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Six Months to Survival (1)
Tragedy
 Created on 12-15-07
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It was three days after my seventeenth birthday when the original contamination occurred. A ship that has not since been officially identified. Immediate tests were done on the material that was found onboard and somehow airborne particles were released causing a major panic across the nation. Suicide amounts steadily rose to all time highs as the weeks past. About four weeks into the wait for the test results to be released, the suicides simply stopped, no new reports came in and people seemed to have forgotten about the contamination. Two weeks of nothing and then suddenly this morning, that report came across all stations and suicides were at an all time high. My parents took my little brother with them and headed for the store, they wanted to stock up on supplies before people got really crazy. Well things had already gotten really crazy and as the end of time would have it, I would have to struggle through the possible last six months of life alone. In a botched suicide; a man drove his car into the path of my parents’ vehicle and a massive pile up brought fifteen lives to an end… the man who originally caused the accident lived through the crash and died only after he jumped into the swirling river below the crash site. People were too afraid to continue living when they knew just how long they had to live.I got the news from the television, what a way to find out your family members had died… Well I still had a sister but she wasn’t likely to survive much longer, she was three years older than me and she was already exhibiting suicidal tendencies long before the contamination. The night my parents died, my house has broken into three times. Three times in one night I had to fight off intruders, I simply couldn’t do it, so I left. I packed up some of my clothes, a few books, a nice amount of food, and some other odds and ends. Then I headed for the woods. As I walked into the sunrise, I thought about this whole “contamination” I seriously doubted it was real and promised myself that I would not be dead in six months. I was going to live up until the end and if I was killed by a contamination, then so be it… but I was not going to submit myself to the ending of my life by my own hand. If I was met to die in a water contamination, then I would die as a direct result of a water contamination, not simply because the panic portion of my brain switched to self destruct mode. I reached the woods and went to the hideout that all the local boys had gone to when we were growing up, it was clear, by the looks of it; nobody had been into this place since we were kids. After fighting my way through the brush I began making some improvements to the shelter, it was about the middle of May and though the weather was nice now, I planned on staying here until I had no choice but to leave the shelter or the earth. Due to the fact that practically all stores had been abandoned, I went to the local hardware store and found it closed up… I was amazed people hadn’t broken into it already. I went around back, the delivery door was unlocked, and so I let myself in. I took just what I needed, a couple panels of ply wood for the walls, nails, a hammer, insulation, and so forth. It took nearly three hours to get all the supplies for the shelter and I still wasn’t done by nightfall. I stopped work for the night and slept cautiously beside the shelter, I woke to the smallest sounds and though they usually belonged to animals, I was on high alert… I did not want anybody to be around me, I didn’t want to meet up with a homicidal crazy person off in the dark woods. I woke as the sun was rising and finished building the shelter, the sun was high and my watch told me it was a little after one in the afternoon. After inspecting my work and tweaking it in a few spots, I made my way into town again, people were every where, but I couldn’t tell if they were dead or asleep. All I knew was that there were bodies lining the streets. I carefully navigated my way around the bodies and into the grocery store. Somebody else was in there, I could hear them moving around but I thought nothing of it… probably just another looter. I grabbed a cart and pushed it up and down the aisles; I took only things I knew would keep. Multiple bags of assorted chips, bottles and jugs of water, canned food products, and the items I would need to prepare the food. The cart was quickly filled and had I not considered how I would be getting the food to the shelter, I would have grabbed another cart to fill. I took the cart from the store, pushed it between the bodies and to the edge of town before I pushed it, with much difficulty, through the trees to the fort. It took such a long time to get it there, but in the end I did and in an effort to keep my food I formulated a plan, I ran to the hardware store, pulled down the biggest storage box that I could carry and a shovel before running back to the shelter. I then dug a hole deep enough for the storage box, set the box inside, filled it with my food and piled a thin layer of dirt on top of it. Then I left again to find some furnishings, the first house I got to, had a large plushy chair in front of a fireplace. I wanted that chair, so I tried the sliding door and sure enough it was open, I let myself in and looked around the house, it was silent. My natural curiosity got the best of me and I began to search the house. In what I assumed was the master bedroom I found something that literally brought me to my knees; tucked gently under the covers were tree small limp forms. Two little girls around the ages of six and seven were on either side of a small boy who looked to be about four, the bodies of a man and woman whom I assumed were the parents were lying over the foot of the bed. All of them had their wrists slashed open and the blood had soaked its way through the sheets. I crumbled to the floor in shock, how could anybody kill three small children like this? I recovered and went to the task of stealing the chair. It took a while but eventually both the chair and I arrived at the shelter. I put the chair over the fresh turned soil and curled up on it to sleep for the night. I woke with the sun and started a small fire so I could have a meal. After eating and making certain the fire had burned itself out, I set off for the day. I found a few more things for the shelter: a small cot, another chair, a rug, and as much toilet paper as I could find. Once I had moved all of this in I had nothing else left to do, so I went back into town. I was approached by a man dressed all in black; he was cover in blood and looked very somber. It was Father Ghristenbol, he was the local preacher, apparently he had been going around christening all of the bodies, but he looked half deranged, he was scared and shaking, when he saw me ha fell to his knees and began praying. I couldn’t handle it, I had not been to church in over seven years and having a man pray at my feet like I was a saint scared me. On my second lap around town the preacher was dead, he was in the same place I had left him but his eyes were wide open and he had no pulse. I took his bible which was open to the passing rights that a preacher would commonly read to those on their death bed. I marked the page and began headed back to my shelter. I read those rights over and over again and as I fell asleep, the bible slipped from my hands and fell to the floor.
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