behind, he heard a jog. David spun, a knife in his hand. The street lamps illuminated none, and he found himself staring into black. 

A hand gripped his wrist, and David raised the other to strike his assailant. He stopped when he met their eyes, a familiar pair.

"Alex?" David stared, perplexed. "The fuck are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in-"

"Inglewood, I know." Alex spoke calmly, his voice rushed as he looked down at David. "Look, there ain't a lotta time. Some shit's happenin', and if your family ain't already gone, you gotta go with 'em."

"What kinda shit? What the fuck's going on Alex?"

Alex whitened his fist, calmness fading. "Look, it's bad enough that VP and SK mothafuckas are settin' aside their beef for this shit! I don't even know how ain't none of y'all heard, but that shit don't matter! What you gotta do now is-"

The roaring of an engine echoed down the street. An SUV skidded down the road, ending a hundred feet away. The words "I.C.E." lay painted beneath red, white, and blue. The rims of the vehicle were fixed with spikes and welded barbs. Two men exited the SUV, one spoke to a voice on the other end of a radio.

"Got two birds on Avalon. Jain and I are pushin'."

Alex looked to David, pushing the boy away and shouting to run. David obliged, sprinting as he heard the thwack of a baton, followed by the crack and crunch of bones. David ran.

Freedom feigned to come easy, as one of the men chose to pursue David rather than assist with Alex's maiming. David refused defeat, turning the street corner and hoisting himself over fence into the backyards of neighbors. 

Still, the man followed.

David jumped another, then another, and still he followed.

He refused to give in, even as his lungs bled with each breath. His legs weakened, light as a feather. David hoisted onto a brick wall, leaping to a rooftop with the little strength in his legs. The man failed to follow. David ran to the front end of the house, dropping onto the windshield of a parked car. His foot dented the glass as he slid off. Down the street, the man's partner quickly approached, a black hound on a leash in hand. 

He released the dog, which chased David into the baseball field of a nearby park. The black of the open field provided shelter from the men, but the dog could smell. It was there his legs gave, the dog pounced on top of him, digging its teeth into his left arm. David bit his tongue.

Feeling teeth gnash with bone, David plunged his thumb into the eye of the dog, which yelped as it released David, sprinting away with its tail beneath its legs. Like a spring, he jumped back to his feet and continued onward through dark stretched patches of grass, sprawled uneven like bed sheet.

David reached his first destination, a small creek which ran underneath a pass originating from the nearby Dominguez Channel. David found the railing too much for his light weighted legs, barely able to stand on two feet. Beyond the railing was pitch black and staring into it made him go blind, feeling as if he'd go insane simply gazing into its emptiness for more than a moment.

He cursed, running down toward the nearby Main Street, where he knew there lay open two routes of escape. He tried his hand at the first, prying his fingers at the cover of a manhole. It was a grand and unruly thing, and lifting felt as if he'd tear his fingers by the skin knits. In the distance, an explosion erupted south. Its boom echoed throughout, thumping the inside of his chest. The street went black, as a wave of darkness swept its reach across Carson. David sat down.

Across the channel David saw the headlights of a convoy. Illuminated by the ones behind were more colors of red, white, and blue. Their passengers fired wildly into the air, rapid cracks and wild hollers made their owners clear. David cursed, standing up, for he knew there lay one more option.

It was another wild dash, sprinting down Main Street toward the bridge which hovered over the Dominguez Channel. He looked down into its wavering void. To his left, the convoy, quickly approaching. David took a deep breath, mustering any and all strength left in his being to lift one leg over the railing of the bridge.

He covered his nose with his hands, plunging into the liquid void below as the convoy drove past.

Next came a night of cold and booms, a restless night save for the gaps between in which all seemed to be quiet for a time. The below of the bridge provided draft of wind, freezing the dampened clothes on David's back.

It was not long before morning came, and came with it an opportunity. David emerged from the bottom of the channel, met with the grey sky filled with the scent of smoke and blaze. He looked north, where he knew home would be. A billowing twister of grey clouded and clumped from nearby. David began running home.

"Please be fine," David pleaded, panting as his soles blistered. Around him, cars overturned and and charred as metal became ember. Homes were vacant, chips of wood and glass, plastered the surrounding area, as some smoked from within. Approaching his home, he found it the same. Holes dotted the snow colored exterior, it's interior empty.

David could have sworn his insides fell from his body, his mind hollowed and fixated on his home's stillness, unmoving. The world lay a warm frozen.

