Beyond the Aftermath

Excerpt from the journal of Nathan Hock

The year is 2043 and the future was not all we thought it would be. We always assumed that mankind would keep advancing, always looking forward to the next new horizon. We were wrong. Mankind elected for oblivion. Unmitigated hate spread like wildfire, perpetuated by politics the world over. Fear followed after the wave of hate. There were only two roads left to take, disappear from the world in fear and suspicion or revel in the obscenity of it all. Those in hiding watched as the rest of the world set itself ablaze. Dancing fools in the streets laughed to see it all fall apart, gleefully destroying themselves in the name of progress. They always said that it was our fault the world was dying, our fault the environment was in decline, our fault the economy was failing, our fault for all of it. Turns out, they weren't too far off the mark.

I never imagined the world I live in. I was only nine when my parents brought me to the Underground with them. It was safe for a time, at least. I remember drawing pictures of tree-filled vistas and brilliantly green meadows. There was so much color, so many things we no longer saw underground. But I just knew it would be like that someday. Maybe purple bushes and pink clouds were a bit out of the question. We still had some semblance of an education system in the Underground so I figured out that some of my dreams were simply the imaginings of a childish mind. Still, I always dreamed in color. I dreamed while my eyes were open or closed, it didn't matter. I just knew that things above ground would be different. I just couldn't quite grasp the possibility that it would be worse.

After the Ten-Year War, the Underground was barely more than a network of barren tunnels and death. Half of our colony was dead from collapsing tunnels, malnutrition, or diseases that spread faster than ever in such a tight community. The minute the bombs stopped, we all raced for the surface again, hoping beyond hope that things might have found a balance again. What we found was emptiness. The world we had known, the world I dreamed of, had been stripped into a wasteland. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. It was just empty. We ventured out into the dusty wilds but nothing was there. Days, then weeks, passed. Only wind and rubble marred the landscape. Even the other Underground colonies seemed strangely absent. Only a handful of us continued searching. The rest all found shelter and decided to start their lives over with what they could. I hope they made it.

I went with those still searching. There were eight of us at the start but that was four years ago. What we thought was nothing but wasteland turned out to be beyond anything imagination could conjure. We found people, most dead and the rest dying. We found animals, mutated into proverbial aliens by the initial fallout from the war. Tainted water fed putrid plants that were nearly as deadly as the toxic air. We found life but it wasn't the kind of life that you wanted to find. It was twisted and cruel. Nothing seemed right. We ran out of supplies early and we learned the hard way that the earth wouldn't give us anything unless we worked for it. Three of us died that first year but we never stopped moving. The rest of us have managed to survive this long, even adding to our number by finding others along the way. But, eventually, we have to do more than survive. Eventually, we have to do something to undo the holocaust we made. Those of us that survived didn't start the war, but we didn't stop it either. The least we can do is try to fix what we broke, or learn to live in this hellish reality.