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| 40 Years After the End (Project) Posted by: OLARocket at 05-25-2016 13:34 PM, Last Modified 05-25-2016 13:35 PM |
This is just a little thing I thought I would try. It isn't finished but I plan on updateing it as I go through. Please tell me what you thing of the story so far and if you would continue to read it after it is finished. I would also appreciate it if you would give me as much constructive criticism as possible. Thank you for your time.
Prologue
Who would have thought? It's been, what, 30-40 years since it happened? Who would have thought we would still be suffering from the aftershock? Don't get me wrong, things are getting better. We aren't dying the second we set foot outside and so far, only a few people have actually had any long lasting effects from it. But you probably don't know what I'm talking about. About, hmm, half a century ago, someone insulted someone's mother and that someone didn't take it to well. That someone thought it agreeable to disembowel the other someone but didn't take into account that the other someone was, in fact, a high-ranking government official in China. China, being relatively disgruntled at this, decided to show the country of the someone that it was perfectly okay with it through the exchanging of gifts. Sure they were nuclear bombs, and they may have forced us all underground, but they were still gifts and it's the thought that counts right? They didn't know they would explode. Anyways, they decided to gift away their nuclear bombs, and other countries saw what was going on and didn't want to feel left out so they gave their nuclear bombs to their enemies as peace offerings. It kind of worked. No one was mean enough to send them back. Anyways, let's jump into the story here. This will take place in... what do the old folks call it? Asheville? Some place in North Carolina? Okay, I can't start the story yet. I need to get a few things straightened out first.
Okay. We are in Asheville North Carolina and before I start this story, I should probably tell you a little bit about myself. I've never seen the surface, I was never around to take part in the exchanging of gifts, and I've always wondered what life was like without walls on every side. Honestly, though, I've been quite comfortable. I've always had just enough food and drink, I have the most comfortable floor in the whole bunker, and every problem we've had has been solved without much strife. A few bullets here, and a few there, and we're good. This life is by no means easy, it's just that it's all we have. All I've ever known. I should also mention that I'm part of the Spectres. We sort of act as the peacekeepers here in the bunker. I was recruited at the age of 18 and during the 2 years I've been with them, I've had to take part in 15 combat scenarios. The downside to living in this bunker is that we're connected with D.C., Denver, and Atlanta, wherever they are, and they don't seem to like us very much. I vaguely recall them calling us "spineless pigs with no sense of civilization" and "dogs that need to be put down." That's kind of rude. My best friend is a pig. Okay, I've held this off long enough. I think I'll go ahead and start telling the story now.
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"Wake up. The head honcho wants to speak to us." "Come on man. Go away. I'm not done
sleeping yet." "Do I have to drag you out of bed? Don't think I won't." "Fine, fine, I'm going." I lazily lift myself up out of my bed, scolding my friend Bradly. "What, pray tell, could be so important that you had to wake me prematurely from my alcohol induced deep sleep?" "As I said, the big man wants to have a word with us, now put some pants on and let's go." "Screw you man," I say as I climb to my feet and make my way to my locker. I grab a pair of fatigues and a shirt and lazily dress myself. "God dammit. Am I gonna have to drag you out of here by the ear to get you to hurry up?" "Your the one that wouldn't let the drunk man sleep, how about cutting me some slack." "I'll let him know you're taking your merry little time Kent. I'll see you in the planning room." "Eh. Good residence. I'll enjoy the silence. The last thing I need with this headache is to hear you naggin at me." I finally get dressed and walk over to grab my hat, which I carefully throw onto the top of my head. Alright, I guess I’m ready to go.
I make my way out of my quarters and to the planning room. There I find Bradly and the leader of our bunker, James Harpy, who doesn't waste any time giving his instructions. "I've got some news for you boys. Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but you two have been selected to make a scouting run on the surface. We're running out of supplies down here and we need you two to look for a few places where our salvaging teams might be able to bring back some a good amount of useful Items. You'll find your equipment at the entrance along with your gas masks, a few filters, some med kits containing bandages, disinfectants, and some potassium iodide (to help with the radiation), and of course, a few guns won't hurt. Once you lads have had breakfast, I need you two out there and moving. And Kent. Sober up a little." "Sure thing Harp" I mumble as I'm motioned out of the room.
As we leave, Bradly looks at me smiling. "Well, you've always wanted to go to the surface. Here's your chance man." "You idiot. I said I wondered what it looked like. I didn't say anything about setting foot up there. You've heard the stories. There're things up there that are strong enough to tear five of us apart and are ugly enough to make me puke, and I’ve had some pretty nasty things. There’s no way I would want to go anywhere that we might find something like that.” “Relax. They’re just rumors. We just opened the doors recently. We haven’t sent many people up there yet. You can’t just go off of what a few people say.” “Whatever man. I’m gonna go get breakfast. Hopefully they aren’t out of coffee.”
