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Literature Text
December 24, 2012
Whether or not anyone reads this will be of little concern to me; the purpose is this: to record the days leading up to Armageddon and the apocalyptic world that follows. Perhaps for future generations (if there are any) or to hold together what scraps are left of my own sanity. This record will help distinguish fact from fiction.
The government has already begun to feed out a string of lies to reassure us that everything will work out in favor of the United States. Anyone who seriously believes them clings to this hope because it's the last thing they've got. Those of us who know better are doing our best to prepare for the oncoming hardships. Those who have been preparing for years by hoarding supplies and packing food away in their shelters are doing well; they've all hidden underground and are rejecting pleas and cries for help, food, and safety. Most department stores and malls have been raided resulting in a void of supplies. People are beginning to lose their minds; the world-wide suicide rate has gone from ten percent to around forty in three days due to this and various other factors, the earth's population has decreased by about three tenths. Natural Disasters occur at least twice a day throughout the world now and previously unknown diseases have marked the beginning of a new pandemic, and nothing that physicians have given the victims has done anything to stop or slow the progression of these diseases. Not even quarantine suffices to slow the progression of the diseases.
September 24, 2012 (Recollection)
The majority of us didn't think anything like this would ever happen. Yes there had been disasters that had caused a lot of pain and suffering for the various people affected, but we thought we'd all laugh off the whole 2012 scenario as a way for the media to get the world riled up so they could sell their stories to the public... We didn't know it would affect the entire world on a scale this large.
The true beginning of the apocalypse occurred between September and October. There had been several natural disasters in the months prior to then; however, to understand the enormity of the situation, we need to start at the beginning, or at least as close as I can get. Please understand that we weren't prepared at all. There was nothing we could have done to prepare ourselves for the coming apocalypse, mentally or physically.
The twenty-fourth of September was a Monday,just like any other Monday, I'd woken up at six a.m., turned on the news, and made breakfast. The following is as much of it as I can remember.
The newscast began with the typical morning reporter; usually she wore perfect makeup, and had a big smile on her face that seemed to stretch all the way around her head. Today, though, her eyes were smudged with black and a trail of mascara ran down her cheek, her eyes were puffy and red, and her unusually large smile had faded. Over the sound of her crying, you could hear a man's voice in the background, most likely her boss, trying to calm her down enough to continue the broadcast. After ten minutes, and a few vain attempts at getting her to step off the set by the camera men, she composed herself as best as she could and looked directly into the camera. She had said, "This morning, Washington D.C was attacked with a hydrogen bomb deployed by forces in North Korea. At 3:24, the missile touched ground. Washington D.C and the surrounding area of a one-hundred-thirty-six mile radius extending outward are gone." She paused for a moment, and took a few seconds to collect herself before continuing. "The President and Vice President have been moved to separate underground bunkers. The following clip is a broadcast issued by the President from an undisclosed location."
The reporter collected her items from her desk, got up and walked off screen before the video feed could cut to the President. When it did, the screen flickered a few times before the video cleared enough to see the him. For a few moments more, the video feed was grainy, but the image wavered, and cleared. He was sitting in a black chair, and the wall behind him was white. The President stared at the camera for a few moments before beginning his address.
"Good Morning. Before dawn, North Korea attacked Washington D.C. with deadly force. The assault was deliberate. As a country, we will stand as one. Friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and countless others have been lost due to this merciless attack on the American people. Eleven years have passed since the September 11th terrorist attacks. This morning's attack was on a much larger scale and much deadlier. I have no doubt that we as a people will pull together and continue to carry on like we did eleven years ago. As a nation, the 9/11 attacks showed that we will not give into fear. We will not bow before the might of other nations. We will stand strong and resilient and we will fight back with every ounce of strength we have."
As the interview went on, the President's voice began to waver. At this point, he looked away from the screen for a moment, coughed, and began to speak once again: "My heart goes out to all of you who have lost loved ones. At the time of the attack, I was not in the White House; however, the first lady, my lovely wife and two daughters were." his eyes began to glisten. As he continued to speak, a trail of tears made their way down his face. He excused himself, turned to the side, and wiped the tears away.
"As the President and personal victim of this cruel attack, I will do everything within my power to make sure the attackers atone for these atrocious acts of violence."
