"Outcast"

One

    You never really know what you have until its gone. One day, you really don’t give a damn, the next; you think it depends on life or death. People just tend to take tons of things for granted.

   My bad, where are my manners? Yeah, like they matter anymore. This place is nothing but a wasteland. Barren, lifeless except for the occasional water stream trickling here and there, or the little fallout towns scattered around, begging for some sort of life. I’m Bryce Scott, born July 22nd, 2100, but you know, this isn’t a biography.

   “Hey Bryce! Get over here! You have to herd today!”

    I really hate it when Jack interrupts me.

   “Ok, coming! Hold on one minute!”

    Jack has been my best friend since we were little, before the nuclear fallout. What is the Nukeout? Well for starters, that’s what they call it. It happened when my grandpa was a child. No one really knows when it happened, but Grandpa Bob said it all started in 2014, about a century ago when the Russians bombed the Pentagon. Why, we don’t really know. We think it might be over oil and natural gas, but soon war broke out. At first they all thought it would end up as usual, with the United States winning, and we would get what we want, and on. We underestimated them and they outnumbered us. We had to use our only and last resort. Our nuclear facilities had been working on project Nuclear Usage for Killing Enemies or N.U.K.E for short. They created a bomb infusing an proton particle with an hydrogen atom. The blast radius could wipe out an entire continent. It all turned soon enough, for a spy turned over the blueprints, and we bombed each other at the same time. Everything was wiped out on impact, and mostly everything else vanished.

    The only things left are the little fallout towns, and the fallouts. Yeah, fallouts. Mutant phsycos. Lethal, and bloodthirsty, changed by radiation into some kind of monster. Literally, they need human blood to live. Their blood cells evaporate too quickly for them to get oxygen. Not like vampires, but more like cannibals. The worst one of all, is King Gallagin. Legend has it that when Gallagin was a kid, his younger brother, Lenard always got what he wanted. He was stuck as the abnormal child with the awkwardly shaped nose and tall with dirty blond hair, an uncommon trait in society today. When they grew up, Lenard got the throne and the Jewel of Anarchy that he never used after their father died. The Jewel of Anarchy was a magical staff that enabled the user to gain so much more power than anything in the continent. It also enabled the user to live forever. Gallagin had it for so long, his life has been extended. Encrypted with a magical code that is harder to solve than knowing how the world formed, it was a long staff made of cherry wood about two feet tall and the knob was made up of a combination of diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire, but it is a red-orange colored jewel.

    Enraged, Gallagin formed a secret army in order to take down his brother. They had many attempts to try to take over the cities, North and South Haven, but with no success. The cities were too well fortified. So, Gallagin made an alliance with Haven. As devious as the legend says he is, he turned on his brother and had him assassinated during a public speech, and he took over power and the Jewel. Awhile later, Gallagin was involved with a freak experiment that had to do with changing the atmosphere to enhance humans and it turned him into the bloodthirsty beast he is today. Soon after, an ally who soon turned on Gallagin took the Jewel and hid it somewhere in Haven. Knowing how big Haven was, there was a ten-year search for the staff. It was never found, so the traitor was and executed. So, Gallagin is still in power. He doesn’t really give a shit about anything west of former Pennsylvania. Technically, we live in what used to be…Ohio? I don’t really know. I wish this legend wasn’t true but, you can never really trust rumors, especially now.