World On Fire

Chapter Six

St. Louis, Missouri

As she strolled through what was once her home, Rebecca felt a sense of melancholy. A bitterness of the world she had lost the day the Druidth invaded. She was going to go to college and become a photographer, her photos displayed in high-end galleries around the world. They were supposed to bring her fame and fortune, enough money and clout to have her own apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City. People would beg her to use their products.

Now, though...

Now, her future was as uncertain as future of Humanity as a whole. The odds of a college taking her were slim for more reasons than she cared to count. And who would bother to pay thousands of dollars for her photos when people were having a hard time feeding themselves and would continue to do so for some time? To say nothing of New York, which looked to forever be under Druidth control.

She stopped and picked up a picture of her family. The frame was broken, the glass shattered, as if someone had thrown it against the floor but the photo itself was still intact. In the middle was her father, smiling in a pastel polo shirt in front of a grove of trees. His arms were around her mother in her favorite yellow sundress and her brother with a similar polo shirt. Rebecca was on the far right, next to her mother. She smiled sadly; she was twelve on that particular vacation and was the first time she worn a dress in public.

When the Druidth took the city the first thing they did was arrest all civil leaders and execute them. After installing a puppet ruler, who shot himself when American forces began moving on the city, the Druidth were pushed out. During the fighting Loyalist soldiers were quartered there. She could tell they cared little for the "One Percent" that used to live there. Urine coated the corners and cigarettes littered the floor. Burn marks where the cigarettes were crushed out dotted the walls in every room. The family portrait that hung above the grand fireplace in the living room was defaced with slurs and insults written on the canvas, her mother and fathers images drawn on as well.

Rebecca turned away in disgust when she saw a cartoon penis drawn next to her face with a perverted slogan written next to it. She was glad she convinced her father to let her leave town before it was too late. Even though she lost her parents, she and her brother were both still alive. If she had been here when the city fell there was no doubt she would have been killed as well. Or raped who knows how many times then killed.

A shiver crept up her spine at what could have been.

Making her way up the grand staircase, Rebecca stopped at her room, the first at the top of the stairs, and pushed the door open. Whoever occupied it after her was not a smoker as the scent that filled the rest of the house was absent. However there was a pile of pictures on the floor and when she turned on the light, three bulbs were out, she found they were mainly of her in her bikini from her trips to the falls with her friends. White, cloudy stains coated the glossy finish of the pictures which she was hesitant to touch.

Her lip curled up in disgust. "Fucking Perv."

She knew she should be helping bury the dead, the Loyalist and Druidth dead that were tagged with an ID number and rolled into a deep pit then covered with dirt. All of the Allied soldiers were respectfully sent home for a proper burial. As the daughter of a former pillar of the community, Rebecca knew it was her duty to help the people in all of the dirty work. To show them that she was one of them and that the hard days were soon over. But at the same time the people of the city that she was supposed to be helping were also the same people that either lowered their heads in submission or were the ones that eagerly helped the Druidth kill her family. The people of St. Louis could go to hell for all she cared.