Our Extinction

Chapter Two

 I cry. I cry as I write this, knowing I won't live to see another day. I won't see the gray-brown sky that greets me every morning. I will never feel the rain that pounds my skin anymore. The only reason I keep writing is because I hope, and can only hope that some more intelligent life form will read this, and know what happened.

My life is pretty much over. My wish list is incomplete, sitting in my lap. So many things I will never do, so many things I will never see...

I guess I should start at the beginning.

It all began the day the apocalypse happened. Canada bombed everyone. It was a nuclear bomb so powerful that everyone in humanity was wiped out. It obviously was way more powerful than even they expected, because most of them died too. The only ones left were us. The mutants. 

We are immune to the radiation. There are quite a handful of us left, perhaps 1,500. Some of us have formed a government, but not a good one. There is a President, but all he wants is power and control. The rest are bodyguards.

Our community grew into a city. 1,000 became 3,000. We have about 10,000 people after the last decade. About 7,000 of that work for the government, and follow them. The rest of us hate them.

The "President" started inflicting laws on us after the first 3 years after the war (A.W.). Before that we weren't happy per say, but we were without money or anything to worry about. We didn't have cars, but we didn't need to. We all knew each other and were close enough to walk.

We did have television sets that weren't totally destroyed by the war. We mostly used them to communicate, but not much exciting happened. Most of the people just got bored.

Children caught crickets in grass, then kept the mutants. Some of the mutated crickets bit them. No one complained, because one less mutant was one more pure-blood that lived. The ones that were normal don't last long. Most of the animal population was wiped out, and only mutants survived, but they weren't good. They were creations of evil. A lion with five heads was becoming more and more common, and pink skinned vicious bears were too.

The radiation did funny things to us too. Some people went into a rage at random times. They would strike out at things or people for no apparent reason. Some people had to fight the urge to rip and cut things up. Some people died trying to stop themselves from doing anything.

Other people had good things happen. A girl who could lift anything at certain times. A boy who could control metals. The radiation affected everyone differently.

I felt the urge to fall down and sleep often. Sometimes I could suppress it, sometimes it overcame me. It was completely random. I hated it.

The life we had back then was, at least, peaceful. No one had to work.

Then the government started creating laws. Laws that had to be enforced. Jobs were assigned. Children were used to their maximum level and then some. Education didn't matter. No one needed to know things. No one needed to have fun. We just were needed for work.

It was harsh, but Life still wasn't at it's worst. People got the necessities. We still had time to play. We still had T.Vs. We could communicate. We didn't complain, because we still lived. We had seen death personally, every single one of us. We had enough to live, enough to get past this stage. The human race could live on.

Then one of the younger adults stepped up. He challenged the President personally. He said he could do better. Could create a better society than what we had now. And we believed him. We believed that he could do better. That we could become prosperous again. We believed him partly because we thought nothing could get any worse than what it already did, and partly because he was one of us. We were all too foolish.

And it worked for the first few times. He did create a better society. We lived in a more harmonious environment than ever. People knew people working for the government. We all became friends. We all got jobs, but jobs we actually wanted. Jobs that could possibly change the world. Could stop the radiation. Could heal mutated animals. Could help technology to advance. Could help the human race start over again.

We lived in peace, tranquility, and happiness for a half decade.

Then his mind started to twist. I don't know if the radiation eventually did him in, or the stress of ruling humanity, or both. He started warping his mind on the future. He thought that humanity would fail.

He thought that it would be his fault. That we would blame him. And if we blamed him, we would find revenge. We all knew that he thought that we would assassinate him. Kill him in his sleep, if he was lucky.

He didn't say it, but we noticed. There were little subtle changes. More bodyguards. Less weapons issued. Before, he would give enthusiastic speeches for over an hour. Now, he rarely showed himself, and the speeches were short, maybe a minute, and worried leaked into his voice.

We all thought it would pass. We were wrong.