Woeville - "Life is Cheap" - An Apocalyptic Survival Story
https://i.imgur.com/COF8gp4.jpg
Prologue
The End... Becomes the Beginning
The sun paled behind a miasma of yellowish grey; it had been that way for six years ever since the missile warheads fell. The resultant radioactive devastation that ensued from the nuclear strikes had reduced humanity to a token number of survivors. Food was scarce and there was an underscoring sense of resignation to a life that meant eking out some measure of survival though spartan. It was a tough existence meant to harden those inured to suffering and to weed out the weak.
https://i.imgur.com/Pt24GP4.jpg
Sunset Valley had been wiped from existence; being a military target, it was wiped clean from the map with three one megaton warheads detonating over Fort Gnome. Those who didn’t leave perished; starvation, radiation sickness – their bodies withering, the radiation slowly eating them from inside, or from predation – the weak suffered in this case being easy pickings for predatory animals or disturbingly from other humans.
It was clear to Yasunobu and to Fiona that they had to leave Sunset Valley. Mayumi had perished in the blast of one of the nuclear weapons as she’d been on a field trip with her young charges to Fort Gnome that very day that the exchange of humanity-ending weapons was unleashed. And a grieving Yasunobu and a very terrified Fiona had gathered up their surviving youngsters and escaped the area after the requisite remaining under sealed cover for two weeks. Molly had lost her mind after finding out that Sandi had been one of the casualties of the detonation at Fort Gnome – she stayed and perished, only wanting to be with her daughter in the very end. No amount of coaxing would induce her to leave.
Then there was no place to go other than into the desert wilderness – a problematic venture at best; a nightmare at worst, with food being scarce or contaminated, they’d subsisted by raiding highway rest-stop gas stations of their canned goods; the supermarkets being long since picked over by survivors and the perishables left unedible and rotting on the counters due to large counts of radiation. The electromagnetic pulse had rendered all cars unusable; their electrical systems fried by the surge of electricity that preceded a nuclear detonation. It was a terrifying six months of trying to make their way to any sort of habitable destination avoiding any pockets of radiation – population centers that were substantial enough to have warranted being targeted by the enemy.
The travel was made even more difficult by Fiona growing ill with radiation sickness sustained from exposure from her trying to get home to find her daughter who’d had been watched over by Yasunobu who had been her long-time family friend. The amount of radiation exposure she’d sustained in making the decision to not shelter-in-place for the two weeks away from River had resulted in a very costly outcome. Eventually they had to take shelter in a cave...watching her succumb to a horrific death. Considering the fact that they didn’t want to leave her, cremation was the only choice. Yet they didn’t have a crematorium. So the only thing they could do was to burn the body in flames and carry her bones on their journey to wherever they would end up. River grieved her loss immensely.
However the journey would not end up with even that number remaining. Yasunobu though he tried his best, was only human. Eventually he came down with the same symptoms as Fiona’d had and succumbed in much the same way and that meant Haruo had to dispose of his remains the same way in which Yasunobu had disposed of Fiona’s.
That day also meant that River and Haruo; still teenagers came to a realization of an immutable fact- their lot in life was to grow up very quickly. From that day on, it meant that the two were an inseparable pair.
Prologue
The End... Becomes the Beginning
The sun paled behind a miasma of yellowish grey; it had been that way for six years ever since the missile warheads fell. The resultant radioactive devastation that ensued from the nuclear strikes had reduced humanity to a token number of survivors. Food was scarce and there was an underscoring sense of resignation to a life that meant eking out some measure of survival though spartan. It was a tough existence meant to harden those inured to suffering and to weed out the weak.
https://i.imgur.com/Pt24GP4.jpg
Sunset Valley had been wiped from existence; being a military target, it was wiped clean from the map with three one megaton warheads detonating over Fort Gnome. Those who didn’t leave perished; starvation, radiation sickness – their bodies withering, the radiation slowly eating them from inside, or from predation – the weak suffered in this case being easy pickings for predatory animals or disturbingly from other humans.
It was clear to Yasunobu and to Fiona that they had to leave Sunset Valley. Mayumi had perished in the blast of one of the nuclear weapons as she’d been on a field trip with her young charges to Fort Gnome that very day that the exchange of humanity-ending weapons was unleashed. And a grieving Yasunobu and a very terrified Fiona had gathered up their surviving youngsters and escaped the area after the requisite remaining under sealed cover for two weeks. Molly had lost her mind after finding out that Sandi had been one of the casualties of the detonation at Fort Gnome – she stayed and perished, only wanting to be with her daughter in the very end. No amount of coaxing would induce her to leave.
Then there was no place to go other than into the desert wilderness – a problematic venture at best; a nightmare at worst, with food being scarce or contaminated, they’d subsisted by raiding highway rest-stop gas stations of their canned goods; the supermarkets being long since picked over by survivors and the perishables left unedible and rotting on the counters due to large counts of radiation. The electromagnetic pulse had rendered all cars unusable; their electrical systems fried by the surge of electricity that preceded a nuclear detonation. It was a terrifying six months of trying to make their way to any sort of habitable destination avoiding any pockets of radiation – population centers that were substantial enough to have warranted being targeted by the enemy.
The travel was made even more difficult by Fiona growing ill with radiation sickness sustained from exposure from her trying to get home to find her daughter who’d had been watched over by Yasunobu who had been her long-time family friend. The amount of radiation exposure she’d sustained in making the decision to not shelter-in-place for the two weeks away from River had resulted in a very costly outcome. Eventually they had to take shelter in a cave...watching her succumb to a horrific death. Considering the fact that they didn’t want to leave her, cremation was the only choice. Yet they didn’t have a crematorium. So the only thing they could do was to burn the body in flames and carry her bones on their journey to wherever they would end up. River grieved her loss immensely.
However the journey would not end up with even that number remaining. Yasunobu though he tried his best, was only human. Eventually he came down with the same symptoms as Fiona’d had and succumbed in much the same way and that meant Haruo had to dispose of his remains the same way in which Yasunobu had disposed of Fiona’s.
That day also meant that River and Haruo; still teenagers came to a realization of an immutable fact- their lot in life was to grow up very quickly. From that day on, it meant that the two were an inseparable pair.
