The Decay

Chapter 2 - Memories

2

...7 years ago...

Arthur woke up. Another cloudy day. He couldn't recall the last time he'd had a good night's sleep. Ever since the raiders had tried to attack their camp, he was never able to rest easy. The only thing he could really remember from that night was the profound fear that he'd lose his 14 year old son, Mike.

Mike was a strong kid. At age 10, he had helped his father kill a mutated rodent and now, 4 years later, he had killed his first cockroach with a knife.

The fourth World War had come to abrupt end 95 years ago, but its devastating effects still remained to some degree. Among these effects, were mutations in the DNA of many animals. Most animals died, but a few survived, either unchanged or grossly modified. For some reason, bears had become smaller, but most rodents had tripled in size. Dogs and other canines such as coyotes resembled their non-mutated counterparts, with the main exception that their heads were larger, and teeth bigger. Cockroaches, highly resistant to radiation by nature, were by far the most common animal around, although their much bigger size was nothing that people had become fond of.

Much had changed after the war. Arthur didn't know much himself about the immediate aftermath, for he was born some 55 years after the war, In 2108. He never knew his mother, who died at birth, but his father was with him till he was 15. He hoped he could stay alive longer, to see his son grow into a fine adult.

What he did know was that countries no longer existed as such. Governments were no more. The few people who had managed to find shelter in nuclear bunkers had come out to the surface in attempt to build a new home. That was many years ago. He had never lived in a shelter, born in these ruins made into a home now.The environment wasn't much better. A wasteland. The majority of the open wilderness consisted of rocks and fragments of rocks. The odd remains of a building could be seen, but otherwise, all that remained was some grass here and there and patches of flowers and trees, planted by people in the recent years, although it was indeed difficult to grow anything in the radioactive soil.

Arthur had never gone too far from their current home, just the distance needed to hunt and trade with any passers by. Gold was the main form of currency now. Before the war, the majority of transactions were carried out electronically. Gold was easily available after a German scientist by the name of Hans Herzenger, nicknamed King Midas, had found a way to convert common iron into gold. Gold prices plummeted, and within a year gold was a new scrap metal, although a highly resistant scrap metal. It was for this reason that gold was used now: a lot of it had survived the war and it was easy to carry around in the form of coins or bars, with its worth being equivalent to its weight. His current home consisted of two buildings near each other that had survived, although they were in ruins. Together with other inhabitants of their shelter, one of his ancestors had made the place habitable. Now, they were nine living in it. 

He was never quite sure of where exactly they lived. He knew it was somewhere Northwest from Boston, a place near North Waltham, but that was all he knew. He had never thought of going to Boston, not knowing what there would be to find apart from ruins. He had met travelers before. People trying their luck, perhaps finding an established community elsewhere. He never saw anyone return, so he assumed they had died. As for himself, he didn't care much for trying to find a community. His job was to hunt animals, bring back meat and cook it. Survival. Without electricity, most of the fancy hi-tech weapons had quickly become useless. It was back to the good old lead. He had taken a .45 colt from a man who had tried to take his son a few years back; a quick knife to the throat and the man was no more.