World War IV

Wound Without Blood

    A tannish figure carefully picked his way through the rocks, gingerly stepping on each one before choosing his next step. A blast had occurred not far from this ridge, shattering mountains and making them a pile of unstable boulders and dust.

   The boy was aware he could fall, as his father always told him, "You never know which one will betray you." He continued forward, searching for the rock that jutted upward, the summit. Here, it was possible to see beyond the wild of the mountains, into the city nearby where skyscrapers crumbled already, plants swallowing them whole despite it having only been a couple years.

It felt so much longer to the boy. He remembered the day when they had evacuated their home, how terrified he had been; his parents wouldn't let him listen to the news. One moment, they were all having breakfast, the next they were driving their Escalade as far into the mountains as they could with hundreds of non-perishable items weighing down the vehicle. Eventually, they found a group of refugees that knew where a shelter was. From what, the boy still didn't know. Bombs, he always assumed, but he had only been twelve then, hardly old enough to understand the weapons the world had.

   He ripped his mind away from the subject. It made him feel more lonely somehow to think that he would never be a firefighter like he had wanted because his society had collapsed before him in inextinguishable fires. At fifteen, he had to accept that he may very well not be alive the next week or even hour. Of course, things had settled some, but his father and him both waited for cancer to take one of them over like it had their mother. In the case of the boy dying, perhaps his father would die of loneliness, but nothing more. However, the boy feared that it would be his father who would succumb to the sickness. Then, he might forget that the rocks were more slippery some days than others. He might fall prey to the aggressive mountain lion that liked to roam around the camp.

    His eyes locked on the cairn, bringing joy and relief. He scrambled to the top of the gray mass and circumspected the area beneath, sweeping rather than searching for threats carefully. He was really here to enjoy the view after all. His father must know that. It wasn't until the boy knew it was too late to warn his father that he saw the outlines of people moving toward the camp. Four of them, all traveling quickly out of the city and along the smooth edge of the scar. He ran toward the camp in hopes that maybe he could help fight them off.