(Unnamed)

Prologue

I think I am sixteen old, I know I am average weight and height; oh, yeah, and I live in a dome. I’ve lived here for almost a year now. When they elected the new president, he made too many mistakes. This is the year 2017, and this is the story about what happened before, during, and after life in the dome. Who knows if these memories are real? If these memories are real, my name is Vivian.

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Chapter One

                                                                Two years earlier

Monday. Serenity Thompson sat down at the breakfast table. She watched her family devour their food as if they had never eaten before. She, however, didn’t touch any of her food. Her mom stopped eating for a second, and glanced at Serenity, “Why aren’t you eating anything?” Serenity rolled her eyes and answered mockingly, “I’m not hungry.” Her mom shrugged and went back to eating, “More for us.”

Serenity never ate, her mom knew this, and yet mom always asked. Serenity should stop answering. She was in a particularly bad mood today, no, she was in one of the worst moods she’d ever been in. Yesterday had been Voting Day and Serenity’s birthday had been the day before. She was now 18. She should have been allowed vote, but her parents didn’t think she should be allowed to help decide the fate of the country. As it turned out, that one vote could have changed everything.

If she had been allowed to vote, she would have voted for Hilary Clinton. Yes, Clinton lied plenty and wasn’t the best choice for president, but the other choice was the one and only bastard Trump. Serenity hadn’t been allowed to vote but if she had voted her one vote would have kept Trump from continuing on as president. At this very moment, Trump was getting himself into trouble with other countries. Spain already hated him, England hated him the moment he ran for president, so pretty much wherever they heard about him, the hate began. This was putting everybody in the United States at risk; if Trump didn’t stop causing trouble, he would start the next World War.

With all the nuclear weapons being tossed around, a World War would wipe out everything. America would be the first to go – nobody had the patience to side with Trump. Serenity’s parents had voted for Trump without a second thought. They focused on the things he’d said that they liked instead of studying how many times he had lied, or discriminated, or said things that made other people want to do these things for him. It wasn’t fair. Serenity had this boyfriend when she was in the 9th grade; he based his entire life off the vibe of, “Nothing’s ever fair.” And she knew how well that worked out. Well, it actually didn’t. When her boyfriend had gotten fired from the great position he had in the company, he had committed suicide. Serenity’s life got a little worse.

The bus beeped its horn at the end of Serenity’s driveway. She swung her backpack over her shoulder and walked swiftly out the door, not bothering to say goodbye to any of her family members. If she had had time to think back to that moment, there is a strong chance that she would have said goodbye instead of holding her grudges. But as someone had quoted a few days ago, “Things never happen the same way twice.” That was as truer than anything else had ever been in Serenity’s life.

Serenity stepped onto the bus and sat next the first person who waved her over. For some reason, Serenity had gotten into what every school had ever called, “The Popular Kids”, somehow. It was surprising to her because she wasn’t particularly nice, happy, or stylish. Maybe it was just the air she held herself up with. She didn’t hold herself how she did by choice. Well, she kind of did, but if she didn’t everything she was feeling would bleed out for everyone to see. That was not something Serenity would allow. She kept her feelings to herself; it was her main priority.

The bus arrived at school and the bus driver barked out his usual orders: “Walk in a neat line! Go straight to class! Get off my bus!” and as usual the students walked out of the bus, waited for each other, and walked together in a big bunch just to upset the bus driver. They all wandered into the school, and then made their way to miscellaneous classes. Serenity skipped the wandering and headed straight to class before anybody else. She wanted to be the first one there so she could set up all her things, get ready for the day, and study the board before everyone else came bustling in.

The teacher came in minutes later; the students followed a few minutes after that, then class started. Ms. Leo, short for Leonora, announced there would be a half day. The reason for this is because they would walk to the elementary and tutor the 1st graders. Serenity didn’t like kids, but she got along with them fine. She had to spend half a day with some little kids. So what? No big deal.