He rushed into the home, the door eviscerated from its hinges and splintered into the walls and hallways inside.

"Mom? Dad? Aaron? Isaac?" He cried out, his pleads cracking into a wavering mess. "Is anyone home?! Please!"

He combed through every inch of the home, combing through the darkest of crevices where even a mice would struggle to find home. A kitchen cupboard dropped a note, folded askew and torn from its origin.

"DEAR DAVID," it read in chicken scratch, 

"NOT MUCH TIME TO WRITE. CLOTHES AND GUN UNDER SHED OUTSIDE. TAKE WHAT IS LEFT. DO NOT LOOK FOR US. BUS GOING TO SEATTLE TMRW AT SEVEN. TAKE IT AND RUN. - AARON"

David's mind emptied, eyes glued onto the note. For five minutes, he stared, before chucking the note among the glass and wood chips.

Searching the shed in the backyard, which lay desecrated and not more than shattered wood among skinned trees, David found a backpack tucked underneath the rubble. In it stored a black pistol - David recognized it as his father's Beretta - along with three magazines and a few spare rounds which sat at the bottom of the backpack like loose change. Underneath, stuffed at the bottom sat a set of clothes, most of it socks.

David took the backpack, making himself a small fire in the back in which he threw his phone. In his head, he rationalized its uselessness considering lack of cell towers and no way to charge if needed, it was as effective as loose change. It sparked as the battery exploded.

Before his departure from his home, David ransacked whatever would remain in his house, trading his loose flannel for a hoodie and storing Aaron's pocket knife in his pocket. Importantly, he took a picture of his family, wrapping it with a plastic sandwich bag and tucking it safely in the middle of the backpack.

The last he took was an iPod, owned by the youngest Isaac. A hand down from Aaron, David figured any downloaded song would provide entertainment his phone would've lacked without connection.

Boarding the bus to Seattle, he stood in the middle surrounded by misery and sorrow embodied by the faces of those around. The air sat still and sad, voices wept as the bus moved. David took out the iPod, connecting it to his ears as he turned it on, the first song a testament to his younger brother's character.

"Here's a little song I wrote"

"You might want to sing it note for note"

"Don't worry"

"Be happy"

The bus rode for many an hour, stopping for scenes which lay unseen by David past the blockade of passengers. 

"In every life we have some trouble"

"But when you worry you make it double"

"Don't worry, be happy"

"Don't worry, be happy now"

In the next day, the bus stopped in Bakersfield. Gunfire sounded outside. The driver kicked many people off, one of them including David. Without a word of apology, the bus sped off, dooming the stragglers in the soon-to-be Bakersfield Massacre.

Come days of praying, days in which called for David to run among gunfire and bombs as destruction rained its unforgiveness upon him. Days which David would hide amongst bodies of acquaintances to avoid the state's invaders. He'd learned they called themselves the "New Confederate," headstoned if not puppeted by the nation's very own President Josiah Beckett.

Many a time during that hell would David find himself waging battle against rats for the most meager of meals. Only once did he fire his gun, on a dying New Confederate whom had fight in him yet, a wound which served only to injure, not to kill.

Upon the first opportunity of escape, David held his gun to the bus driver who nearly shut the doors on him. In two days, he'd find himself crawling from corpses out of that same bus, having run over a landmine nearly a mile from its destination in San Francisco. Only spared cuts and bruises compared to dismemberment and burns, David trekked the final mile on his own, passing a checkpoint by the National Guard.

Entering San Francisco became a place of animosity and beauty. Past the rust bloodied landscape of Oakland and narrowing the reaches of the New Confederate, it stood a safe haven for the broken and disgruntled that remained in the golden state. 

David knew his stay here would be temporary, but it remained a landmark on which he could find a place to turn to next.

"Ain't got no place to lay your head"

"Somebody came and took your bed"

"Don't worry"

"Be happy"

Two days in his stay, a silver lining shone itself in form of conversation David eavesdropped from a pair of men lost in drink. 

"You shit serious?" Slurred one. The other nodded, not yet fully submerged in drink as the other.

"Shit serious. Ike says they've got boats, big ones with containers. Smugglin' all man and woman who's got enough money to board."

"Where they shippin' to?" The other shrugged.

"Wherever's safe, I s'pose. Ain't like there's much here."

The one who slurred slurred again. "Ain't much anywhere. You got killer beaners to the south of us, and snowtards to the north."

