It was around 9:34pm on a Saturday night. I had to go to my uncle’s house because the Wi-Fi at mine was out. As I got there, I pulled out my school iPad because I was trying to do my homework last minute as usual, but suddenly the lights went out. I don’t remember what I was thinking about when it happened, but I remember getting up to go check the breaker box because my uncle left as soon as he dropped me off and everyone else was gone. It was unusually dark in the attic where the breaker box was, so I pulled my phone out to use its light, but to my surprise, it didn’t turn on.
I remember sighing and thinking to myself that it could have died, but I was completely wrong. After a while of feeling around and touching stuff in the attic I finally found the breaker box and flicked all the switches waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did so I crawled out and went outside to see if anyone else was having the same problem and I remembered being in utter shock to see everyone else outside checking the same thing I was.
I walked up to one of my uncle’s neighbors at the time who was a relatively old man, maybe in his mid-60s and remembered asking him if there was a power outage and he said “I’m not exactly sure, but I think so” and as he said that, there was a massive explosion in the distance. Everyone was freaking out, scared it would hit us next.
I ran into the house for cover, and then I passed out. I woke up to what felt like several hours later with a massive headache. As I got up, I realized it was pitch black outside. It was probably around 4 in the morning. I had completely forgotten everything that was going on because of how bad my headache was, so I ended up walking to my room and passing out on the floor once again.
When I woke up, it was daylight outside. My head was pounding, but suddenly yesterday’s events all hit me at once, so I disregarded it and ran in a frantic blitz outside to check what was going on.
I had stood there for what felt like hours in utter shock and horror. Everything was normal, but I had gazed upon dozens of dead bodies lying on the ground. I had walked up to one of the lifeless bodies and idiotically turned it over.
It was my uncle’s neighbor. Instinctively, I turned away and, as the thought of his lifeless, decaying pale face came to mind, I threw up. After I calmed down and got used to the sight of bodies casually lying on the ground, I knew I had to get out of there.
I searched one of the houses for car keys and almost instantly found some, but when I tried to turn the car on it wouldn’t work. So I tried again, and again, and again and again and again, but to my surprise every single attempt failed, not even the sound of the engine was heard.
I kept trying to turn on different cars for what seemed like days but not a single one of them would work and not even a single noise came from the engine.
I remember thinking to myself “shit, why won’t a single one of these cars turn on. I need to get out of here”. As a last resort I took a bike, “I wish I would have stayed enclosed in that one neighborhood if only I knew how bad it was in the rest of my small town”.
I had biked for around 20 minutes trying to leave that neighborhood , but as soon as I got to the exit a group of kids attacked me. There were about 4 of them and they were all around 12-14 years old.
They were ravenous. Hungry it seemed like they hadn’t eaten for days, they tackled me off the stolen bike I took from one of the dead peoples houses, and they had pinned me down. I remember one of the kids trying to bite me but as soon as I felt his teeth sink deep into my skin I broke out of the hold they had in me.
In a rush of adrenaline I had beaten the kids until they were knocked out and tied them up. I sat there observing them and their strange behavior and with a closer look they were unnaturally skinny.
When they woke up I instantly started questioning them, I remember the conversation very vividly, “what happened” I asked them trying to remain calm in the situation, they had looked at me wearily as if they were scared of what I would do to them, “all the food is rotting and we haven’t eaten for days, we are hungry” the oldest had exclaimed, “ where are your parents” I remember asking them that with no though in my mind, I wasn’t ready for the answer I was a about to hear, “dead” he said.
My mind had instantly flashed back to the bodies I saw when I first went outside and all the ones I saw while on my way to the exit. In a shaky tone I asked them “are all the adults dead”, they answered quickly. “Yes”. In that one moment I had jumped up, I didn’t care about anything else, nothing else could have even possibly mattered to me, I got on that bike and rode to my house as fast as I could.
I had rode about 6 to 7 miles to get to my house without stopping, and when I approached the door my hand was trembling. I slightly twisted the door knob and to my surprise it was unlocked. I didn’t know what the feeling was but it made me throw the door open. And as I opened the door I gazed upon the bodies of my dead mother and father, I froze.