Phoenix Day

San Francisco 2040 July 7th, 12:00 AM

“Today is dull,” I think to myself walking to my apartment "I wish life was more exciting” I open my front door enter my house, but before I can close my door, I hear a loud whooshing sound and the sound of sheer fear and terror, I run into the front yard to see everyone in the streets looking up in fear, I then looked with them to see what looked like a phoenix diving down to its prey, a helpless prey with no ability to avoid its fiery talons, and no way of fighting back then just before it comes to claim its prey, it's easy to kill, everything goes black.

San Francisco 2047 May 21st 5:00 AM

I wake up in a panic, overrun with a mix of fear, dread, and anguish. I try to reason with myself “It’s only a Dream”, but my body says “No, this may be a dream, but the phoenix did come. "I pondered these things to know they were both right it has been seven years since the birds' attack. I lie awake in my room, well my “cave” that’s what it is called in undergrounds of pretty much everywhere, not just me but around 1,200 hundred out of the original 4,000, and the reason is food, water, and other resources are scarce, and it doesn't help that we ended a civil war a year ago, and the Surface War that still rages topside, I feel like I'm moving a little fast let me back up. You see in 2045 we had a civil war, oh about the basic things these people didn’t like the mayor, others did they fought many died, I personally didn’t care, because it would not matter who was in power there would still be corruption present, funny thing corruption is it was what started both wars and created distrust between the people, you can’t walk down a tunnel without the fear of being mugged or murdered, but I still had a job to do a job most men did mining, mining was the most dangerous job in the colony since nukes can cause cave collapses and the crime is highest among miners because the pay is the lowest. For women it was worst eighty percent of women were forced to bear children “to save the colony” said awaz Sharif our mayor, yet the population is unchanged, I think it's an excuse to get more soldiers for the Surface Wars, but he won’t say.

San Francisco 2047 July 7th, 2:30 PM

Today is Pheonix Day, it is the day the firebird came, it was to be mourning for those lost that day, but I feel the lucky ones, they are the ones who don’t have in this never-ending nightmare, but today was different we were shuffled by what was left of the army into the center of town, but the people don’t call them the army since the don’t have many men and they are always wearing hazmat suits, we call them the bananas, because of their looks and their tactics in any situation. So, when we got to the center of town, we all see Sharif on a podium waiting on everyone that’s a first, him among the common folks,

“comrades,” said Sharif “as you know there is a war topside” wasn’t that obvious “we are extremely low on supplies and troops, so to solve this in rationing the supplies for the people, and initiating a draft” everyone gasped and some complained, but at a wave of Sharifs hand the ones who complained were seized by the bananas and were dragged away, Sharif continued “calm down it’s only temporary, and the draft applies to people eighteen to twenty-five years old, the bus for recruits leave for the edge of the colony tomorrow at 9:00 AM sharp” what a surprise he wanted more troops and I was being forced to be one "trust me” Sarif began” this is for your own good.” After his talk everyone went how to be with their families for what little time, they had left except for me since I was all alone most everyone, I knew didn’t make it or was gone before, all I could do was sit in my cave and wait, wait for all hell to break loose.

San Francisco 2047 July 8th, 9:30 AM

The bus has arrived at the military base, it was state of the art for the time being, and the soldiers looked about the same as the civilians, over worked, malnourished, and underappreciated, and looked down by the upper-class, then I realized that they were the same as the rest of us, we all thought otherwise, but they were wrong I was wrong, I wonder does this apply to the other colonies, do they have a suffering lower-class, a fat upper-class, and a corrupt system of government, did they feel the same way I feel, but then I was broken from my thoughts to the yelling of the upper ranking solders saying “welcome to SF-7 where you will train, eat, sleep and prepare for battle for a month”, me and all the other draftees looked at each other in surprise “A month??!!” yelled a man that appeared to be eighteen” that's insane, the mayor really sunk this low so he can have a third serving of steak while we starve?”, two other men agree, another eighteen-year-old and a twenty-year-old, the officer glanced toward them then at his troops, they dragged them away, and were never heard from again like back in town.

Elevator Topside, 2047, August 8th, 1:30

The month has passed without much incident, we were prepping to go topside, and were being issued weapons, and hazmat suit some had sown tears or miscolored parts be we were told they worked which was funny because the officers appeared to have brand new suits, and I received a Winchester Model 1897, and it look like it had survived a heck of a fight, the stock had a good piece missing, the barrel started to gather rust, and had “corrupción es Muerte” Just below the trigger on the front of what was left of the stalk, just as the last gun had found its set of empty hands they rose the elevator.

Topside, 2047, August 8th, 1:45

The sun was extremely bright and felt foreign from the light of the colony, I look up around to see what the phoenix had done, it took all the life, and beauty, and meaning of the world, the reason we had to go underground, but we had little time to stop because we had to go fight for the colony, we have to fight for limited resources, it hit me the reason we fight is that the politicians want more and more they can't have enough, but they refuse to notice that they fight for less and less resource when we should work together to restore the attacked prey instead of destroying in more, then I look at the shotgun again, but this time I knew what it said it's like the letters moved around to say ”corruption is death”, and death was on its way.