As Ms. Leo had the student’s line up, Serenity in the back, an explosion went off. It was close to the building and the impact knocked most of the students over, “Under the desks, no, take shelter, no, fire drill!” The building was filled with screams as explosions wracked the building, shaking it until no one could think of standing. Then, unexpectedly, they stopped. Ms. Leo took a short break from cowering under her desk to look up. Most of the students were lying on the floor. They weren’t moving. Pieces of the ceiling had broken off, falling on top of the people who couldn’t take cover fast enough, “Oh no….” Ms. Leo pulled out her walkie-talkie and attempted to reach the Principal, but he didn’t answer, “Students?” Ms. Leo scanned the wreckage that was, not long ago, a schoolroom. Serenity’s ears were still ringing from the outburst of bombs. She tried to stand up, but something had her leg trapped, “Ms. Leo, is that you?”

“Serenity!” Ms. Leo rushed over to the only living student she could see, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, but my leg is stuck. Could you help me?” At this point in time, Serenity was sure that nothing could faze her. Most of her class was dead and she was nonchalantly asking her teacher to pull a desk off her leg. Would anything shake her emotions loose?

“Yes! Yes, of course!” The small teacher tried her best to tug the fallen desk away from Serenity without hurting her. Half of her goals, at least; the teacher managed to get the desk off of Serenity but Serenity grit her teeth as the desk put pressure on her leg, still, and pushed it into the ground. Ms. Leo pulled Serenity up and scanned the room again, “Students, can any of you hear me?” Her voice quivered towards the end of the sentence – she was near tears. Someone else, somewhere in the room, called out to Ms. Leo and she rushed over to help.

The shock was settling in as Serenity looked around her surroundings. Everywhere she looked, she saw the ruins of the school; she was lucky to be alive. The only people in her sight were Ms. Leo and the injured student. Was anybody else in the school even life? Serenity stood up shakily, ignoring the slight pain her ankle surrendered, and walked through the charred doorway. She looked in fear at what she saw. This classroom was the only part of the building spared by the bombing. What if the entire city looked as the school did? She slowly made her way to the craters left in the Earth, lowering her fingertips to what was left of the dirt. She raised her fingers back to herself, suddenly alert. The ground was shaking again. Serenity completely disregarded any pain her ankle was giving her and ran back to the classroom, hoping that it would be secure again. The sound of explosions was ruthless and wouldn’t cease. It continued on for what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes, then stopped as suddenly as it started, like last time. She waited a few minutes to be certain that the bombing wouldn’t start again.

Her ankle didn’t give her any more trouble, not even when she started jogging. She ran swiftly, making her way to where she supposed her house would have been, silently thanking herself for taking track those few years. As she ran, she tried to take in all the damage done, but the dismalness of it all was starting to choke her. She ran blindly now, the tears in her eyes stinging and her legs refusing to stop propelling her forward. That was all she could think of – just keep moving. The cities around hers were small, and she could run through several of them in a day, so she didn’t stop when she got to the burned sign, “You are leaving Crailesville”. The next town was the same as hers: Burned, full of wreckage that was so misshapen she sometimes couldn’t decide what the objects used to be. The awfulness of all of it crushed her, sucking the air out of her lungs until she couldn’t run, but she reminded herself that if she stopped, she’d be tempted to look around. No matter how many cities her legs carried her through, they weren’t getting any better. If she didn’t pay attention to where she was running she would have fallen into too many house-sized craters to count. It was all too horrible to think about.

When she finally made it to an exploded countryside, it was nightfall. There was one question eating her brain: “Is the entire world like this?” She couldn’t be the only person to have lived through this. These nuclear weapons that have damaged so much couldn’t possibly have only spared her. That only happened in movies; and yet… Why hadn’t she seen anyone else yet, how was she taking this all so well, would anything ever faze her? These were all questions that consumed her thoughts. Still, she was finding no answers. The ground was rumbling again, and the wind whipped through her clothes. Her skinny jeans and flannel shirt weren’t putting up much of a fight to keep her warm against this wind. Before her mind could even form a question, a helicopter came into view in the smoggy sky. A man was reaching out of it about 6 feet above Serenity’s head, “Take my hand!”