Today is my birthday. Only my seventeen one and I've already done so much. Lost so much. Here I sit in my trashed room, most of the walls missing and rain poring in through the missing roof. My brown hair is plastered to my forehead and torso, ripped clothes sagging and sticking. I take in a rough breath. My broken bed frame creaks as I shift my weight on it, the mattress burnt on one end to springs.
My bookshelf is smashed with the burnt and torn books scattered on the rubble covered floor. The smell of smoke still lingers on the air even as the rain begins to wash it away. Blood stains my bare arms and face, fresh blood dripping from my chin to my thigh. I squeeze my stinging eyes tightly, using my better hand to wipe blood from my eyes as it drips from a gash in my forehead.
The damaged wrapping paper covering whatever it is in the package crinkles wetly, the poor thing having seen better days. It's about three or four inches long and one wide. A note taped to it shows smeared ink. I can barely make out "Happy Birthday, birthday girl!" with a heart drawn over each i. The rain continues to patter on and around me as I pull a torn and blood stained picture out of my pants pocket. It sags between my fingers as the rain shows it no mercy.
Between the folds worn into it and the blood, I see a smiling family of four. Two young girls and a man and woman embraced in a family hug as they smile at the camera. Sadly, the blood stain blotches out the family except for one of the young girls. I stand their with my arms around my mother and sister, a dash of dark red across my torso while the others are almost completely covered.
How ironic. They are all dead and I'm alive. The pictures doesn't lie about that. But I'm no longer that happy. I'm not longer smiling and innocent in my prime of twelve. I've seen so much in the span of ten months. So, so much. Tears build up in the corner of my eyes before spilling over, sobs beginning to wrack my body.
Within a month I had seen sudden war break out and many deaths. Then it was like a ticking time bomb. My mother was the first to go. Running into a building targeted for a bombing, she rescued my sister and other children. She was running away towards my sister and I when the whistler pierced our cries and fire bloomed behind her. Air ripped at us and she was blown forward.
Her back was singed and smoking, a chunk of her head missing were a piece of concrete was hurled. Two months later it was my sister, shot down by raiders. Then my dad a three weeks later, caught in a bear trap in the woods while we were hunting. He died of infection and fever two days later. Now it's just me.
Now, seven months later, I'm left sobbing in my old room from before the war. It was war and then it was just chaos. Two nuclear bombs destroyed the north and west of America, regular bombings leaving central and east America in tatters. Raiders banded together and fought over territory, innocents killed, the old world being gone. Our country has nothing to offer the outside. Canada and Mexico built thick and tall walls on the boarders.
Our country is so feared now that any vessel leaving the country on sea is sunk. They fear that we may bring chaos to them. Sickness. They might not be wrong. We've been knocked back a few years technology wise and no one can stay in any sort of power long enough to create peace. It's a killing field.
And I've been left to face it on my own. A hard sob leaves me on the floor curled around the photograph and present, injuries screaming at me as rubble pokes into the broken flesh. The rain mixes with my tears and blood, washing away the top layer of grime on my skin. Several minutes pass before I force myself to sit up and take the birthday present in my shaking hands.
I pull at a hole in the paper and uncover a plain brown box. Frowning, I open the end of it and pull out a paper wrapped object. A knife slides out and clinks against the floor. Picking it up, I recognize it as a stiletto knife I had had my eyes on for a long while. My eyes start to sting again and I open the folded paper, rain soaking through it almost instantly.
I'm careful not to rip the paper and then read the note inside. "Dear Riley, we know you've been looking at it for a long time so here you are. We love you very much and we will always be here for you. Love, Dad, Mom, and Jess." I read aloud in a whisper, my voice cracking once. Spending another minute crying softly and shaking, I let myself calm down before standing.
I tuck the knife into my pocket, the picture going into it as well before I go to my half open closet and pull out a water resistant bag and start piling dry clothes into it. Just because they aren't alive with me doesn't mean that I can't strive to make them proud. I can still fight. I pull my soggy hair into a tight horse-tail and walk outside into the rain. My heart thrums in my chest, beating against my ribs.
I can't die. I have to fight to see a better day. "For you." I say to myself, gripping the straps of my bag and leaving behind the memories of the old world to face this new one. "I won't let you down."
And so I fight and survive. To see a better day.
