Nuclear Plague

Chapter 1

"Come on, lift up this panel!" A faint male voice echoed, "We might find some loot here."

"Yeah yeah..." this voice belonged to a female, and was more clear, "You know you could help for once?"

"What do you mean help? Don't you see what I'm doing over here!"

"Yeah and don't you see how heavy this damn panel is? Get over here and help already."

"Fine! Jeez... Some people."

Things were still black, all that could be heard where the two voices that could just barely be made out. After the two masked people were able to lift up the panel and move some rubble, light pierced a man's face.

"Hey," the male said, "Is that..."

"A person?" The female replied "Sure looks like it."

"Out here? This place hasn't had any visitors in forever, the only person that could possibly be here would be from the war era, and they're all skeletons."

"My thoughts exactly. Maybe someone came out recently and there just wasn't a head count?"

"Doesn't seem as likely since the boss is pretty thorough. Plus, I don't recognize him."

"Could be some random dude then, from the other side?"

"You mean past the ocean? That's even less likely, you've seen those mutants. Should we maybe take him back to base?"

"I guess there's no harm in doing so. I'll pick him-"

The female jumped back in shock.

"What's wrong?" The male worryingly asked.

"He-he's breathing!"

"You mean he's still alive!?"

"Check for yourself!"

The male went up and examined the body.

"Well I'll be damned..." He extonishingly said, "How could anyone survive something like this? Judging by everything here, it's been a long time."

"How would I know? Let's just get him out of here and help him."

The two cleared the rest of the rubble covering the body and took him to their hovercraft.

"So uh..." The male said, "You wanna drive? I'll keep an eye on the poor guy."

"You're just trying to get out of driving through the dead zone."

"Of course I am. You know I'm not good with going through those... things."

"Fine whatever, just make sure-"

She was interrupted by the body making a grunting noise.

"Hey uh-" she started, "Get your gun ready, just in case."

"Aye aye."

The man started coughing and eventually sat up.

"Ugh... where am..." the man started, struggling to get words out, "Where am I? What happened?"

You were..." The female slowly said, "You were trapped under some rubble, so we helped get you out."

"Trapped? Wait..." The man looked around, seeing all of the destruction, "This can't be... the world is destroyed..."

"Uh yeah?" The male said, "It has been for... uh..."

"For a long time." The female finished, "How could you not know that if you've lived for even a second."