Sometimes I forget that the wall did not always surround the city. Every now and then when the sun pours over the top of the wall, I remember waking up for school in the morning with the sun in my eyes and to the sound of multiple species of birds chirping vivaciously outside my bedroom window. Now, all that is left is myself and the wall, towering over me as if to bury in the ashes along with the rest over our society.
Seven years ago, an average street rat with the name of Leroy was chosen as a test subject by the government. In 2053, reports of terrorist attacks popped up all over the nation. There were bombings, mass robberies, and millions of deaths shown on the thin television screen every morning. The first initial attack that scared the nation was around fifty years ago. Terrorists from Afghanistan took control of four planes, and steered them on a course that was heading straight for nationalmonuments. The passengers on one plane managed to take back control and crashed the plane somewhere in the middle of farmland in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the other three were unable to be stopped. Two of them completely demolished what were known as the Twin Towers located in New York City. The last airline crashed into one of the sides of the Pentagon. Millions of lives were lost that day, and it changed the way our nation functioned drastically. Can you imagine a fourteen year old girl getting ready for school every morning while watching emotionless News Reporters report on a seemingly endless war? The United States wasn't even sure where the terrorists were coming from! We had no idea what they looked like, what their origin was, or how they got past the border without getting caught. We just knew that they had to be stopped.
Soon after the fatal catastrophe, Homeland Security met up with our Defense team and decided that a chemical weapon was the best option, rather than actually increasing our defense around the border. Our country's Heath Organization engineered a Biochemical that could kill a full grown man, but at the same time could be placed in fiber cases to use as ammunition in guns. Leroy, the unfortunate test subject, was injected with this lethal chemical. For the first couple of days nothing happened. So, the United States Health Organization injected Leroy with an even higher dosage. Immediately, Leroy was sent into a long-lasting, extremely powerful seizure, and was unable to be contained. Three of the Biochemists that were in the room at the time in which Leroy's episode had occurred had been bitten, thus starting the spread of an infectious deadly disease that would eventually burn our country to the ground.
I remember the day the infection hit our town. My best friend Johnathan was one of the first in our town to get it, along with his mother and father. His mother had been traveling the day before to Atlanta for business. I guess the passenger that was sitting next to her on the connecting flight in had caught it before and given it to her. Poor Johnathan didn't even know what was coming for him. The first symptoms are usually mistaken for a common cold; sneezing, coughing, sore throat. The next thing you know you're in a hospital bed trying to claw your own eyes out, only to realize your arms and legs are attached to the bed by leather straps.
The government has found only one cure. Well, it's more of an immunity. Few people, including me, were injected with weekly allergy shots as children to help with seasonal allergies and things of that sort. But due to the increases in technology, allergy shots were no longer needed, and the government shut down the production of them. Little did the government know that the chemicals in the allergy shots could have potentially been a cure-all.
Although the story behind the crisis I am going through is quite fascinating, I suppose my story is also pretty important. My name is Christina Weber, and I am a survivor of the pandemic that destroyed the world. All my life I have lived in the state of California. Even though I despised my home town as a child, I guess living here wasn't a bad thing after all. Since California lives right on top of a tectonic plate, it is prone to earthquakes. About forty six years or so ago, shelters were placed around ten feet below the ground all throughout California. They were never actually put to use. The government had always complained that they were "a waste of our money". Ha! I wonder what the government would say if they were around now. When the disease had spread to almost every state in the country, the President called for drastic measures. She sent out a warning through the one channel that was still working on the old ancient AM/FM radios. With determination in her voice, she notified any remaining survivors just thirty minutes before the bombing of the United States.
Luckily I made it in time to the bomb shelter closest to the house I was staying in. After pulling away the layer of greenery that was covering the entrance, I grabbed the rusted handle bars and opened up the two heavy doors. After traveling down the spider-filled shaft, I waited. It seemed like hours. I could feel the second going by almost as well as I could be my heart throbbing from within my ribcage. I didn't want to die, but then again, why would I want to live? To find more survivors like me? Maybe even a cure? Who knows? But at least if I die I will be able to be with Johnathan and my family again.
With seconds left I held onto myself, so tight I almost couldn't breathe. Then it hit. All of a sudden I heard a sound that I never thought I would hear, an earthquake. Only, it wasn't an earthquake. It was a nuclear bomb that was turning my backyard into a pile of ashes, while I sat curled up into a ball covered in soot that was once hanging onto the unused walls of the shelter. I will never be able to unsee the world I thought I knew as I lifted myself out of the shaft. The ground was almost eight feet lower then where it used to be, but that was still with the thick layer of ash and ruins. The funny thing was that I didn't even care that my house was probably right beneath my feet, and for a second I completely forgot how alone I was. In that moment I was all I had, and as soot was pouring down on my head like rain, I embraced it, because it was beautiful.
In a way, the world was already in this destructive condition. The only difference is the amount of technology we had to cover up the absence of a balanced society. When I pulled myself up and out of that shaft, I came to a realization. Instead of basking in society's glorious fails, I should be trying to fix them, to make them better. I'm not sure how many days it took for the last grain of ash to settle into the earth, but when it did I went out to look for other survivors; people like me that could use a hand in this time of disaster. I found a brother and sister with the ages of nine and eleven that had lost their parents when the bomb hit. I also found a couple of other people my age. I never managed to stumble upon anyone over the age of twenty one, probably because most people figured that if their end was going to come soon anyway, they might as well sacrifice themselves for the ones that had a chance. For a while us few survivors lived off of whatever land was left. We searched through every shelter that we came across, and it was a rare treat when we were able to track down a live animal. We hardly ever found water. Most of us were constantly suffering from dehydration. Our bodies were beaten, bruised, and exposed. Our clothes had been burned from the house that remained on fire, and the glass that littered the town had torn our shoes to pieces. There were some nights when we all just wanted to give up. There were nights when we couldn't even move anymore because our muscles had given out. We were always on the move, always searching for something, something like hope. But there was nothing. We were nothing.
One night I stopped the group to set up camp. We rotated our camping post ever three nights. Tonight we were sleeping in one of the only trees left standing, one of our most favorable camping grounds. Sometime in the middle of the night we woke up to a faint buzzing sound from somewhere off in the distance. I had heard this sound before. It was too familiar. Then it hit me. It was a helicopter. I woke up the group and one by one we climbed up the large oak tree, ignoring the ants that seemed to be just as hungry as us. I pointed to the helicopter as soon as I saw it. We were so close, yet it was so far away. We began flailing our arms. Again, it felt like hours. Finally the helicopter reached us. It hovered just above us, making sure to give us enough room to climb up the dangling ladder and into the cabin of the helicopter. The feeling of the wind blowing through my dirty, entangled mess of hair felt so refreshing. Almost equivalent to a splash of cold water in the face. We were saved.
Five years have gone by since that day. The helicopter took us to a refugee camp in Manhattan. They have managed to grow a garden somehow, and I have even created my own irrigation system. The ten man government that was formed inside the city built up a wall made from left over pieces of planes, cars, and even some of the bomb. We might actually have a chance. I am glad that I am alive, even if it is a small world, because I am here to make it bigger, and that is what I intend to do.
