Life After

Episode One: A Survivor's Tale

My name is Zane Sorrows, and I'm a survivor, but you would never know it from my looks. The last rays of light filtered through the sky as I dragged myself towards shelter, leaving behind what was left of my once bright home. Some burnt-out walls with no roof remaining; a collapsed chimney that had been used for warmth during those cold winter nights. Everything else I could see was blackened ash and embers; all that remained standing of my house... or any of them really.

The night seemed endless as I went about collecting wood into piles ready to be put on the campfire when I reached the end of what little was left outside our former town, which was now nothing more than an empty shell that looked like a ghost town if such places existed.

I will never forget the day I was driving home from work listening to my favorite radio station when the alert came through. After years of the Second Cold War, it finally happened. Nukes started to deploy. Some people say they were Russian. Others claim Chinese involvement. It didn't matter who did it because everyone knew this moment would come sooner or later, and in some ways, it made sense. Nuclear weapons have constantly threatened humankind so why not just use them? But at least we all thought it would take months, years even before everything began to fall apart. Our government declared Martial Law and told us to stay inside until it was safe. Well, it wasn't ever going to be "safe." But we believed them. They promised to protect us. So I stayed home and waited. And then the bombs came down.

I should tell you how old I was at that time. Twenty-four. Old enough to get married and hopefully start a family. Instead, I was alone in my home with no one to help me through it. No one except for what's left of our town: my parents' house still standing a few hundred feet away. The world I knew was gone. Nothing left but ashes.

As the weeks turned into months I would search out other survivors and find food, water, anything that could sustain me. There were many, many people like myself, lots of them searching for something better than the hell we lived in. We were all on the same path - we had to survive. We fought against each other when hunger came over us. The weak died first, which is understandable. In those early days of panic no one gave a damn about anyone else. I was lucky. Many others weren't as fortunate.

Three years have passed since the nuclear war, during which time I built a small shelter out of the rubble. I didn't know where or who else to look to and I knew there was only so long I could last before I would have to start hunting. Every day brought more destruction and less food. My body took its toll on my mind and soul, causing me to become depressed. There wasn't a person alive that didn't suffer from PTSD to some degree. I lost all sense of self. It was survival, not happiness, that drove me then and it remains so today.

I ran down the street looking for food praying no one saw me. A shadow appeared. I instinctively looked up - a man stood tall above my head glaring down upon me with cold eyes.

"You." His voice was deep, and it made me shiver despite the warmth of summer. He wore ragged clothes and carried a gun. With a sneer on his face, he asked me, "Are you hungry?"

In fear and confusion I nodded yes. Then, the stranger pulled out what looked like a bone knife, held in a hand covered by an old glove.

"Where is your family?"

"They are... they're..." But my words were cut off when the blade came for my neck. I felt blood trickle down my chest and stomach.

The stranger pulled back with the arm holding the weapon and grabbed me by the collar pulling me up close to him. "Answer me!"

I choked out through gasps and my words stopped as my vision began to fade. "They... they didn't make it." I finally managed to stutter out.

The man released his grip on me. I got a good look into his eyes and I saw something there I saw many times before. A glimpse of sadness, loneliness, the same faces I saw when I looked in the mirror. He stepped back from me and put the knife away into his pocket. He looked around and noticed his surroundings. There was still some wood lying about the area and he started to gather it, quickly building up a small fire. Soon it caught enough flames for us both.

He sat down on the floor and told me, "I lost my wife a year ago. We had three daughters together."

As he spoke, I could see the pain in his eyes. My heart hurt too. It was a different kind of pain though. Not the one I felt when I remembered losing my parents or brother when I was much younger. These were harder to bear and caused me to hold back tears at my own loss. At that moment, I knew why he carried the knife and gun with him. There was only one thing left to do now.

"I'm sorry."

There was no anger in those words. No blame towards him for what happened. Just... emptiness. And when I looked up, I saw the way his eyes pierced through me. Deeply, meaningfully. Like I wasn't even there anymore.

His voice sounded hollow as he asked, "Do you believe that we can all start a new life after this?"

All I could manage to say was, "Yes." But I knew that the truth was far more complicated than just that. Because the fact of the matter is - our world will never be the same again. He just looked up at me and gave a half-smile.

"I never got your name," I said to the man.

He didn't respond for a few moments and his eyes wandered over the forest. "My name doesn't mean anything anymore."

"We all need something to remember ourselves with. Something to hold on to and remind us who we are."

The stranger looked back at me, but I couldn't tell if he believed my words or not. "And what would you suggest that I call myself?"

"You could pick another name. That's an option I'm sure any survivor has considered before. My name is Zane by the way." I gave him a weak smile and shrugged my shoulders trying hard not to let the sadness in my eyes show through.

After a long silence between the two of us, he finally spoke up. "I'm Markus."

For several minutes the only sound we heard was the crackling flames from the fire. Eventually, though, his voice became more animated as he started to talk about what had happened to him. It wasn't all that surprising; the nuclear war destroyed everything we loved. We were forced to adapt or die. The world changed for the worse. But I did try to listen without interrupting too much.

As I listened to Markus' story I felt a little bit of his pain. For years after the war ended, he had stayed inside his home, unable to leave the town that used to be his life. He tried to rebuild it, but he never stopped searching for something better out there, somewhere. As time went on he grew less and less patient with himself until he eventually couldn't take it anymore. So one day he decided he would find some kind of life beyond what remained of their town. So when Markus said a new hope found in a lost city, I knew exactly what he meant.

So we set off together on our journey, the same type of journey every other survivor made. To scavenge supplies. Food. Shelter. Water. Everything we needed. And maybe... just maybe, we might find what we are looking for.