The End of My World

            It is with great despair that I am writing this.  I don’t know if I will live to see another day.  What the world is coming to is beyond my own words but alas I shall try.  There is no darkness for the fire burns our land all day and all night.  Reigning cries, screams of sadness and fear now fill the traitor night.  I find myself yearning for the cradling darkness.  The blissful silence. It is a wonder how one should feel so alone in the light.

I’ve become something I am not.  But they made me. And tomorrow I plan to tell them the truth.  Revolt.  Perhaps I should go back a little.  Allow me tell you the truth of how the world as we know it is going to end.

            Just one month ago life was perfect.  I had the cutest little blue house filled with love and happiness from my beautiful family.  My husband Keith, of 12 years and my 9 year old son, Michael and my 6 year old daughter, Amberly; the lights of my life. We were as happy as could be. 

            Football was a routine part of our weekends.  9 am we loaded up the car and off we went to the youth center.  A normal Saturday morning. What else could you ask for?  But this one wasn’t like the rest.  Eeriness echoed in the morning breeze but I ignored it.  I wasn’t about to let it ruin my day.  After all it was all in my head, right?  That’s what I repeated to myself over and over again.  It was just the caffeine speaking.

But alas it wouldn’t be ignored.  A rumble hummed and the ground shook. “Earthquake!” people shouted in panic.  But I couldn’t be fooled.  This was no earthquake at all.  But what was it?

            Five big white birds, or so they appeared to be, flew into view, growing larger and larger by the second, the rumbling growing deeper and deeper.  And they hit.  Their impact with earth echoed through the land.  Blood curdling screams rung louder than the explosions.  I pictured my family one last time before the blackness engulfed me.

            Death was rather different from what I would have expected.  It was more painful.  More vivid.  I always thought I would fall endlessly screaming for mercy but no that’s not how it happened.  In this death my body was paralyzed, my senses numbed by a burning sensation running through my veins.  A light bustle and faint beeping noise brought me out of my thoughts.  I willed my eyes to open but I quickly shut them.  I was blinded by the white sterility of the room.  Where was I? Where ever I was I was definitely alive.

Someone walked in and I took a peek.  It was a nurse. “You’re very lucky to be alive, Miss. Peterson.”

            My mind immediately flashed to Keith and Michael and Amberly, my babies. Where were they?  What happened to them?  I forced the frog out of my throat and spoke the words, “Where are they?! Where are my babies!?”

            She plastered a false expression of sadness across her face hiding her smirk, “Miss Peterson I’m sorry but we did all that we could do.”

            Kill me.  Kill me now! “No. No. No no NO! They can’t be!”

            “Ma’am I’m going to need you to calm down.”

            “Calm down!? How could I possibly calm down!?”  She must be crazy. Maybe this is all just a dream and they’re in the room next door.  Yes that’s it.  I have to get out of here and check.

            “Doctor, we’re going to need a tranquilizer in here!”

            No. No I can’t stay in here. I pull at the restraints but it’s too late I was too weak and the doctor was there.  I screamed as he stepped closer to me, needle in hand.  As the world fuzzed over I vowed to myself that I would get out of there and avenge my family.

***

            Who knows how many weeks it had been but I was finally awake and for once I was unsupervised.  I had regained all feeling in my body and I was getting the hell out of there.  My restraints had been removed and I have no idea what idiot did that but I was thankful for it.  All that was left was to walk out the door, a simple yet taunting task.  I tip- toed down the hall peeking around every corner jumping behind every cart at the sign of a person.  But I quickly realized that my floor was completely vacated as if they had left me there to die. I walk with more ease as I stepped outside.  I went to the only place I knew, home.  The place of so many painstaking memories but there was nowhere else to go.

I walked in and ran straight to the TV and turned it on to the local news.  It was exactly 3 weeks since that fateful Saturday, the day that ruined my life.  I sat there unable to move and just watched in awe as they showed my beloved country up in flames. Cars overturned, buildings smoking, completely lifeless.  I had to do something.  They showed the man that did this all as he spoke out against the U.S. in hatred. I recognized where he was, only blocks away, and I made a decision.  I was going to fight him.

            I sat around my place for another day and attempted to think out a plan but none came to me.  I was simply going to go out there and fight my heart out. And it is today that I write this in hopes that someone will find this and finish this fight.  Save the world for I could not.  They murdered so many innocent people and for what reason? Greed. They need to get what is coming to them.

I give one last glance upon my house, the place of so many striking memories. One way or another, this place was really going to be missed, but I couldn’t stand to be there one last second it was too painful.  Spear in I am ready to battle the man that destroyed my life.  I inhale my last breath of fresh air and I step foot out of my refuge to my death, strangely content.  I had nothing to lose and I had to fight.  My senses were strangely acute.  The rain-like-ash penetrated my skin like needles.  Debris and ash crunch under my beat up converse echoing like thunder in the background.  The sky is a beautiful crimson red that is a painful reminder of the disaster going on.  Cars overturned, fire roaring from their engines.  Sirens screamed in the distance but there was no one around to hear them but me.  This brought me to the strange awareness of the rotten odor creeping from all depths of this death hole but was nearly hidden by the hickory stench burning my nostrils.

I see the man right where he was just yesterday basking in the glory of his victory.  I charge at him, ready to die for my country and my family.  But he turns too soon seeing me right before I strike.  He jumps up and swerves out of the way just in time.  He grabs a stick and SMACK!  The battle begins.  We jump left, right in synchronization.  Before I know it I take a blow to my stomach and I’m face down in the dirt.  I sense him coming towards me ready to seal the deal.  And surprisingly I’m ready.  But nothing happens.  There’s a muffled scuffle behind me and someone drops to the ground with a thud.  I know someone’s dead but whom??

A man walks up to me and all I see is his feet.  It is then that I know I must be dead, “Honey, are you alright?” Keith, my sweet Keith.  Alive? How could it be?  I sit up and see that evil man laying, dead on the ground.  I must be hallucinating, dead even.  But then he touches me and I know I’m alive. “Come on kids!”  Kids?  Michael?  Amberly?  Alive too?  Then I see them run out from behind a car, could it really be? I break down crying and sobbing in their embrace.  And in that moment I knew that I could handle whatever came my way as long as I had them in my arms.