It was at this point I had to turn off the T.V. I wasn't old enough to remember what the 9/11 terrorist attacks were like, but I thought that this is what people felt like when they found out about it. At this point, most of us knew that life wouldn't be the same again – ever. The hydrogen bomb took out not only D.C., but a good chunk of the states surrounding as well. Maryland is completely gone. Half of New Jersey, completely lost. A fourth of Pennsylvania is wasteland.
I pulled out a chair from the table and sat down numbly. I don't really think that the reality of the situation hit me until my mother walked down the stairs thirty minutes later and found me sitting at the table in the same position I'd been in since turning off the television. She gave me a weird look, shrugged, and then pulled a box of cereal from the cupboard.
"It's gone. All of D.C. It's all gone." I whispered. She turned around and gave me a strange look once again. Only this time, there was a tinge of fear in her eyes.
"What?"
"All of D.C is gone. A hydrogen bomb – North Korea – this morning."
These were the only words I could get out. My mind just couldn't handle the situation, and talking in fragmented sentences was just about the only thing I could do. My mother just stood there and gaped, she looked like a fish out of water – her mouth was moving, but no words were coming out. She ran to the television and scrambled with the controls on the front of it before being able to turn it on. Once again, the screen flickered a few times before the picture cleared enough to make out what was on the screen. This time, there was a view of a bunch of men in yellow hazmat suits trying to restrain reporters from entering the nuclear fall-out zone. Further out, I could see people crying and screaming – trying to cope with the situation in anyway they could. The camera zoomed in past the men in hazmat suits, to what was left of the landscape beyond. There wasn't much of anything left, except for perhaps a few buildings and their foundations. One could only imagine how much worse it is as you get closer to D.C.
My mother stared at the screen in terror, eyes streaming with tears as she gaped, open mouthed at the television. I'm sure images of 9/11 were flashing before her eyes as she watched the camera pan the landscape. Anything that was left of the area surrounding D.C was almost completely destroyed and nearly past the point of recognition.
I quietly got up, grabbed my keys, and walked out to my car. I'd lost my appetite at this point and didn't feel like shoveling food into my mouth after what I'd just seen. After starting the car, I turned on the radio, hoping to drown out my thoughts and surroundings with music, but every radio station was tuned to the national broadcast of what was happening in the D.C area. I couldn't turn it to a single station without landing on one that was broadcasting information about the attack. The only difference between any of the stations was the varying degrees of static coming from the speakers. Driving into town that day was the eeriest thing imaginable. The streets were almost empty and dead silent. The only sound to be heard was the birds singing, who carried on as if nothing had happened.
I don't know what it was that I expected that day but it wasn't what came next. The absence of cars in the street wasn't because people were staying home with their families, trying to deal with the attack. It was because they were all too busy fighting it out in the department stores, trying to stock up on supplies that they thought they'd need. It was complete pandemonium. Any hope that one might have of finding food or toilet paper or water that day was dashed because of all the people running into the stores and pulling as much of it as they could from the shelves. I'd heard that this was what people had acted like after 9/11, but I'd had no idea what it was really like, I'd only been seven-years-old at the time. I pulled into the parking lot of the nearest Wal-Mart and after several minutes, found a small parking spot towards the very back of the lot.
Upon entering the store, I could tell that most of the people there had only been there for an hour or so. Apparently, most of America had only recently heard about the attack. People were quietly pulling the various items that they wanted from the shelves, paying for them, and exiting as quickly as they could, hoping not to get stopped along the way.
The further you went into the store, the louder it got. Towards the back, there were people pushing, shoving and screaming, trying to get a hold of food and other non perishable items. I made my way through the thick of the crowd and saw that there was a man grabbing a small child who was holding what I assume was the last of the canned corn. Without thinking, I lunged at the man and tackled him to the ground, the child, realizing he was free looked around for a few seconds before getting up and making away with the corn. I got up and looked around in a daze. Without even thinking about what I'd just done, I began to walk away from the scene, only to feel a sharp object at my neck. I stopped in my tracks and held my breath.
"Don't move."
.
© 2012 - 2024 Snerfled
Comments21
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Interesting, although I'm not American so I'm trying to think of how the UK may have been affected as well by the build up as you've mentioned in the story.
Most likely our greedy government would have surrendered the UK for money and done a runner, while the rest of the population is killed.
Most likely our greedy government would have surrendered the UK for money and done a runner, while the rest of the population is killed.