The New World

Part 2 | The Walk |

   It was terrifyingly hot and humid. Just a single step was tolling on my already tiring body. I had been walking for at least a day, and all I found was remains of buildings, roads, and bridges. Even after walking so far, destruction was the only thing I could see on the horizon. After walking even more, I was worried I wouldn't make it, but luckily I found an overturned cooler, from which I found three water bottles, and a few energy bars. While it wasn't much, it was my saving grace.

My walk started getting more disturbing when I finally passed the kill zone radius of the bomb. What was once just plain wreckage, was now long stretches of land with water stained different colors, discolored land, and the occasional ruined building. I didn't dare touch the water, I wasn't the best at science, but blood red water was definitely not safe for drinking.

After what I can only estimate to be three hours, I found a semi-intact building. I trudged over the alien like landscape to the building. Half the building was in absolute ruins, but the corner of the building had a space the size of a small office that was relatively intact. I tiredly climbed through the hole in the wall to the room. It had a desk in the right corner which was overturned, and then a mini fridge that was upside down in the middle of the room. I slowly opened it, hoping for some source of food, and found a package of hotdogs. Why someone would keep a package of hotdogs in their office fridge was a bit strange to me, but I silently thanked whomever it was, because unbinounced to them, they had given me probably the only source of food for miles.

I had already drank one water bottle, and eaten half an energy bar, so I only took half a hot dog for my dinner. I knew I needed to conserve the food, especially since I have no clue where my next meal would come from if I ran out of my current supplies.

After my tepid dinner, I got up, and started to explore the ruins of the building. As I scavenged through the rubble, it started to rain. At first, I was overjoyed - source of water! Until I realized I had nothing to catch the water in, and the rain was blood red. Luckily, a fallen piece of concrete about twenty feet up blocked the rain from reaching me. I looked out to see a red haze. How I missed the refreshing mist, and grey haze. The hot and humid weather, along with the alien substance falling from the sky made me realize how much has truly changed.

I don't know how long I started out into the distance, but when I finally came back to reality, the sun was down, and the only source of light was the Moon. I wiped a tear that I didn't realize I had let go, and got up. I continued my search through the rubble, in hopes for anything useful. Other than a few file cabinets and desks, there was nothing really to look through. As I walked back to the small office, I felt something hitting my chest. Then I realized, as I pulled it up by the string, it was the moon pendant.

I had chalked up the strange experience before I woke up to have just been an interesting dream, but now, this pendant proved that it wasn't a dream at all. I was shaken. Not only had the whole world literally been turned upside down, but now I seemed to have had an encounter with some kind of celestial being. As I held the pendant, I realized just how beautiful and heavy it was. It must weigh at least five pounds. It must be pure gold. I laughed to myself, thinking of how much this could have been worth if the world wasn't in ruins.

I put the pendant back on, and concealed it in my somewhat intact shirt. I had almost forgotten just how ruined my clothes were. The parts not singed and torn now had a layer of dust and mud on them from my long trek through the desolate outdoors. I decided to look through the intact cabinets and closets tomorrow for clothes.

As I tiredly made my way back to the office, my foot caught on something, almost making me fall flat on my face into a concrete pillar. I huffed and looked down, frustrated. My foot was caught on the strap of what looked like a backpack. My heart lurched. "Finally, something!" I yelled out loud, my voice echoing through the ruined building.

I pulled it from the rubble -unsettling a lot of dust in the process- and unzipped the brown backpack. Inside, there was only, a very old pen, a leather bound journal, and a few empty plastic bags. I sighed, frustrated I didn't find anything more valuable. At least I now had something to put my food in.

I slung the backpack on my shoulder, holding the notebook in my hand. As I navigated through the rubble, I flipped through the journal, only finding empty pages.

I got back to my sad excuse for a refuge, and flipped the desk back over. I sat under it, and put all my food I had left in the backpack. Then I layed down, hoping for some sleep. The sound of the rain patterning outside was deafining, but helped easy me of my worries.

I still couldn't fall asleep, and with a frustrated sigh, I pulled out the journal and pen from the backpack. I had never written to much before, but its better to distract myself with this.

I flipped to the first page, and wrote in big bold letters, "𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫".

Then I flipped the page, and began writing.