Failure of Glory

Chapter 1

It's been ten years since the plant exploded. Ten years since the air was breathable. Ten years since people began to change. Ten years since the last human was outside. Ten years since anyone has had hope. Ten years since fear took over.

All over America a dense fog roams through the streets, hunting for any idiot that believes they can over power a source that could only be described as God's wrath, It inches through the towns, slowly waiting for its next victim. It rolls in to strike during the day and leaves with the sun, but they don't know that yet.

In the heart of Palm Springs, California is a seventeen year old girl, yearning to leave the bunker to find medicine for her mother; her name is Jolie Ward. She stands at 5'4 and athletically built with honey brown skin. She has dark, hazel eyes and her long, curly, dark brown hair is pulled into what she would call a bun, but to anyone else it would seem like a bundle of frizz.

She was currently arguing with her father on just how demented she was, considering she wanted to leave the bunker. The short standing man was slender with the same brown skin as his daughter. He had friendly grey eyes that she did not inherit, his short, loose, curly hair dripping water from his recent shower.

"Mom needs the medicine, I don't even know why we are debating this," Jolie argued.

"And the fog will kill you, I don't understand why we are debating your life," Hasan shot back. "Your mother would not want you risking your life for her... no matter how much she needs the medicine."

"If you would let me try out the masks-" Hasan made a stern face that caused her to stop for a moment. Truth be told this wasn't the first time Jolie had mentioned her invention. In fact according to her count this would be the eighth time asking to test it outside. About a year ago she had begun developing a piece of technology that sifted through all of the bad air and found the good parts. In her words 'a gas mask but make it electric'. A month ago she believed that she had finally perfected her design and had been begging her father since then to allow her to test it. So far he is lightyears away from agreeing and Jolie has had enough of his overbearing nature.

"Do you really think that we can stay here forever," Jolie questioned. "I mean we've already run out of medicine. Sooner or later we're going to run out of food too and then what, huh? Then we are going to need the masks, I say it's better to test them when we don't need to go out instead of when we have to go out," she reasoned.

It was all logical thinking in Hasan's mind, it made sense and he knew how smart his daughter was. He liked to think that he trusted Jo's abilities but it was quite apparent that he had little to no faith in the invention.

Jo could sense the distrust and believed that it was simply because he didn't understand engineering the way that she did. He had always frowned upon her wild imagination and creativity that led to her love of engineering and that drove a wedge between the two. She saw it as her escape-her purpose and he saw it as a waste of time during the apocalypse. Whenever she would bring it up he would always say something along the lines of 'no one wants to keep an engineer alive during the apocalypse, they want doctors' but he wasn't letting her leave so she didn't see why it mattered much.

The saving grace in it all was Naomi Ward. The woman was tall and leggy but today she was hunched over with a tattered blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her once lively hazel eyes had long ago been replaced with tired versions that matched her crows feet wrinkles. Her short, curly hair was wild and unkempt but Jolie had always told her that it worked.

She shuffled into the room where her husband and her daughter were bickering once again, being woken by their loud voice. They were so wrapped up in defending their side of the argument that they didn't notice her standing there until she began to chuckle. Both their heads snapped towards her and guilt overtook them.