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After a nice and filling breakfast (and a little bit of sobering up), I met Bradly at the entrance to the bunker. The security guard handed us our weapons (a small pistol and a makeshift pneumatic rifle), gas masks, packs, and med kits, and pointed us toward the door. I couldn’t believe we were going to be going out onto the surface. To be honest, I was a little excited and a little scared. We put on our gas masks and with a loud bang, the door began to open, and it made a loud squeaking noise as it rose. Still works. Great. We both look at eachother and then begin to make our way out of the safety of the bunker when the guard calls out to us. “Be careful out there. A lot of the buildings are unstable. Keep your tails close to your legs and mind your surroundings.” We both thank him and continue on our way.
Now before we go any further, I feel I may have forgotten to mention one little detail about myself and the rest of the world. None of us are exactly human. We’re what you people would call “anthropomorphic.” You probably already know what that means so I won’t take the time to explain it. If you don’t know what it means, then I suggest you take advantage of this thing you guys have called the internet. I’m a wolf. I have wolf ears, a wolf tail, I can’t wear shoes or boots, I’m covered in red and black fur, the whole package. My friend Bradly here is a fox. Basically the same thing as me but smaller and with less self control. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s continue on with the story.
We walk on for a few moments when we notice a building with chains on the doors and no scalable windows. “Hey Kent, we might be able to get in there. There might be something good inside.” I look at Bradly to question him on how he plans to break the chains that stand between us and the inside of the building but he is already making his way there. “Wait up. You know you need me to keep you out of trouble so I suggest you learn to be a little more patient.” By the time I reach him, he is already at the door. “Chained. I was gonna ask you how you planned to get past that but you had to run off.” “Oh that’s an easy one Kent.” Bradly points his pistol at the chain and before I can stop him, he pulls the trigger. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!?” I yell. “Relax man. The chain is off and nothing’s coming for us. Let’s get inside.” Relatively cross with my foxy friend here, I begrudgingly follow him into the building and closed the door.
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“ARE YOU CRAZY!? WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S OUT THERE! YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN SOMETHING’S ATTENTION! I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I’M NOT TOO FOND OF DYING ON THE SURFACE!” “Hey, it worked. We’re inside so let’s take a look around!” Before I can get some more words in, Bradly starts running off toward the center of the room. “Kent, if we find anything in here worth salvaging, remind me to mark the front door with a red flag. We’ll meet back here in 15 minutes. Do you wanna go up or down?” “Down” I say. “Then I’ll go up. I have the top two floors so you can take care of this floor and the basement if you can find one..” I nod and head into the next room.
As I open the door, I am greeted by a row of desks, computers, and old yellowing papers. I make my way up to one of the desks and open the draws. I find paper, batteries, staplers and staples, the usual office materials. Some of these things can be melted down and we should be able to salvage some of the parts from these computers. Aside from that, I don’t know what we might find to be much more useful in what seems to be an old office building. I check some of the other desks and find about the same thing, but one of them had a nice little revolver in it. I kept it. It might not work now, but I’m pretty good at fixing things. I just gotta tinker with it for a little while. I then move on to the next room, in which the floor seems to creak a lot more that the rest of the building so far. On the other side of the room, a rusty safe is showing from behind a large, broken down desk. I slowly make my way toward it when the floor breaks and I fall through to the lower level.
It takes me a moment to come to my senses and when I finally do, I take a look around. The first thing I notice is the smell foul. On the floor, I can see the bones of people who weren’t able to make it to the bunker before the radiation got to them. Then I notice something else. A breathing noise. I hold my breath and slowly look around as I try to find the source of the sound, scanning each and every inch of my surroundings. Old filing cabinets, bookshelves, a large metal door, a pile of dung, and finally I find the source of the breathing, which doesn’t seem to have spotted me, although it does seem rather annoyed. I put my head down and reach for my pneumatic rifle and take aim at what I assume to be the beast’s head.
I pull the trigger and with a soft whoosh, the gun fires, but unfortunately, like any living creature, it head didn’t stay in the same place and it immediately stood up at the sound of the gun. However, I won’t complain. As a result of it standing, the bullet went into his throat. I wish I could say the beast dropped quietly, but that would be a flat out lie. Before the creature died, it managed to let out a blood curdling roar, which would have only been three-fourths as scary had it not been gurgling and spewing blood everywhere....... |
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