What Happens After The End: An Epic

[Jowm]

What Happens After the End

It was over. It was over a long time ago, they were living in the epilogue, trying to survive in the movie credits, lingering in the last few seconds. They all knew it, they all knew that they had defied death, only to face something that made some of them wish they hadn’t. It was the world, earth, but not the world we know, this world was dead, all life on it was as miniscule as if it were dead as well, like words of a sentence trying to exist after the period. The world had faced death, and lost, but not all those on it had lost, a number still survived, though no one knew how many. Nuclear destruction had been inevitable, and had eventually occurred, and these were the people who were fortunate, or, more accurately, unfortunate, enough to survive. Mako put his foot on top of the next rock, took yet another step up. He repeated the action, again, and again, almost there? He wondered. Finally, he reached the top. He was at the top of a steep rock hill, he took a quick survey of the land. Below and in front of him lay a camp, a small one, but it had a good amount of things he and his family and friends had collected. They had scavenged the things from all over, stores, homes, even corpses had been looted in the interest of gaining anything valuable. They owned 3 large containers of gasoline, a pickup truck and an SUV, several tissue boxes, which weren’t really very valuable, but could be used as bandages, We all know we need plenty of those, some rubberbands, and a good-sized collection of knives, they had four total, one was a regular pocket knife, another was a Swiss Army knife, it was in pretty good condition, only a few scratches, not too much rust, and most of the extensions were still there. Another was a hunting knife, and the final one was a military combat knife. They also had a collection of clothes, some with practical wearing use, jeans, t-shirts, boots, tennis shoes, etc., and others that would be more useful to be broken down to use their threads for something else, or to sell them, their material was good, they would probably make a profit if sold to some other group they might happen to encounter. They had also many other things that they had collected and looted. They had been living with great difficulty ever since WWIII, about 38 years ago. Areas known to have radiation were avoided, occasionally checked to see if they still had radiation, but they always did, it would be a long time until the radiation faded. Mako turned, peering into the distance to his left, south. There he saw the shadows of the town towards which he and the other members of his group traveled. There was a surprising amount of the town still left there, it had taken less damage than some other areas, as it wasn’t targeted much by the enemy due to its lack of overall value, now, it was quite valuable, since many of the things there remained intact. “Things,” Mako reflected on the term for a moment. It had been around since before WWIII, that much he knew, but after the war, a lot of survivors had altered the term a bit, and now used it to refer to just about anything in general left over from before the war. Of course they still remembered and used the titles of each individual item, but in general such remainders of the past were called things. Mako considered it such a simplistic word, but a useful one. The reason it was on his mind was that his uncle had recently been teaching him a bit about the old things, their names, the origins of their names, their purposes, and other such things. Some of the purposes he hadn’t understood, and his uncle had simply told him that their purposes made more sense in the old world. Mako had asked about the old world, and his uncle had promised that he would nightly tell him more and more about the way things used to be. Mako had just been recalling this conversation with his uncle, and his train of thought had led him to the interesting word, “things”. He saw in it something most people would overlook, the fact that it represented the adaptation of the survivors to the way things now were. He realized that it showed how the survivors had tried to adapt to this new world, but he knew that, despite all their adaptation, they stood no chance in a world that was as dead as those who had not survived, and that it wouldn’t be long until they followed. A tear came to his eye. He had family who had committed suicide to escape from the torture that was life. Mako knew not what it had been like to live in the old world, the old life, he hadn’t been born back then. His parents were determined that, if mankind stood strong, fought with all their strength, then they could survive and make it through, so his mother had given birth to him after WWIII, with in the hope that he would help preserve mankind. He was 14 now, he had been born 24 years after the war. He didn’t know what to think, his life was planned out for him, he was to fight a struggle every day of his life just to live, and he was supposed to make sure that mankind lived. He didn’t want to disappoint his parents, but he himself wasn’t sure that he agreed with them that mankind could survive this. Humans could take a lot, go through a lot, but this, he just didn’t know. As the single tear made its way slowly down his cheek, he thought to himself, I can’t do this, I don’t know if I’m even going to survive, I could die any time, every day I wake up to fear what might happen, and every night I go to sleep in terror of the morning. How am I supposed to save anyone if I don’t even know if I can save myself? He walked back down the rock. He had no idea why he didn’t just commit suicide like his relatives. Maybe it was for his parents, maybe it was for those nights when his uncle would tell him of the old world, those were the only fun he ever had. Maybe it was a determination just to try. Whatever it was, he felt an incredible burden from what his parents expected of him, to help save mankind. He felt so much expected of him, and so little that he was capable of, life was a horror, even his nightmares were a welcome relief from reality. He never allowed himself to cry. He had become hardened and tough on the outside, but on the inside he felt the pain every time a relative died, whether by suicide, starvation, radiation, or anything else. He was hurt inside from living this way, every day his heart wanted to pour out a fountain of tears, but he had locked it up and rarely listened to it anymore. Recently, though, it had become too much. His outside shell was beginning to crack. He was trying to keep it from falling apart, trying to keep himself from falling apart, life left no room, no mercy, for those with tears. He roughly flung the tear from his cheek with his hand, mentally banishing the feelings that had brought it. He turned and took several leaps to reach the bottom of the steep rock hill. He, and just about all survivors, had learned how to handle rough terrain; they had to, since there was little left but rough terrain. He part-ran, part-leapt towards the encampment. He made it to the camp, which was set up just outside the rocky area. Luckily, the rest of the way between the camp and the town was fairly flat, making the way they would take the next day easier. The guard at the side of the camp he approached held a FAMAS in his hands, on his back he bore an RPG, and he wore a cowboy-style hat to shield his face from the hot sun. He wore blue jeans and a sleeveless white shirt with an ammo vest over it. His ammo vest held only two extra shots for his RPG, and one full clip of FAMAS ammo, while the rest of his clips were made for different guns. He had three different types of grenades, and at his side carried a half-full Desert Eagle, with only two extra clips in his ammo vest. One of his shoes was a steel-toed boot, while the other was a tennis shoe. He wore dark sunglasses. Mako stopped and put his hands up as the guard trained his gun on him, then the guard recognized him and lowered his gun, allowing Mako to proceed into camp. “Good afternoon, Frank.” Mako stated as he passed the guard. “Same to you, Mako, and hey,” The guard grabbed him by the arm, and Mako turned to look at him, “next time, when you say five minutes, be back in five minutes. That was six, a little longer and we would have had to come out after you.” Mako nodded, “Sorry, I’ll remember next time.” “Good,” Frank replied with a smile, “I know you usually remember so I’m letting you have it easy, but you know why we need to keep things strict.” “Yes sir,” answered Mako, then the guard released him and he continued into camp. He did indeed know why they needed to keep things so strict, they way things were now, any amount of time out of camp was dangerous, and if he spent any more time out of the camp than he said he would, they would need to send people out to find him. Usually they only waited two or three minutes more than the person who left had said they would be gone for, and then would send out a search party. The world was dangerous enough without going out of camp, outside alone he knew death was closer than ever, as the unknown watched him and stalked him every minute. As always, comments, criticism, and all feedback greatly appreciated!

Edited March 28, 2012 by Jowm