Atomic Atmosphere

Once There Was Humanity

The marble floor which was once white is now covered in red.

Blood red.

The paintings which were once beautifully hanged on the fine walls are long gone.

Now, the only visible image in that area are the bodies.

The dead bodies of innocent people.

Where the White House once stood, layers of broken marble and stone cover Washington.

There is nothing.

Nothing but destruction.

In the middle of this catastrophe, a movement is seen. Something with life. Something... human.

The boy gets up. He has black hair, with a red fringe. Not tall, but not tiny. Definitely not athletic. His skin is so pale, it looks like all the colour that was once in him has disappeared. He almost looks... dead.

Once he opens his eyes, he noticed something has changed. His vision is not as clear as before. Maybe he just hit his head.

The boy tries to get up. He instantly noticed something laying in his arms. At first, it's just some black cloth.  Then, he looks closely.

The black hair, with such pale skin like his. The  black dress, with a skull pattern. The black shoes that she loved.

It's a young girl.

Dead.

The boy doesn't start crying. He doesn't remember what happen, where is he. He doesn't know who that girl really is.

He tries to remember something. Who is he? How old is he? Where is he from?

Suddenly something clicks in his mind. Some information comes and hits him.

His name is Ethan. He's 15. He was born in Oklahoma. He has a sister. Or at least had. He looked to the body in his arms and screams. It's her.

Anna.

Ethan immediately checked for any pulse. There was none. Her pupils were dilating. She was dead.

Then, just then, he breaks down.

He doesn't cry a lot. He actually doesn't remember much about his sister. In fact, where did his memories from the last hours, or his life memories go?

That doesn't matter. Ethan decides to look for survivors in the surroundings. Or any supplies.

He first finds a old gas station. Only half of it was left. Curious.

Ethan walks a bit more and ends up finding what was once a grocery store. He thinks there is food.

The entrance wall is gone, as well as the roof. At least all supplies have survived.

Ethan immediately gets some torches, a mirror, a toothbrush, some band-aids and medicine. Who knows when he is going to find more supplies.

He grabs all the food visible.

When Ethan is almost leaving, he decides to see if there is survivors. He already knows the answer, but hope is the only thing that hasn't left him. Yet.

Behind the counter, there is a woman. Half of her face is normal. She has beautiful blue eyes, and a long brown hair. She couldn't be older than 18.

The other half of her face was gone. The only thing left was the bones of her skull.

Her cells had been destroyed.

Ethan had seen things like this before.

Only radiation would cause that.

He froze. Cold tears fell from his face. To muffle his sobs, Ethan put his hand over his mouth.

He was thinking so much about himself, that he didn't think about other people. Could they be worse?

What could've caused so much destruction?

So much pain?

Walking away from the store, Ethan still though about the girl. He knew she would torment his dreams. He shouldn't have seen it. He shouldn't have hope after that.

But he still did.

He kept looking at bodies in the old street while walking out of the grocery store. Most were okay to look at.

Some made Ethan want to vomit.

A few weren't even complete bodies. Just parts of it.

In some parts of the streets, there were no stone or wood covering the bodies. So he had to step on them.

Step on people.

Soon, his black shoes were soaked in blood.

The sensation is indescribable. Stepping on what was once somebody like him.

Stepping on humanity.

After waking some miles, he finds a huge metal cylinder. It's almost three times his height. It looks like a bomb. He doesn't like the look of it.

After getting a torch in his bag he goes around the enormous metal object. If it looks like a bomb, why is it still intact? It should have been destroyed. Right?

There are no bodies around it. Just bones.

It probably started it all.

Ethan stops when he sees a radioactive sign. Together with the initials 'USA'. A date is also written. 23/04/2254.

He had no track of time. No watch. No telephone where he could see what day it was. But there was something in that symbol and date that made something in the back of Ethan's mind nervous.

When going back to his sister's body Ethan noticed a movement behind his back.

He turned 360 degrees but saw nothing. So he resumed walking back to his destination.

Ethan sat down on a pile of wood. What the heck was going on? There were loads of dead people. No survivors. A bomb. Radioactive sign.

Something about that symbol made him uneasy. Almost... afraid.

Ethan decided to get the mirror from the grocery store to see if he was hurt. His vision was still not good.

As soon as he looked at himself, he screamed. His eyes were once brown. Now they were red.

The pain in his head was now far from manageable. His gritted teeth looked like they were going to break at any second with the strength he was clenching them.

His memories came back all at once. His sister. His family. Washington. The bomb. Radioactivity. The end of humanity...

And then he felt the cold of the floor surround him. His vision was getting narrower, everything getting black. He needed to search for someone, to warn them. To apologise.

To say sorry for ruining the world.