Ash fell softly from the grey skies, fooling the naive into thinking it was snow as it piled on the ground. It was only a week since the world became something else - a shell of what it had been just the week before. Thriving, hopeful, vivid. All now dying, ashen, dull. What hadn't been reduced to blackened stumps was now standing alone in the grey wind, serving as sanctuaries for the few souls left stumbling through the ashen storms.
A small group was left in one such sanctuary, where the owner had been wise and had just enough to keep them going. His house was sealed from the outside, with a complicated inner air filtration system in order to keep the ash at bay for as long as possible. Plastic sheets covered every window, layered three sheets thick with duct tape sealing every possible crevice. The door was surrounded by a sheeted 'room', where the sheets could be sealed with weights when the door would be opened to let others in. A high powered fan would be activated once the sheets were sealed to suck the soiled air to the outside, making it safe once more. However, knowing the system was nowhere perfect, everyone inside had to wear dust masks. The elderly and the children got the most advanced masks, while the adults had the simplest masks. Food was rationed. Sleep space was beginning to get limited.
Eventually, the masks stopped working. The system stopped working. The elderly died first. Then the immunocompromised children and adults. Ash was settling, but by the time the air finally cleared it was already too late. Billions were dead, and only a few survived.
This marked the beginning of a new calendar, a new era.
It was year 0, P.D.
--11 Years Later--
13 P.D.
"Come on Dylan! We gotta get some of these berries - our mom's will love these!" a voice as high as a squirrel squealed. 11 years after the war and the fallout that followed, nature had recovered. Berries, animals, flowers - even trees had made a comeback, according to their parents.
Mud flew across the blue sky and plopped down with a splat as a young boy sprinted towards the coveted berries. "Are ya sure they're the good ones? You know, the ones we can eat?" he asked eagerly, kneeling next to a girl in the muddy pebbled ground.
"I think so. They don't look like the mutant ones my mama keeps telling me 'bout. What do you think?" she asked, leaning into the bush to look at one. The boy squinted, his freckled face wrinkling in thought. "I dunno. But surely one of our moms can tell us if they're bad or not. Let's pick 'em!"
They both reached for the blackish berries, eager to collect them in their shirts so they could present them as proud trophies. The girl picked rather fast, grabbing as many as she could possibly stuff in her shirt, when she noticed the boy's hand just holding one of the berries.
"Dylan?"
He looked down at his hand, then at her with his mouth wide open. "It grew."
"Of course they grow stupid. That's what berries do!" she said, giggling.
"No Manda, it grew! It got bigger when I touched it!" he stated, eyes wide. "These hafta be mutant berries. I'm not touching 'em."
She shook her head and laughed harder. "Fine, don't touch 'em if you don't wanna. Why don'tcha go and let your mom know about the berries so she can get 'em herself then?" she grinned, her hazel eyes dancing with delight. Of course, she didn't want to make him run off, so she quickly corrected herself. "Ya know, you're probably right. Mom wouldn't want me to risk it. Let's just keep looking for a good fort. I think I saw one over there in the woods."
His eyes got big and he took a step back from the bush and Manda, as he called her. "The woods? You know we aren't supposed to go into the woods Manda. They're dangerous and 'sides, it's starting to get dark out."
"Are you scared?" Manda asked, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice. She got up and scraped the mud off her legs, turning to look back towards home and then at the horizon. "Actually... you're right Dylan. Sorry. Let's go back home."
He looked down and kicked a rock, shaking his head slightly. Then, with a twinkle in his eye and with a mischievous grin, he stared at her. "Race ya home. Ready... Set... Go!" he yelled, darting off on his long legs down the dirty paved path. He looked behind him and saw her right behind him as they approached the ruins of a secluded neighborhood, a shell of what it once was. Or that was what they had heard, anyway. At 11 years old, they had been born during the aftermath of the war. They had known no other world but this one, where hardly anyone else existed.
There were, in fact, five families in their little neighborhood, including Manda's and Dylan's families. Dylan lived across the street from Manda, with the Brewsters on Dylan's left and the Carters on Manda's left, and then the Hortons down at the end of the street. The five houses were surrounded by fencing, with a gate at the entrance to the street. Each family had responsibilities in order to keep their community running - the men, for example, went out each day with bikes to hunt for things for them to use down in the ruins of the city. The children were told that there were things like cars that used to take people to the city and back in a matter of minutes, but that with the war and ash, everything stopped working like it once did.
Their feet pounded on the ground, running faster and faster. "Cheater! Dylan! Slow down!" Manda yelled in a half-giggle, running out of breath as she struggled to keep up. They were almost home. Faster, Manda, faster! she told herself. She was within arm's reach of him now, but they were almost to the gate. Almost got it...
"YES! I win!" Dylan shouted, touching the gate and panting as he stopped.
Manda didn't see him stop. This led to an interesting collision, as she was going at top speed when they suddenly collided, taking Dylan to the ground. "Ouch!" he yelled, squirming to get out from under her. Manda blushed and got up, wincing as she did. "Sorry. I didn't realize you stopped. Are you okay? Your mouth is bloody."
