Safe Zone

Where Am I?

The Earth smoldered around her. An apocalyptic scene unfolded before her eyes. Heat beat down on her skin from all sides. She looked around for something familiar but to no avail. Nothing surrounded her other than smoldering embers, ash, and a thick haze.

Where are the buildings that were here ten seconds prior? Rubble? Where was Ashley? Where are the cars and street lights? It was only ten seconds right? What's the last thing I remember?

She closes her eyes for a moment. She was walking with Ashley. But what happened after that?

Okay, so I was looking at my phone when I heard Ashley say, "What the fuck?"

Suddenly, the girl grabs her head. A searing pain erupts as if its is splitting over and over again. Her vision begins to turn black and she crumbs to the ground and collapses in a heap.

Shit. So much for trying to remember. Well, no use just standing around here.

She sets off in no direction in particular, desperate to find something, anything that could resemble human life.

She walks on and on but the surroundings remain the same. Day turns to night and the fire lights the way, burning relentlessly. It greedily consumes what remains of the earth.

Just when she's about to lose hope she realizes the light is getting dimmer. Is the sun about to come up already?

She closely observes her surroundings. The buildings slowly but surely, over the course of hours, start to have larger amounts of rubble until they finally begin to have ruins.

She walks excitedly faster, desperate to see another person. Desperate for food and water. Desperate to know what happened. Hope filled her heart but as she continued the same result always befell her. There was no sign of human life anywhere near where she started.

Just how far do I have to go? How is there no sign of any human life anywhere? Come to think of it... has there been any sign of life in general?

She pauses for a moment to consider the possibility before pushing the thought to the back of her mind. No... No there's no way that would happen. Definitely not. I'm more likely to be in a bizarre dream than that.

Enough! Just keep walking. She sighed, the voice of reason in her head making a valid point.

She resumed her perilous walk. Her shoes were battered forming holes after walking over the still alight Earth. Her lips were dry and her breath hot. Her body longed for water. Her legs screamed at her to stop but she continued. She knew that she would find nothing but ash here. Her only hope was to find other people or find buildings that weren't burned until only cement remained.

Day turned to night time and again and she wondered how she could still go on, how her legs could still move, how she hadn't collapsed from exhaustion?

Come to think of it, how was it she was the only one who was around? Where are all the people that were in those buildings? Why was she here? Where was here?

There were too many unanswered questions she could do nothing about. She knew something had happened but she couldn't piece together what exactly it could have been.

Her stomach rumbled and her tounge felt like sand paper against the roof of her mouth. She couldn't continue like this much longer.

Despite her desperate situation she forged ahead. She was unsure even with herself how she was able to continue. Since the time her journey started she'd been walking for three tireless days.

The fire the Earth was engulfed in had finally lost its brilliance. Buildings were starting to look normal again but no signs of life persisted. After what seemed like an eternity she finally found regular buildings and they too were abandoned.

What the fuck could have happened?
She was at her wits end when she heard a similar sound, a sound that, had she had enough water in her body, would have brought a tear to her eye. A car!

Not just one but many roared together as a pack, rapidly approaching her direction. People! Her heart ached as relief flooded her body.

That was a mistake. The second she felt relief her body collapsed. It was nothing short of comical she had made it this far. Her clothes were worn with holes from the fire and heat. A thick layer of dust and ash covered her. Her blonde hair had turned a sickly gray. Her pants were torn at the bottoms, ragged from the ceaseless assault of the journey she had endured. She hit the hard ground with a merciless thud.

She was barely conscious when she heard the pack surround her before she heard multiple doors open. She just barely kept her eyes open. She could see boots and hear what sounded like weapons.

"Medic!" A man yells.

The sound of movement follows and hurried footsteps approach me. Suddenly, I feel someone grab my arms and my body being flipped over. Someone is over top of me and they hold open my eyelids and shine a light in them.

"S-sir, she's responsive!" A female voice exclaims. "Hello? Ma'am? Can you hear me? What are you doing out here? This is a quarintined zone!"

She tries to speak but nothing comes out. Her mouth feeling like the desert. Her eyes feel heavier and heavier.

"Take her in." A firm deep voice booms.

She is unable to hold out any longer. She was unsure of what would happen to her but she knew anything was better than the vast wasteland she had just traversed.

She awoke slowly to monitors beeping and a harsh white light. She took in her surroundings. She was laying in a hospital bed. Although it didn't look as if she was in a hospital room. The room was dark and there was medical equipment around her. There was nothing in the room that would be considered unnecessary. The wall was Brown and there were no windows. Where a door would be was a plastic sheet with holes in it.

She tried to move to sit up and her right arm met her with resistance. She felt cool metal against her skin. She looked at her arm.

Handcuffs. Classic government. She gave an eye roll at her thoughts. She spied a glass of water at the desk next to her bed.

She waited and waited for someone to come for her until she began to think no one would.

"Hello! Is anybody here?!" She yelled in frustration, tired of struggling against the unrelenting metal.

Someone came up to the glass and began to unlock the plastic doors. A man in a suit with gray slicked back hair and gray stubbled around his chin and mouth came in.

He walked up next to her bed and looked at her for a moment. He stood in silence for a moment until he finally broke it.

"Just tell me one thing, Diana. How are you alive?" The man spoke in a serious tone.

"How-" She paused for a moment.

"FBI, Agent Wilson." He interrupted holding out his badge to show her.

"Why am I here?" She asked. "Can you plz uncuff me? If you know who I am you know I have no history of violence. Why am I even cuffed?"

"Miss, we justed pulled you out of the crater that was Columbus and you have no traces of radiation and not even a scratch on you despite being so dehydrated you should have been dead. Where did you come from? Why were you there? How did you do it without any protection?" He berated her with revelation after revelation.

"Wait- crater? What... What are you talking about..?" She panicked outloud.

"Miss, we found you, at the fallout site of the nuclear blast that destroyed Columbus and left it bathed in radiation so strong even wearing the newest suits would kill you. It's deadly for miles yet you survived."

Her mind was imploding at everything she was hearing. She began to ask herself the same thing that he was asking her.

How did she survive?