In A Few Worlds

Project Dead Hand

I opened my eyes. I saw nothing but discolored dirt. Had something happened while I was asleep? Had Lyra and I died from an attack from the robots? "Is this a dream?" I thought, lying to myself. I got up off the ground. there was nothing anywhere. just dirt, as far as the eye could see. No grass, no trees, no buildings, no people. The sky was completely grey for all that I could see. I had my backpack, and next to me, just starting to come into consciousness, was Lyra. "Wha...?" she stuttered, "Where?" Then she saw me. " Oh thank god I'm not alone." She relieved. "Any idea what happened?" she asked, "Judging from the position of the moon and the sun... Nukes." I answered sarcastically, but truthfully. "Oh. That makes sense. Not the sun and moon part, but... Yeah. The nukes." She responded. In the corner of my eye I saw a rolled up, yellow, old piece of paper. I was surprised I didn't see it earlier, as its colors are so different from the ones of the dirt. I walked over to it, and picked it up. it was a world map. Almost every location or country was grey, and every grey country had a skull mark on it. Then I looked at Asia and Europe. It was the same as the Americas. Except for one country... Russia. It was green, with HOPE written on it. "Lyra. Come see this." I said, beginning to understand what had happened. "What is it?" she asked, "Wait, WHAT? Why is Russia the only green one?" "I think I know why." I stated grimly, "Project Dead Hand." "W-what's that?" she stuttered. "It is a machine in Russia that has sensors for radiation, light, and pressure. If these went too high up, say from an enemy nuke, the machine would launch super powerful missiles everywhere else in the world. So it's either that, it malfunctioned, or the sun's energy got stronger to make it go off." "Well," she said, "we better go on to Russia then. Have you got a compass in that bag?" "Fortunately, yes." I said. So then we headed North. We knew where we were because we could see a sign that said "North - HOPE" It was our only chance, so we went North. I could only HOPE that what remains of the human race is friendly.

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Sorry its short. It HAS been a while, hasn't it? Anyway, I'm going to start writing more again. Thanks!