"It's okay." He said, starting to wipe his mouth, but then he stopped, letting the blood drip down his face.
Manda looked at him with disgust. "Dude that's nasty."
Gurgling the pooling blood, Dylan chuckled and let it bubble. "What, does blood scare you?"
"Your mom is gonna be mad."
"I don't care."
"I'm gonna go inside. You comin'?" she asked, giggling slightly.
"I don't wanna go back inside. We can go inside the gate later, Like you said, mama will probably be a bit mad that I knocked my tooth out."
She looked down and shrugged. "Wanna go to the woods?"
"Maybe."
"Dylan! Miranda! Get in here!" a voice called out, just as the two children were getting up to go back to the strange woods.
Dylan groaned slightly, and Manda giggled. "We're coming in Mom, just a second! Dylan, we can check it out tomorrow, right?'
"Right, I guess."
- - - - -
The stars shone brightly over the group as they sat around the fire. "Tony said CAGE has been going around all of the camps." Manda's mom held her hands up to her face. "Miranda, why don't you go up to bed? You can read for a bit with the candle but don't stay up too long."
Another mom nodded. "Why don't all of you kiddos go over to the house and play some board games? You can use the solar lantern as long as you put it back out to charge when you're done. Us grown folks have some boring things to talk about."
Her child rolled her eyes. "Mom, I'm not an idiot. I'm 14, surely I'm old enough to -" "No. House. Now. Go." her mother firmly said as all of the other children started to get up from the fire, leaving only the adults to discuss the 'adult matters' that all of the children knew meant one thing - act like you're going inside, but really go upstairs and listen to as much as possible through the window.
"Get out of the way! I want to listen!" "I'm the oldest, I get dibs. And it's technically my window. Be quiet!"
The moms huddled closer, lowering their voices. "Tony said that they're taking the children. CAGE thinks that the war could have mutated their DNA - and since we all know what the ash and the war did to this world, it's... it's possible they're right."
"Tim and Cody think that they're only taking children born after the war, from what was left of the neighborhoods they came across. The parents put up a big fight, but CAGE has some sort of weaponry. Everyone in the villages we know of is dead." Dylan's mom whispered, waving her hands around.
"And with the men gone for another day or two you're worried CAGE will find us before they get back. We have weapons, Ashlynn. Shelters. The kids will be safe. I promise." Manda's mom assured, putting her hand on Ashlynn's shoulders.
Manda listened wide eyed, ear pressed against the window. "CAGE? What's that?" she wondered aloud, with the girl from the fire listening just as intently. "Mutated DNA... that's crazy." Dylan just shook his head, stepping back from the window. He couldn't stop thinking about the berries.
The berries that grew when he touched them. Am I...am I a mutant? he wondered. He tasted the metallic dry blood in his mouth as he suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
Groans rose through the air while he was focused on his thoughts. The group of giggling girls running out of the room and out of the house barely touched his mind as he curled up into his head, thinking. Just thinking.
Lyla, the girl who actually lived in the house, watched him from the corner with concern, "Are you okay, Dylan?" Getting up from the corner, she tilted her head slightly, her black hair blending into the darkness as her eyes looked inquiringly at his demeanor.
Dylan didn't hear her. All he could hear were his thoughts.
"Dylan, how much of that talk didja hear? That mutant stuff? The rounding up kids? That's all garbage, c'mon. They knew we'd be listening, so they gave us a good, scary story. It isn't real. Don't freak out." She knelt down next to him, reaching out for his shoulder.
He nearly jumped as he bolted upright and ran out the door in a fright. Why can't people just leave me alone? It is real. It must be real. Wait, wait, of course it isn't real. Right?
Feet pounding on the ground, Dylan ran into his house and into his room, curling up into his bed, letting the thoughts overtake him until his eyes started to droop, and his head started to pound, until finally he slept.
Meanwhile, across the street, Miranda looked up out her window at the dew drops on the upper corner with intensity. She felt a shiver go down her spine as she looked up at the drops, alone in her thoughts. Mutants? CAGE? Is Dad okay? Is Eden alright?
Eden. Her older sister, who she loved dearly. She was about 9 years older than Manda, and she was one of the lucky children who had lived through what the adults called the Ash Days. Somehow, even though most of civilization had been lost to the Ash Days and the preceding war, Eden had found a boy who loved her. Aaron.
They lived just beyond the woods, about two hours walk from where Manda lived with her parents. Her father would go and check on Eden once a week - in fact, Aaron and Eden were preparing to move to their neighborhood for the rest of the year since Eden was having a baby.
It seemed kind of silly to Manda, but she hoped one day she'd love someone like Eden and Aaron loved each other. Like the books, where the boy and the girl meet, fall in love, and everything is happy ever after.
She yawned, looking up at the stars out the window, leaning her head against the wall as she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, not feeling the radiating cold on her cheek as she slid into the window, the dew frozen in its corner.
Slowly clouds covered the moon and the fire in the common area below extinguished.
It was dark.