"Shouldn't say all that so loud," said the other, "someone could hear, and I don't want either side to think we're with the Confeds."

David slinked away, passing toward the harbor where through he sought a connection toward potential freedom. A week, he heard word again about it. 

On the thirty-third pier, formerly used for Alcatraz, now a beacon of hope for anyone with a dollar thirty-five or anything of equal value.

Of this, David held none.

"The landlord say your rent is late"

"He may have to litigate"

"But don't worry"

"Be happy"

"Look at me, I'm happy"

Enter occupation at a diner turned volunteer center, in which one locked in a corner may be offered a job in exchange for reward of equal value. This, like many others, came with a catch. 

"So, what do I get paid with?" David asked, accepting a job entitled "sanitation labor." 

The woman at the counter said little, placing forth batteries, a flashlight, and a gas mask. David reached to grab, and the woman reeled the items back.

"You get 'em after the job."

Come to find, the sanitation David was tasked with came in form of corpse clean up. Two weeks, the boy would follow few men and women into streets and alleyways of corpses, as few other washed away blood, bone, and entrails. From there came a trek to a landfill, hilled with mounds of diseased death and still bodies of the intact and the dismembered. There, and only there would David see protection given.

Upon receiving his payment, David made way to his freedom. He gave his items to the man in front of the boat, who inspected each carefully. He scanned David's eye.

"You alone kid?"

David nodded. 

"You know you need an adult with ya, right?"

"The shit ain't enough?"

"Not for a babysitter it ain't," said the man.

"I don't need babysittin'."

"Well I don't know you. Now get the hell outta my line." The man ordered. David grumbled.

"I didn't work sanitation for this bullshit. I got the money's worth, now let me-"

"You worked sanitation?" The man furrowed his brow. David nodded. "Where the hell you come from kid?"

"Carson," David answered. "It's by LA."

"Where you come from before here?"

"Bakersfield," David answered.

The man's eyes sunk as his brows furrowed further. He swept David's payment off the table, stepping aside for the boy to step onto the boat.

From the boat came new travesties of hardship. Accompanied on the boat with David were the diseased, the starving, and the desperate, not all of whom were keen on sharing. The first week saw the death of many, not all of which witnessed by David. The second saw chaos, as mothers and fathers alike clung to children and each other as bodies of the mass were thrown overboard. David recalled how the head of a father had been blown off by the shotgun of a man, for no other reason aside from the capability to.

The third week saw famine, as those alive sought to ration what food was left, for no one knew to what duration the voyage would last. Never was it said verbally where they would make landfall, only that it would be far from the reach of President Beckett. Many had died, and many died yet, as the number of men and women became outmatched by the hungry mouths of children. Yet few were the selfish, who tore feed from the mouths of infants to savor their own living.

By the fourth, few yet remained of the selfish and the greedy, yet too of the parents of the many children who'd been left aboard. Only three pairs remained of the thirty two pairs, each shepherding a child of their own. The selfish remained smart, thieving when time came present for thieving. David himself had nearly blown the brain of a woman who had snatched at his quarter loaf.

The fifth and final week saw the children, orphaned by the voyage and accompanied only by the few adults in form of members aboard and the selfish who survived feeding from the backs of all else. In that final week, David sat on his lonesome, surrounded in an untouched corner away from the dried maroon stains which lay plastered over the tile boards in some cursed remain. 

The night they made landfall was cold, the air crisp in its freeze. David was pulled from slumber by a man in a ski mask who pulled him from his seated position. The moon lit up his surroundings a color of steel, before a bag forced over his head submerged him to obscure darkness. Follow the clinking of feet against steel, a sleek grip slid against his back. He heard the shallow voices of the children left with him, before the floor beneath rumbled alive.

Come forth another two hours of dark and silence, broken only by whispers and sounds of children huddling together in comfort. Then a sudden burst of light, blasting through like the morning sun on a jail cell. The children were ushered out, greeted by gelid air.

The mask came over David's head. In front of him was a building, two stories tall with warm sun colored lights on the inside. He looked past the building, turning to seas of towering neon that crowded all else in the sky of silver blue.

David glanced at one of the men, who ushered the children toward the two story building 

"Where are we?" David asked.

The man pointed a gloved finger at the writing on a billboard. It was foreign, etched from lines which made symbols David faintly recognized. He could not recall it. The man looked at David, his face unmoving.

"Welcome to Japan."