Forgetting the Bombs

This is a story for my dearest and closest friend who didn’t live to see this written.  My name is Liz and I survived the bombs, but not without losing everyone I loved.

       The year was 2150 and I was only 16. I lived in the middle of nowhere otherwise known as Minnesota near the border of Canada. My parents believed school was a distraction from learning so I was home schooled along with my friend Abby.  She was like a sister to me and we did everything together including school.  Some days it was at my house and other times it was at hers.  There was no set pattern and we didn’t want one.  On the day it happened though we were at her house.

I’ll give you a quick summary of the events leading to that day.  Tension had been building between certain countries for almost a century now. People had seriously started to dislike Americans no specific people just the general population of the U.S.  We were considered stuck up and spoiled and we were but were too proud to admit it. We had a secure economy and the strongest military in the world at the time so we were taken out first.  In later years I discovered the attack that day had actually been planned for years before actually took place. Germany, Russia, and Japan had become close allies in those years and no one really knew why until that day. We should have seen it coming.  Countries were power hungry back then and would do anything to get it.  So those countries became allies, and made the ultimate plan to take over the world starting with the U.S.

       The U.S. was outnumbered from the start.  The bombs began at 4:00 A.M. and continued for 2 days straight.  Of course the U.S. tried to fight back but whenever a plane or a tank left a base to take on the enemy the base was blown up along with all the weapons inside it turning the whole thing to rubble.  It was either save the weapons or the people.  They didn’t do either.   Countries like England and China tried to help but by the time they came it was too late.  It was 10:00 A.M. when the bombs hit us.  Abby and I were doing math when it started.  Abby was trying to explain a problem I can’t even remember now when I saw the bomb fly through the sky directly into my house, and I knew that my family was just killed, and I was not.

       The rest was a rush. Next bomb hit the field next to Abby’s house barely missing us but it still caused an earthquake to go off underneath us.  Dust sprayed through the open windows.  Abby and I fell to the ground with a thud as dirt and dust filled our lungs and the house seemed to shake in fear. Then Abby’s parents came running in with a duffel bag in each hand that were pre-packed for emergencies.  They pulled us up and pushed through the quaking house to the car. All the while the ground trembled beneath us.  Derek, Abby’s dad, tossed Janette, Abby’s mom, the keys to the car then took off sprinting towards my crumbling house.  I tried to go with him but Janette stopped me and shoved me into the car before I could follow him.  Abby remained mute and still.  Five minutes later Derek came running back, jumped in the passenger seat and Janette hit the gas pedal.  I tried to ask if anything was left, but Derek just shook his head, and then I cried all the way across the border to Canada.

       I’m not sure how Derek and Janette stayed so calm. but I was glad they were. If we had panicked or stayed in that house for ten more minutes we would have been killed.  As we drove day turned to night then back again, and even though we had safely made it to Canada I could still hear the faint echo of bombs in the distance.  I was never so grateful in my whole life to be so far away from my home if my home even existed anymore.

       It was the fourth day that all hope disappeared starting the minute I woke up.  We had made it to Canada on the third day and stayed in a school that had been open for American refugees that had fled the bombs.  As I woke up the fourth day I finally felt safe,  then I heard Abby stirring, but something was wrong.  She had a blank, glazed expression on her face. I think she started to ask where she was but all I could remember and hear was the ringing of bombs in my ears.