The Crucible (Part 1)

It’s been two weeks since The Fall. That is as good of a name that I could come up with… The Fall. I guess creativity also went away when it seems the majority percent of the population died. It happened in the blink of an eye, there was no sickness to warn us, people just suddenly dropped dead. Everyone I knew. Everything I knew. All gone. What I do know is just pieced together.

Along with the dying, nothing electronic functioned anymore. Just like that, life was back to the Dark Ages. Suddenly everything stopped being what we knew life to be. All the new bigger better technology became what it had replaced… obsolete. No one really knows what happened.

The last thing you think about when you are fourteen is losing your family. I had to bury my mom, dad, and sister. Looking back, that's the day I really grew up. After three days of crying, I decided the best thing for me was to set out in search of others. We lived pretty isolated in the woods of east Oklahoma.

I gathered up some food from the pantry, a change of clothes, my sleeping bag, and some things from the family camping set. I carefully packed it all in my hiking backpack. My last stop was out to my dad’s shop where he kept all of our archery equipment.

My dad ran a small archery business out of his shop. He repaired bows for people, built custom arrows, and did any kind of tinkering around that would make a bow perform to the highest level of whoever picked it up. I had grown up around that shop helping dad with just about every aspect of the job. If I wasn’t helping him build, I was on the range testing or practicing.

Neither Dad, nor I, were the big hunters, more into the competitive shooting scene. We would go to hunting camp with his brothers every year, so I was no stranger to the world of dressing out kills. I helped a lot with that at camp while dad stayed around the campsite working on everyone’s equipment. He always took pride in knowing his work was the best out there.

That day on the way out of dad’s shop I grabbed my compound bow, assembled a quiver of thirty of his custom built arrows, and threw in one of dad’s archery tool kits. Dad always bragged that nothing flew through the air smoother than one of his arrows.

That day I left my house and wanted to try familiar spots to look for help. I went to our church which was about an hour walk, but found no one there and the doors were locked. The next place I thought to go was my school. After an hour and a half hour to get there I discovered that was not the best place to be. Some pretty scary looking guys were busting out windows and laughing. I guess the actual end of the world was the excuse some people were looking for to act like it was the end of the world.

I decided it was best to move further away from the school before I stopped to rest for the night. The moon was out, breaking through the tree limbs bathing my camping spot in shadowy light, and the cool March night felt nice. I decided against a fire because of unwanted attention it could bring. A supper of peanuts, beef jerky, and Vienna sausages washed down with a bottle of water would be my supper that first night of my journey. All of the stress of the day had drained me and I was out like a light.

The next morning began with a heart stopping moment. My sleeping bag had gone from roomy to crowded. Something that felt almost the same size as me had squeezed into the bag. Whatever it was seemed peaceful so I began an extremely slow movement of my hand to unzip my bag. As the sleeping bag unzipped, I began to see golden fur with black spots. Suddenly a tail thrashed out and thumped me on the head.

I scrambled from the sleeping bag not knowing what was coming next. As I performed my spastic escape, the creature inside, also startled, darted away into the trees. Thankful that I was in one piece, I began to plan out the day. I think in my anxiety to forget what happened to my family and the rest of the world, my brain thought it best to keep me aiming forward and not looking back. At some point I knew I would have to confront what I had been through. I kept my focus on survival, thinking I owed at least that to my family.

I decided to risk a small fire to heat up a can of chili in my bag. The chili wasn’t the quality stuff that mom could whip up, but right now it tasted gourmet. I had put my sleeping bag visitor out of my mind when I saw from the trees where it had disappeared, a curious head poking out. Almost not believing what I saw, as it came closer to me I realized I was looking at a young cheetah. With the entire world crumbling, from somewhere this cheetah had emerged. Escaped from the zoo or someone’s private collection.

That was two weeks ago now and together Hobbs, as I call the cheetah, and I have been inseparable since sharing that can of chili. The first few days together were timid, but we built a good trust since then.

So far we have survived on the food I brought from home and scavenging. Up until now I have avoided as much contact with people as possible, the worst came out in many who were left. Now Hobbs and I face a choice. Signs scribbled on cardboard are popping up hanging from trees, painted on the side of abandoned houses, and dangling from sheets on billboards. They all read the same— Come to Crucible…safety is there.