To be honest, I don’t know where to begin. The full-scale invasion on Ukraine 2 years ago shocked the world. I’m sure every single one of you reading this post stayed up at night, awaiting the war, lurking around the corner. Where I’m from in rural England, it sure was a common conversation starter. I never was a particularly ‘social’ boy. I liked my own comfort. Hibernating in my bedroom day in-day out, rarely, if ever, seeing my family. The small social group I did have kept me company for years on end, it was me, Dylan, Harry, James and Oliver. We met each other at work, a small bar on the outside of town. They were all in the year above me in school, but despite the age difference we just clicked. 5 adolescent boys. Why wouldn’t we socialise?
I’m getting off topic. It wasn’t long after the beginning of the war that Putin began the nuclear threats. Much like most people, i was scared. Nobody knew what would happen but after a few months, everything died down in the news and so did the talk around the town. I’ve always been anxious and worrying over any little thing, so despite the stoppage in the media scaring the public, I began googling for survival tactics, you know, in case shit hit the fan. It became a hobby that me and my group enjoyed, every weekend where we weren’t overwhelmed with work we’d head over to our local woods. make a shelter, fire, collect rainwater, forage for natural plants and create small weapons to kill birds, rabbits and other vermin to eat for the weekend. It was a fun hobby and something we became good at. In hindsight, I’m very glad I picked up these skills while we still had time.
Months has passed, and winter of 2022 had rolled around, when out of the blue, Poland reported a Russian drone strike on the capital building in Warsaw. As a NATO country, this gave Poland two options. They could either ignore it or activate a NATO response, I don’t know the whole ins and outs of the pact, but in NATO when a country is attacked which is a member, the rest of the organisation has to jump in and respond with declarations of war on the attacking country. The day was December 15th when the world was once again at war.
The whole country was in shock when the UK government announced that the country was under attack from Russian missiles. The emergency alert screamed through my ears, as every device in the house lit up like christmas lights with the warning. I flew downstairs to see my family, gathered around the TV, BBC news playing. “for anyone who has just joined us, this is not a drill. Nuclear missiles have been detected in British airspace.” a news anchor said with shock, her hair in a mess, tears running down her cheek, “our detection systems estimate 10 minutes maximum before the missiles strike our countrys. I advise you all. Evacuate immediatley. Get out of cities and seek shelter,” her breathing fastened and my family glared at the screen with dread. Emergency sirens blasted through the town, as the news went off air and the same alert as before shone on the screen.
My dad immediately began grabbing what food we had and moving it to the attic. instinctively, I grabbed every container i could and turned on the bath tap. We needed as much after as possible, I had no clue how long we had until the pipes were disrupted and the water stopped running. I filled every container i could and threw it into the attic, sprinted to my room and grabbed some essential stuff. Sleeping bag, pillows, powerbank, phone, change of clothes duct tape, survival knife, whatever i saw i thought may be useful, i threw into the attic and dived in there myself.
My phone read 2:51pm,as the first missile struck. The whole house shook and the mushroom cloud erupted in the distance. This marked the beginning of the end.