Finding Hope

Prologue

I don't know what to do anymore. No one does. We're running out of options. The air outside is toxic, we're running out of food and clean water. Last week the last working generator lost power. I haven't seen the sky in four months, the air underground is stale, and I am sick to death of seeing these same concrete walls day-in day-out. I just want it all to stop already.

Some people used to say that it was all for the better good when people didn't go into hiding and wound up dead. People died out there, if not from bombing or home invasion, but from radiation poisoning. The government told us our only hope was to go underground until help arrived. It's been four months, four long months without hope, and I doubt help is ever coming. Everyone has lost any shred of hope. The government has forgotten about us. We'll probably all rot between these same bare walls before long.

Some people are saying that it would have been better to die like the others. Just a few days ago my friend wrote those words in her suicide note. I believe dying down here would be worse than out there though. Die here, in the underground where I can't leave, and I'd just be put in the first aid room - now being used as a morgue - with all the other decaying bodies. My friend wasn't the first to kill themselves.

Sometimes I think that to die would be the better option - either that or put up with this aching feeling of hopelessness. But I have to stay strong, for my mother and for my little sister Penny. They're all I have left.

I never used to think like this. Five months ago I would have accused someone of insanity had they told me what life would become. I don't think things will go back to the way they were, before the nuclear bomb that literally destroyed a nation. No, it can never be the same. Not after all those lives were lost. Now I'd accuse someone of insanity if they told me I was ever getting out of here. Or maybe I'm the one that's going insane. I don't know anymore.

That's all for the prologue. Hope you enjoyed it! Reviews and comments much appreciated :)