It’s not really day1. Day 1 was a while ago. But I haven’t had time or paper handy to write anything down since day one, and I have no idea what day–or month–or even year it is anymore. Too many things don’t make sense, and I still wake up every day hoping it was all a dream. It isn’t though, and it looks like I’m gonna be where I am for a while yet. And I want to write it all down before I forget.
Day one was a sunny day. Chance of showers was 30% in the afternoon. I remember seeing that on my phone before Mom dropped me off at school. It’s funny the things you remember. School was normal that day, and like normal, I skipped out after 3rd period to meet up with some of my friends. It was on my way to the car that I noticed something was wrong. A highway practically ran through our school’s backyard, and a tanker truck, along with a minivan and two mid-sized sedans, picked that time to leave the road and slam into the ground. The truck was, unfortunately for me, filled with gasoline, or something similar, and exploded shortly after it hit the ground. The blast knocked me back a good distance and slammed me against a wall.
I woke up (what must have been) hours later. I was still lying on the ground where I had fallen.
The fire from the truck accident was still burning. I had been passed out for a while, and while it took a minute to sink in, I remember thinking, “Where are the fire trucks and ambulances, and where are my parents?”
None of those things ever came. I waited for a little while, long enough to to determine that I didn’t have any real injuries, and then I headed for my car. My car was a wreck. Thinking back on it, it was still in a drivable condition, but at the time, I didn’t think so. Then I looked around for help. That’s when I really started to notice how bad things were. The burning tanker truck, with the twisted metal of the cars it had crushed and burned, was only one of many disastrous scenes that I could see. There were car wrecks everywhere, a few fires in the streets, and several shattered windows. I saw people running around, some looting, some just running. Some people I saw were just walking aimlessly or standing around. The background noise finally came to my attention. It was a steady drone of sirens, an occasional scream or yell, and sometimes an explosion or crash of some kind.
I was raised Christian, so my first thought when I took everything in was that the End Times had come. That the Book of Revelation was happened and that, soon, Jesus would appear and start judging us. I knelt down next to my car then and started praying. Eventually, I got up again and decided that, while it was the end times, the rapture itself might not be happening right now. I thought of my parents, and I started walking home. Home was not close to my school.
That walk was probably the most harrowing experience of my life. Even some of my days during the Hard Times don’t compare. Imagine, if you can, wandering through a city three times the size of Rivertowne. Half the city seems to be on fire, but the fire isn’t concentrated anywhere. Cars, or horseless carriages for those of you too young to remember cars, run rampant and randomly through the streets. Every person you see, you don’t know, and you don’t trust. It’s hard to explain really–it’s just the most horrible loneliness and hopeless feeling you could ever feel, and on top of that everywhere you look, some disaster has happened or atrocity is taking place.
I couldn’t reach my house by nightfall. The dark didn’t deter me, as the fires lit the city fairly well, and the lights were still on in parts of the city. But it started raining. I ended up having to take shelter in a small street corner diner. I think I had been there once in my life. It was deserted–at least it was when I went into it.
It was in the dinner that I figured out that I was hungry. The power was out so I couldn’t cook anything. They still had ice cream though, and that made me feel worlds better. I can still taste that ice cream sometimes when I think back on it. I think I started crying while I was eating the ice cream, but I was so hungry it didn’t matter. Afterwards, I really did cry.
Three people came into the dinner after me, seeking shelter from the rain. I was in the back and was able to hide before they saw me. I don’t remember the conversation exactly, but they talked about everything that had happened that day. That’s the first I heard of the Vanishing. The reports were still coming in, but the people said that almost half of everyone had disappeared into thin air. Just up and gone. There was a lady with them. She was crying too. I remember that made me feel better. Although, I can’t tell you why. She talked about how her husband was just standing next to her one minute, she blinked, and then he was gone. Completely vanished. I remember being cold, wet, and terrible feeling, but eventually I fell asleep to the sound of the three people talking.