Hand of God

UNDEAD

Roger sat defeated on the edge of the terrace, facing the setting sun. The sky was already dark. As long as Roger could remember, the sky always looked same, a dark shade of gray, lined with sprays of black as if a constant reminder of the missiles and fighter jets that populated the skies during the Last War.

But right now that wasn’t what was occupying his mind. Roger had failed his Militia Test six days back and today was the last day of him getting free daily rations provided by the government.

Six days’ time that Roger had gotten to find a job had passed off in a blur leaving Roger jobless with no money on his hands.

Roger was in the pre-war part of Kentucky. All around Roger, broken buildings stood with cracked asphalt roads weaving through them. As Roger sat there, his feet dangling five storeys from the ground, he imagined what life would’ve been here, life before the Last War.

But there was not much that Roger could imagine. The life he had known involved safety drills, packed food, underground bunkers and the constant threat of attacks. Life as Roger remembered had been always grim. Roger didn’t know who his parents were, he didn’t remember who raised him, the farthest memory that he could recall was him sleeping on the roadside, rains pouring heavily over him, drenching him to his bone.

Roger’s only hope had been to become a soldier but even that had been lost. There was nothing to hope for more. The only thing that was going to come his way was an electronic mail with an order to report next day at the fort with an attachment of his job allotment to the mines. No one ever returned from the mines, ever.

The gloomy weather matched his mood.

Rains poured almost daily, more than once a day. And it looked as if it was going to start pouring soon. It was time for Roger to get back home, or at least where others lived.

곧

Roger Warner lived in the state of Kentucky along with countless others who just like him were facing the repercussions of all the acts of war their previous generations had carried out in the name of god, patriotism, extremism and all other words which were defined after such heinous crimes had been committed that they weren’t even known till that point.

All the wars that had occurred in the initial years of establishment of independent nations were nothing compared to the Last War. It was as if the leaders of all-powerful nations had turned into children for whom weapons of mass-destruction were just toys. The whole world had turned into graveyard. Last War was that point of history where one chapter ended and a new one began, it was the time when the Doomsday Clock hit the hour mark.

Roger headed over to his usual place by the road, his head low and shoulders drooped with defeat. Even for Roger who never had any happy days in his life, this was an entire new low.

As Roger looked around, all he saw was his own mood reflected back at him in the faces of other people. They all looked dejected, unhappy. Roger had only read about festivals and celebrations, he never had experienced it.

Broken buildings, broken people.

Roger was about to close his eyes and go to sleep when two things happened that blew his sleep right away. One; it started raining and two; he noticed a man.

A soldier to be more accurate. On his journey back to the roadside, Roger could not shake the feeling that he was being followed and the same soldier that he saw now had been spotted three times before while he was returning. Roger felt something was wrong. He held the soldier’s gaze for a few seconds.

Roger was about to get up and walk up to the soldier to talk to him but then it was as if fate didn’t want it to happen, the rain began falling in sheets with harsh winds blowing. Roger felt as if arrows were being shot at his face.