The Night Visions Project

Radioactive

There are very few people who can tell you what the world was like before the fallout.

People used to think that nuclear warfare died with the past. That the possibility of a World War Three didn't exist. That the future would be bright and beautiful.

Humanity had good reason to think that. We thought that we would rise from the past and make something better for ourselves. We would reach out to those who needed it, touch the lives of millions. Our altruistic visions shaped our hopes for Earth's future.

But as I've learned, we can't trust humans with anything.

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The first bomb fell on New York City on October 13, 2012. No one knew who was responsible for the attack. It wasn't that there wasn't a culprit; there were plenty of potential suspects, particularly Russia or North Korea.

No, it was the size of the explosion which incited real panic.

When America dropped the first atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima, the blast was two miles wide. Later, Russia would develop the RDS-220, or the Tsar-Bomba, which created a thirty four mile blast radius.

This explosion was forty miles wide.

No one had ever made a bomb that destructive.

The world was sent into a state of madness. With no one to blame and nothing to do, everything went to hell on a downward spiral. Anarchists soon overtook the ruins of Washington, D. C., and America was turned into a dictatorship. Anyone who didn't submit to the New World Order was captured and forced into prison camps.

I resisted. I wouldn't submit. I couldn't.

Prison camp was a living nightmare for all of us. We were dehumanized. Starved. Beaten with barbed wire whips. We couldn't have any outside connection whatsoever. We were reliving the past, forced into slavery, only much, much worse.

We had to get out.

That's why on October 30, I made a run for it.

I waited until the dead of night, when the guards were asleep. With what little strength I had left, I forced open the rusted prison door, ramming into it with all I had. The door fell, and I took off. Despite going to every room blindfolded prior to that night, I just kept running and running.

I thought that I might make my escape that night.

But on that night, the second bomb hit.

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I woke up choking on ashes.

All I could see was destruction. Pulling myself up in a seated position, I shook the dust from my eyes and looked around. The prison camp had been reduced to one massive of twisted metal and crumbled cinderblocks.

I took in a deep breath, and immediately, a stomach twisting chemical taste hit me like a wall. I suppressed the urge to vomit and kept breathing. I needed to think.

When my head finally stopped spinning, I stood up and wiped the sweat from my brow. I was covered in blood, oil, and rust. But that wasn't what mattered. I had to orient myself.

I had fallen in one of the many decontamination chambers by the camp's entrances. I hadn't been far from escape after all.

I eventually managed to clamber out of the rest of the rubble. I looked behind me to see if anyone else was alive, but there wasn't any movement. I was alone.

In front of me was a thick forest of conifer trees. For some reason, this place felt familiar, but I couldn't place it. There was one thing I learned, though; since the albeit haggard trees were still standing, it meant that I'd only felt the shockwave. There was a good chance that I hadn't been contaminated.

Fearing that I might be seen from above, I fled into the forest.

Wandering around for a good two hours, I was beginning to feel hopeless when the treeline suddenly opened up before me. I left the forest and entered a small clearing, mostly empty, except for one small, rickety looking building that still stood.

The gears clicked into place.

I had been here before.

And I knew that here, I could find hope.

For there was someone who knew what was going on when no one else did. She had delivered me and countless others from this place when it had been run by Rufus McDougal, a robotics mogul turned criminal mastermind. She somehow knew of his plot when the world was in ignorance.

I had to find her, and I knew how.

I darted into what was left of the shack. Shooting past every room, I rushed to the trapdoor hidden in the floor at one of the far ends of the shack and jumped down into the basement. Here was the arena where countless robotic creations of Rufus' fought for his amusement. Anyone who lost was caged beneath the arena.

Rufus only lost once.

The dilapidated arena was caving in, so I jumped down into the dungeon below. Cages upon cages of robots lined the walls. Some of the robots still moved.

But I didn't have time to be scared. I just kept running.

Finally, I reached the end of the dungeon where I remembered being held hostage. It was almost entirely collapsed, and for a moment, I felt myself panic.

Then, I saw it, leaning against what was left of a brick wall. A beautiful black bass drum, the mallet lying on the floor just beneath it.

I reached out and brushed some dust off the drum. It stayed intact under my hand. It could still be used.

I gripped the mallet in my now sweaty hand. The cold mallet felt like it was trying to freeze to my palm. I looked above, making sure no one was watching me.

With all the energy I had left, I swung the mallet and banged on the drum.

BOOM.

The sound echoed through the air. I froze, waiting to hear voices. When none came, I banged on the drum two more times.

BOOM. BOOM.

My ears rang, my arm ached, my head started swimming again. Yet all I could feel was hopeful anticipation, a sense that I knew redemption was coming.

I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my systems go
Welcome to the new age
To the new age
Welcome to the new age
To the new age