The Wall

Drafted

Prologue

I don’t exactly remember when the United States fell apart. It was just a chain of events leading to chaos and the end of society. I could, instead, tell you about the three year war that happened after a huge economic meltdown on Wallstreet. It was ten times worse than the ancient Great Depression. 85% of the population was in poverty. But those are just statistics. Statistics don’t tell you about the little neighbor boy who died of starvation. Statistics didn’t tell you that people were losing hope. No, you saw that on your own. But, I can tell you how we grow past that. Not everybody is going to make it, but the ones who can will walk on with dignity for the ones who don’t. We are going to grow stronger as a nation, each and everyone of us will grow stronger individually.Let me show you the “we”, the “nosotros”, the “nous”, the “wir”. And how we became the “we”.

Grace

I stood at the inside of our base door, remembering how I felt when I stood just outside this door here, biting the inside of my lip, just hoping that they wouldn’t let me inside. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be home with my family. But I couldn’t. They’re long gone. They got killed by the first nuclear strike on Chicago. Since I was a minor (5 years old), I got sent to bomb shelter 8, or base eight, until this crappy war ended.It’s been eleven years. Eleven years and the world still hasn’t solved their problems like most people would have.Eleven years, and the citizens of what’s left of the United states are waiting for a compromise. Someone taps me softly on the shoulder. I spin on the person, almost accidently knocking them over in the process. I relax. It’s just Alex, my sometimes best friend and neighbor who only hung out with me only if she was bored.

she looks at me strangely. “Wow, killer reflexes.” She says to herself, but I heard her anyway.

        “Hi...Alex” I could tell this was going to be awkward.

        “Oh yeah! Hi Grace! What was I here for again?” She rests her chin in her hand dramatically, like a girl who was used to being looked at, pretending to be thinking hard. “Oh yes, are you invited to the meeting tonight?” Alex obviously knew I wasn’t.

        “What meeting?”

        “Oh, you know, the one later tonight, with like, two other people.” Now I was curious.

        “Who?”

        “Oh you know, Daniel,Junie and Keller.”

        “Oh. Well I never got told anything.”

“Thought so.” She flipped her long black hair and skipped off happily. Alex can be such a jerk sometimes. I sighed and headed back to my room. I haven’t been there since this morning, I had to go to school, then  I worked as the base’s nurse, serving the elderly people’s meals, kind of like a nursing home. After that…. well, I really don’t do anything but wander around. I wasn’t extremely attractive like Alex and her Indian beauty, but I wasn’t an ugly cow either. I guess I’m just average. As I walked past the mirror in my lonely room, I stopped and actually looked at myself. Kind of short, heart-shaped face, dark, brown, straight hair that went down my back, and brown eyes. Those were really the only thing I saw that fit in the “beauty category”, those eyes of mine. They were big and round and they almost looked like they didn’t have pupils, but if you looked close enough (Not that anyone did, but me), you could see my pupils. I showered and went to bed after that. Only to hear two hours later someone pounding on my door, almost breaking down by the force.