World War Four

2

March 16, 2028

    My plane flies high above the old ruins of Paris as I am on my way to Dubai from New York City. There is a hacker, named Hassan, there who can help broadcast me over all of France's hardware. From there, I can relay my hope-inspiring message to all the people of France who will hopefully appoint me as their leader (or I'll just appoint myself after I set up safe houses to guard the population against more nuclear bombs.)

You see, France is one of the most strategic countries you can rule right now, due to its death and, well, it's forgottenness. No one else is keen on ruling it right now, and it still has it's old nuclear weapons from when it was a powerhouse. After all, without competition, there is no loss.

From the window seat, I can see what used to be the gorgeous cosmopolitan city. The great Eiffel Tower, which used to stand so strikingly tall and beautiful, had fallen in World War Three many years before. Along with the Arc de Triomphe, built to commemorate the victories of Napoleon, France's losses were evident in the crumbling heaps of rubble.

    But that's what war does. It destroys everything and everyone until they can't be broken anymore, and then it leaves them there to be forgotten. That's why the worst part about the ruins of Paris isn't the collapsing towers, the abandoned shops, nor the forgotten monuments. It's the people. And not the living people either. Dead people. Towers and towers of forgotten people killed on the battlefield that no one had bothered to bury. There were just too many of them. The mounds rose up into the sparkling blue sky, tens of thousands of rotting corpses in each depressing mound, making Paris an avoided ghost town.

  Something rubbed against my leg, capturing my attention. I had seen enough of the melancholic view to last me a while anyways. I shifted my attention down to the taupe, run-down briefcase with the gold sides gleaming from the overhead light. I turned away from the window, for I had seen enough of the melancholic ruins to last me a while. To explain what's in the briefcase better, you need to know how the world is right now. Every single country is launched into full out war. Treaties, alliances, betrayals, and war crimes dominate the every news station's broadcasts nowadays. The world needs a leader, and that's what my briefcase is for.

For instance, very recently, big cities in the U.S. have been bombed. Take Detroit--just a couple days ago it was torpedoed by Canada. Yes, even Canada is participating in this grueling war. Also, Australia has numerous cities that have been flooded from bombs and the Great Barrier Reef is no more due to a misplaced bomb sent by the U.S.

Also recently, Russia betrayed it's alliance with Poland and bombed the capital of Warsaw. Millions of people died. A world where death and destruction are caused to win an unreasonable war, where leaders take unjustifiable actions is not a world I want to live in. And that's why I need my briefcase.

    In my briefcase, I have a plan. A plan to release the world from this war and unite it under one government—my government. I have only planned how to take over France so far. I haven't thought about what is to come after yet. However, I will when I get to Dubai though. The world's future is counting on me

    Suddenly the pilot came on over the PA, instructing the passengers in a hurried and frightened voice, "Ready yourselves for a crash landing. I repeat, ready yourselves for a crash landing. Grab the parachute under your seat and head to the nearest exit. Your flight attendant will assist you."

    From here, noise and panic ensue. People push, shove, and even punch to get to the exits. I was swept into the pandemonium of the plane before I could grab my briefcase. Suddenly, my legs turned into noodles. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest and feel the wave of butterflies that made a nest in my stomach. I was trafficked towards the exits, all against my desperate pleas and cries to go back, to get my briefcase, to regain my life .

            My briefcase, it's gone, all gone. All my plans, my detailed summaries, my everything. Gone.

It hit me like a shockwave. The fact that I had lost everything, except my knowledge was so devastating that I almost fell to my knees, but then I realized. Losing myself would be ten times as devastating as losing my plans. I forced myself to press on. On with the stampede of people I went, making no noises. My despair silenced me.

Before I even had time to do anything, two hands shoved me into the parachute and pulled the strap. My parachute inflated and the flight attendant thrust me out of the plane before moving on to the next passenger. My parachute expanded rapidly and I was left seeing the ruins below. It was actually a pretty breathtaking sight—brightly colored parachutes etched over the barren, dead landscape below, but it wasn't a sight that I could enjoy. My mind was solely on my lost baggage. In a mortifying turn of events, I had not only lost my briefcase and my plans in the crash—I had also lost all hope of winning over the world.

My only hope is that someone will find it.