Tent City

Chapter 3

A month later, a large portion of the city was destroyed by a bomb, and the survivors were massacred. We don't know by whom or what organisation. However, the rumours were that the section that was bombed had a large concentration of people who practised a single religion. It was rumoured that the bombers and those who massacred the survivors belonged to another religious group that had a long-standing conflict with their victims. I knew this attack would cause a hell of a lot of tension and distrust between those who lived in the tent city. 

I decided that the only way my brother and I were going to be safe was if we left the tent city and travelled to the lab where my father created the robot that manned it.

I don't know how we're going to survive. I was already weak from lack of nutrition, my brother would be as weak as I was, within days. Our home was no longer safe, in my opinion, we were safer outside the city.

It took me 3 days to decide what to pack and what to leave behind. We couldn't take all our memories made in the past five years with us. So some photos, pictures, diaries etc, were put in a water-tight, sealed plastic tub. I handed it to one of the volunteers that worked for the charity that oversaw our tent city for safekeeping.

The remainder such as our identity documents, some small pictures and Dad's old worn diary remained with me, sealed in a waterproof satchel buried underneath the clothes I had packed in my backpack. Cooking utensils, a small tent, and food and clean water supplies were piled into a rickety old cart that I dragged behind me. Ben walked beside me, he held onto my hand. I squeezed it reassuringly as we walked outside of the boundaries of our home for the past 5 years and the final resting place of our parents. I hoped that I could return one day when the conflicts stop and the wealthy get sick of war, when that happens I will visit the graves of my parents.

The road we travelled was treacherous, my feet hurt as the rocks and crumbled bitumen cut into the soles of my shoes. Ben had already been injured by the road and now he sat behind me in the cart, surrounded by our belongings. My energy was dwindling, and our food supplies were pitiful.

The crumbling old skyscrapers, dilapidated houses, and crumbling old shop fronts that lined the bitumen road were depressing. The rusted old shells of cars, riddled with bullet holes, and blackened by fire littered the road in a maze of shapes and sizes.

I was on high alert the adrenaline pulsated through my body, I never knew what to expect. What hid behind the crumbled buildings or what lurked in the shadows of the rusted old cars?

The war, especially the chemical and nuclear weapons hurt people, innocent people. As a result, their descendants carried on the hurt of their ancestors.

The Mutated children and adults,  wandered through the dying land, their minds gone, their bodies twisted and their skin covered in pus-filled, bleeding sores. Most were harmless, but a rare few still had their minds, but they also had a fiery anger that raged inside them, the anger passed down from their ancestors.

They often killed those who did not look like them, purely because they hated their victims as the victim's ancestor's had not been exposed to the chemicals and nuclear weapons that their ancestors had been exposed to. They even killed humans to eat if they were hungry enough. They were people that I did not wish to meet on my journey to the lab, so I remained vigilant.

We hid in old sheds and houses through the night. We did not light a fire or use torches. Many breeds of Mutated humans, genetically engineered and mutated animals, wandered through what was left of the cities at night. They were more likely to harm you compared to those that wandered the cities during the day.

Gangs of raiders, slavers, and rogue military people were also active at night. They would raid camps, take slaves, and steal food. They would also take animals and technology. Once they got what they wanted they'd kill the surviving victims, leaving no one alive to identify them.

Meeting a gang would be the death of Ben and me. We'd be separated, they'd take Ben and train and raise him to be like them, cold-hearted, ruthless, and evil.

Boys were rare outside of tent cities. I would either be sold to a slaver or taken hostage and forced to marry one of my captors. Boys were rare, teenage girls were rarer, so we were both of high value if captured.

I refused to let that happen, I had an exit plan if this was the case.

Two glass vials of poison, each hung from our necks attached to a necklace. We would only remove them while we slept, to stop us from accidentally breaking them. The poison could enter our bodies through the tears made by the vial's glass if it were to break and cut into our skin.

I told Ben what the vials were, I told him that there was one word that I would say signalling him to drink from his vial and I would swiftly follow. We weren't of any value if we were dead, not even for organ harvesting, organs that would be given to the rich bunker dwellers. The poison would make our organs useless.

Once we finally escaped the broken city, we followed the highway and through the wastelands, which were once fields of wheat and bush. Ben had barely spoken since we left tent city. He only asked for food, drink, or to go to the toilet. Other than that he remained silent. I did not comprehend how badly the death of our parents had made him feel.

It is not like their deaths didn't affect me somehow. I missed them, I yearned to see their faces and to hear their laughs and voices once more. I had barely had the chance to grieve their passing, I don't think I'll ever get the chance to grieve them properly. I have to remain strong, for Ben.

As night came, and a tired Ben begged for food, I parked our little cart on the side of the road. This was the first night we had spent without shelter or protection. We were vulnerable as there was nothing but a small tent made from thin materials. The tent would not hide or protect us from the creatures and humans that wandered along these roads under the cover of darkness.

After I set the small tent up,  fed Ben and wrapped him tightly in the warmest blanket we had. He fell asleep and started to cry and whimper as he dreamt.

I wondered if I whimpered and cried in my sleep, like Ben. I wrapped myself up in the only other blanket we had. I embraced my sleeping brother, holding him tightly, hoping my body warmth, plus the warmth of Ben and the blankets would be enough to get us through the night.

In the wastelands, the nights were cold and the daytime was scorching hot. There were no trees, grasses, or plants that provided shade or shelter, just kilometres of dirt, rock, and shrapnel from the bombs and weapons that created the wastelands.

If a person spent too long in the wastelands they'd get very sick and eventually die a painful death from the radiation or from the chemicals that had soaked into the dirt and groundwater, depending on the weapons used.

I don't know how, but Ben and I survived the night, we were undisturbed by the creatures and humans that lived in darkness.

Our supplies remained untouched by raiders but were dwindling fast. We had only been travelling for a week. Ben's injuries had healed enough that he could at least walk beside me, a single rope tied around our waists so that he would not wander and would not be stolen from me.

So I regained some energy and strength. However, while I regained strength and energy, my emotional stability and stress levels grew. I did not know how much longer our supplies would last, and what would happen to us if we ran out.

There were no animals in the wastelands that could be hunted, they existed but were rare and could not be consumed as they were contaminated by chemicals or radiation.

All I could hope for was to find an old abandoned farmhouse, that had cans or jars of food that had not been found by raiding parties or by people like us. Considering war has ravaged my homeland on and off for the past 50 years, the last time that we lived in a stable and peaceful society was when I was just 5 years old.  It had been 13 years since then and it would be nearly impossible to find a building left that had any remnants of food within its cupboards or basements.