Tunnel Grove

All of these thoughts were but a memory, momentary chills of wind during the eye of a storm. Parts of them were calm, collected, and relaxed; but when the true pain of them came it came in full force, unexpected and brutal. I came back to reality shortly after reminiscing about what had happenned to my family. They had disappeared since that night, and I'd never heard from them again. Since then, however, life seemed to just keep moving along, as if nothing had ever happened.

Later on, the government had informed me that there had been a union strike at the local cereal plant, and that the workers had gotten so out of hand that they had formed a mob and had begun walking the streets. But I remember nothing about cereal, not once do I remember it being a part of any of my conversations that night. Not once. It was amazing how the government I had trusted for so long couldn't tell a good lie when I needed one, or at least the truth, if that.

But I remembered that to them this was all just one white lie after another. Didn't mean much, and it certainly wasn't their problem. During my post-mob night scavenging, I found a city torn to pieces by upset citizens gone too far. There were no skyscrapers in Tunnel Grove, but all of the important buildings and such had been pillaged and plundered. Mostly everyone was gone, they'd been taken into that night on the 30th of October. I found out, however, that I was (like I said earlier) part of the remaining 1%.

After three days of suriving on my own, I ran into someone who I still consider a strong and trustworthy ally. His name was Timothy Mattaliano, but preferred to be called Tim or even sometimes he liked the nickname "T". At the time of the fury that night, he was only 17, but now was almost 20 and had a better understanding of what it'd meant to be independent and self-sufficient. When we'd exchanged stories he told me about how he was the middle child of six(so he was the fourth) and how the other five members of his family had been killed on the spot for resisting being taken out of their home.

Like me, he shared the experience of going into a surreal state of disbelief, as well as becoming perplexed as to why nobody had taken him. Thankfully, he had a better understanding of what was really going on than I did, so he was able to fill me in, at least with what he knew. To no surprise, his version of that night was far different than what the government had told me. He communicated to me that a cop had opened fire on an unarmed pedestrian and left him there to die. There had been a crowd of witnesses that gathered around the officer but before they could do anything his backup arrived and that's what started the confrontation. The mob had, accoring to T, dispersed briefly, but reformed on some street and that's where the battle went down. When he told me of this, I immediately went back to my memory I'd had earlier about after I'd gotten out of the back of my house. Then, it hit me. THey'd clashed on my street. I was sent spinning yet again into a state of rememberance as it all came back to me.