It was the first time I had ventured out in three years, but I was sick and lonely. I was sick of the four concrete walls, of my own scent on the recycled air. As for lonely, that speaks for itself. In the beginning there had been others on the radio, dozens of them, but one by one, the stations had fallen silent, and I was left alone. It was my birthday, and I wanted to go out; for once, I decided it was worth the trouble.
It is difficult to operate three layers of airlock in radiation gloves. It is harder still when, under a radiation suit designed for a large man, your petite, female body is swathed in every sweater you own and three pairs of dish gloves. I had worn all that to ward off the cold; it isn't as though I had thought to grab my winter coat and boots when I went down there. As for the suit, by now the radiation was probably negligible, but I wasn't in the mood to take chances.
It seemed like hours before I emerged on the surface, but it was only about 20 minutes, all told. Like a forgotten friend, the sun hung in the sky, a pale, watery circle, providing enough feeble light that I didn't feel the need to turn on my headlamp. There wasn't much to see, anyhow - drifts of sooty snow and half-collapsed buildings, both grey against the grey sky. Only the roads, blown clean in places by the wind, looked as they always had; five years without traffic had done the asphalt and concrete little harm, and I kicked my way along them. Even in the suit, I could hear the snow squeaking under my feet. I sighed, and wished I could wipe of the moisture that immediately condensed on the inside of my faceplate.
Awkward in my strange clothing, I made my way down the hill, ploughing through the drifts with the abandon of a child. Eventually, the texture under my feet changed, and I knew that I was no longer walking on snow-covered asphalt, but on frozen sand. I couldn't see the water, couldn't even tell if it were frozen or open. Ahead of me were glistening piles of ice, as high as a single-storey house, huge piles of crazed chunks and boulders of frozen water. It must have been warmer, and very windy, over the past few days. I could not climb them in this clothing, but I wanted to get over them, to see the water, or at least a field of ice.
The last time I had been here, there had been children, dogs, sunshine, and ice cream. Music had floated on the breeze, and the sea had spread out, an endless blue blanket tucked up against the pillow of the sand. Today there was grey snow, and crystal ice, and light from a watery, uncertain star. I waited until dark, then followed my footsteps home.
Prompt: In no more than 500 words, write a short story entitled, 'My Day at the Beach', the subgenre of which must be Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Source: https://www.wattpad.com/296587873-smackdown-the-second-coming-layeth-the-smacketh - yes, this is for TK's latest smackdown :)
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Prompted Fiction
Short StoryA self-challenge wherein I take a prompt found on the internet, and write whatever I am inspired to write. Expect to see a wide variety of genres - the only rules I've given myself is that what I write must be fictional, and it must, must, must be...
