Daime

Truth

We were sitting at the table, playing a card game that Leo had pulled from his bag. I swear, that boy was full of surprises. When I first saw him in my kitchen, I was mostly dazzled by his smile, and I'd figured he was one of those typical high school jocks, popular but not very nice. Now I realized he wasn't, at all. In fact, the game he'd produced from his bag was Magic: The Gathering, which I suppose is one of the nerdiest games ever. And of course, I'd played it many times before, so we were soon engaged in a typical exciting battle. Although I had to admit that my mind wasn't really with the game, but with the things Leo had told me. I knew that there were holes in his story, things he had left out, intentionally or not. Like why there weren't many people left in our supposedly safe neutral country, for starters. It was obvious that in a World War, we couldn't have been left out, not completely, since geographically, we were exactly in the middle of Nethaldel and Kwerzig. But Leo's explanation of what had happened did not account for all of the empty houses, the abandoned world we lived in. It did not account for how we scavenged for food, and for the feeling that I had, the feeling that said we were some of the last survivors on this planet. And as I thought about it, and mindlessly forgot to attack Leo, I realized that I was missing the end of the story. I could fill it in though.

"Leo, you haven't told me all of it, have you?"

He shook his head. "I wanted to spare you. But I suppose you figured it out on your own."

"You said almost every country had nuclear weapons. What happened?"

"They launched."

I'd known that answer was coming, I'd seen it coming, and yet, it struck me like someone had hit me in the face. Because instantly, I knew that all weapons had launched. I knew that every country had launched everything, and I knew that our own little Letha probably had added some fire of its own. I knew that more than half of the countries on this planet had become inhabitable, filled with radiation.

"So what happened here?" The question came from me in a whisper, and I doubted it had come out at all, actually. I'd been wondering about it for months, and I suppose I always knew what had happened, but I never actually wanted to think about it.

Leo put his cards down and I realized mine had slipped from my hands already. His expression softened and he looked at his hands, at the ceiling, the floor, everywhere but my face.

"There was supposed to land a bomb here. I'm not really sure what happened, but the story goes that some government official had heard that a day later, Letha would be bombed. Completely. So they organized this rescue into Zuria, all inhabitants who wanted to come, to seek refuge in Zuria. Most people joined, almost all, and the next day, Zuria was bombed."

I supposed that was where my family had went, and everyone I knew. I tried to wrap my head around this, but for some reason, only one question remained in my head.

Why wasn't Leo sure what had happened? What was he hiding? If all, or almost all inhabitants from Letha had gone to seek refuge in Zuria, what was he doing here?

I knew he was hiding something, but I didn't mind, as I had plenty of secrets on my own.