The Meltdown

The Meltdown

It was a warm and blaring day, with just the right amount of vapor in the air, that I exited my residence and ignited a cigarette. With a deep and relaxing drag, I took a moment to observe my home. It was a wide building, about three stories tall, and containing about fifteen other apartment complexes. The front of the building was a canvas for many aspiring vandals; their tags and alter-ego identities being hastily sprayed onto it. It was a sad building really, being shelter to people who are better described as parasites as opposed to tenants.

I began to walk down the cracked and concrete sidewalk, seeing the usual sights of rusting, relic cars. Their was a smog in the air above rooting from the nuclear power plant, which stood menacingly and maliciously from across the river. Everyday it released whisks upon puffs upon clouds of pollution into the oxygen within a four mile radius.

The power plant had given the town international notoriety in the late 1980’s, during which it had an unexpected meltdown. The town was vacated as soon as possible, but as many as one hundred residents ended up dying due to an extreme exposure of radiation. Since the accident, emergency sirens in the event of a meltdown had been scattered around the town, and at least fifty functional buses have been stationed in an empty field near the town-border. There is a precautionary drill held monthly in which the residents review plans to go over in an emergency situation.

Fear was the life support of this community. Everyday its citizens are forced to live through the panic of a horrific death that can occur at any second. They must always live in the shadows of years past, lapsing in the worry of a history wished to be forgotten, but one that can always repeat itself.

Sixteen long years in this community, sixteen years of watching the beings around me resort to a bottle to combat their fears. It has been a journey that has left me weary, left me tired, a travel that has given me a ravenous appetite for something better. And everyday as I start to blend in more and more with this populace, I tread further and further away from my destination.

My train of thought was interrupted by a sudden chill that had me shivering. I had noticed that the sky above had turned gray, and colossal emanations of smoke had blocked the sunrays from reaching any ground around me. People on the street obviously began to notice this as well, and many began marveling at the sky.

I don’t think anybody was really expecting it to happen, after all, with all of their focus’ being on the sky, but after a minute of the Sun being intercepted, a vehement explosion sent vibrations from across the river. The nuclear reactors had blown, releasing vibrant shades of orange and yellow all around, and compressing the clouds with toxins and chemicals. Thus began the sounds of sirens, and thus began two decades worth of anticipation crammed into over ten thousand people, triggering an epidemic of chaos.

They all began to yell and sprint, trampling over each other and stepping on their neighbors face’s, each only having one goal, and that goal being survival. In front of my eyes, primal instinct had taken over the rational thought that was meant to put us above our proceeding forms. Twenty-thousand feet of men, women, boys, and girls all began a race to the towns entrance. To the buses. As they all made violent waves and began to aimlessly bounce into me, I cursed my life-long skinny and fragile frame, and realized a run to the buses would ensure certain death by their foot.

Pulling through the unstable mass of people and taking stand on top of a van, I scouted the area and noticed a house with a basement. I leaped off and stepped on many people in the process, but my legs had amazingly brought me upon the wooden, colorless porch of the house. I had attempted to open the door, but my efforts were greeted with a click and the defeated by a lock.

Time was running out. The atmosphere was beginning to rumble, and more explosions were audible. The streets were clean of people, except the stampeded corpses and moaning survivors left to writhe in misery and await death . I looked in the distance and observed the last of the buses departing. In desperation, I threw a chair sitting by the door through the porch window and climbed inside the house.In the face of a nuclear disaster, a house isn't much protection, but it seemed better than being out in the open.

The lights were off, and silhouettes of furniture were around me. I stumbled in the darkness, tripping over a protruding and stiff object and landing on the edge of a coffee table throat-first.

I gasped. My throat was suddenly stabbed with a searing sensation. I was breathing, but air was harder to inhale. Something was definitely wrong, and hesitantly I touched the front of my neck. My fingers fell upon a crushed larynx, shifted dangerously to the side and making breathing much harder.

I looked for a light, finally finding one and twisting the switch, gasping and wheezing the whole time.The light revealed the object which derailed me; the messy, spaghetti-esque corpse of an elderly bald man. Self-inflicted gunshot. Old man admitted defeat and spared himself a more horrible death.

I heard a thumping from upstairs. It sounded like some sort of step, and, figuring it was a person, I ran up a staircase to the left of the room.

I tried to yell aloud to let my presence be known to the potential help, but no noises came out. Suddenly I heard a breath from down the hall, and a white and almost glowing canine appeared running from the darkness. It leapt and pounced on my chest. Caught off guard, I was hurled through the air with the mutt, and my back fell through a window that was behind me.

Together, me and the dog plunged from two stories and to the hard and unforgiving concrete below. I tried yelling, to no success. As I sank, I looked into the sky. For a second, in the blackness of higher altitude, I noticed an opening of light. I fell back onto Earth, followed by the canine, and the decayed world around me faded out. The last thing I was able to make out seeing was the light piercing the clouds. It gave me mental projections of God.

I relapsed into consciousness a minute or so later, which could have been for longer if a gentle tapping hadn’t been hitting my chest. I opened my eyes to see a strange fluid falling on me from the angry black puffs above. It was green, and it smelled strong and metallic. Soon it began falling all around me. It was rain contaminated with nuclear toxins, and it was burning whatever flesh was exposed to meet it.

Instantly, despite a broken larynx and throbbing vertebrates, a rush of adrenaline came to me and lunged me back onto my feet, seeking shelter from the poisonous precipitation. I hurried and stumbled to a porch and collapsed. The storm became worse and more tempestuous with every passing second.  

I was on the porch for about ten minutes when I began to vomit through my decreased windpipe. That painfully lasted another five minutes, and I soon felt delirious. I felt a palpable pain from my ribcage and glanced down at my shirt to examine it. A newly appeared hole the size of a fist had appeared on my shirt, singed and smoldering at the edges. A large, gaping wound revealed my ribs, and part of my stomach. The skin around it looked charred and infected, and the immediate intestinal agony was excruciating. The acid-like, chemical rain had began to take its effect. It was only a matter of time once again.

I stood up. It hurt to do, and I had to slouch and use the wall for support. At this point, my primal Id was in the proverbial bus driver's seat.

I took a step. My foot went on the porch edge. I kicked out and landed it on the first step. The porch was still covering me. I stepped onto that last step, and submitted myself to the storm.-