Radioactive

Radioactive

[a short story inspired by a song]

© crazy_cupcakes

Darkness. It cracked the bright lights behind his eyelids. It overcame all the fluorescence in the hospital room. And then, when it infiltrated enough, there was no light left to fight it.

So he slept. The years suddenly passed as quickly as an L Train going north at noon. People came and went. Discoveries were discovered; inventions invented. The world was engulfed in flames, and, just as fast, doused in waves, leaving behind nothing but cruel ash.

And still he slept. The years stretched to decades; decades to centuries. And when he awoke, he found that it was all different.

I'm waking up/To ash and dust

He knew that there was a button inside, that was the last thing they told him. Frantically, he searched for it, and then he found it. And then, just like in reverse, light cracked through the darkness. Albeit, it was dusty light, the kind found next to a window in the summertime.

But he knew better. He had awoken to something completely different, a place completely different from the times he had known with windows in summertime.

So he stood up, climbing out of his metallic coffin. He was in a darkened room, made of wood. He felt like he was once again with the summery windows, inside his old childhood cabin. Crooked pictures drooped on the walls, an old desk was shoved in the corner.

This place was already much different than the world he had left. A cot was next to his containment unit, its blankets and sheets ruffled. And above the desk hung a gun. He didn't recognize it. The trigger was a button on the side, it seemed. The barrel was short, in fact, the entire gun was short. But he could imagine it in someone's hand, the power behind it disguised behind a deceptive facade.

And over everything, there was a thin layer of dust. He wiped it away, but found that it wasn't thin. It was at least ten centimetres thick, and he knew then that everything was different.

I wipe my brow/and I sweat my rust

A door, almost hidden in the shadows, was right next to the desk. He grabbed the doorknob. He had no idea what lay beyond. But he wiped his forehead from any sweat, and glanced back at his small unit, what had been his home, more or less, for an unknown amount of time. Rust leaked out of the edges.

But he turned the doorknob anyway.

I'm breathing in/the chemicals

Shouts and yells, that's all he heard. People dashed everywhere, but far away. He could see them out in the distance, running and fighting and warring. He didn't know if he was meant to get involved, so he didn't, not at first. He took a deep breath, and realized that the air was tainted. He could remember scientists from his time telling him what he would breathe might be different. After all, global warming was in effect already back then.

He didn't exhale, not all at once. Instead, he held his breath and walked forward. The only solution, it seemed, was to join the skirmish, or at least alert them to his presence. So he walked toward them.

He soon realized that they weren't that far away. Instead, there was a haze of chemicals that covered everything, and his vision was altered because of it. Soon enough, he reached the outskirts of the fight. He knew better than to talk to them.

Then, on the outside of the fight, he realized there were bodies lying everywhere. Some were mutilated beyond identification, and some looked as though they had just fallen asleep. But one of them, the one nearest to him, was wearing a gas mask. He bent down, his old jeans feeling awkward and out of place in a warzone.