The Great Nuclear War

I was beginning to think it would never end. The sound of sirens every single night, people above screaming in fear as they ran from the explosions. I didn't dare open up the hatch to take a peak... all it would take is one person to notice and my bunker would be overwhelmed. The mega rush of crowds trying to breach the door, the families screaming to save their kids. It would have been absolute chaos, more so than it already was. I couldn't even save my own family, my own flesh and blood. I tried to warn my wife that it was coming but she just wouldn't listen, told me I was delusional. She was up in Denver visiting her mother when the first bomb hit. Obviously the primary target was Washington DC but after that first explosion... the entire US was on high alert, no-one could enter or leave the town they were currently in.

With my wife stuck in Denver with no bunker to hide in I feared the worst. I grabbed the last few things I needed for my survival before leaving my home for what I assumed would be the final time. I got into the bunker and realized I had absolutely nothing to remember my wife. I ran back into the house and up to our bedroom rooting through all her drawers for the locket I gave her on our 3 year anniversary. She wore it every single day only taking it off to shower. One day the latch snapped on the back so she couldn't wear it anymore. Instead she left it on her dresser so it didn't get damaged more than it already was. I searched everywhere and couldn't find it, as I was searching I heard an explosion off in the distance. Just as I was about to give up thinking she had taken it with her I remembered she cleaned it in the bathroom the night before she left, I shot into the bathroom and there it was; her now 4 year old heart shaped locket lying on the bathroom counter with our pictures lying next to it. I grabbed the locket and both pictures and headed straight back into the bunker closing the door just in the nick of time. Mere seconds after closing the hatch another explosion, this one much, much closer than the last. I stupidly opened the hatch to see the effects of the blast. Bodies lined the street, not all dead. Some missing limbs, some covered head to toe in blood. Parents holding their dying children in their arms sobbing, Buildings collapsed into rubble. It was a horrific sight that to this day I still have nightmares about.

Being a scientist I was able to get my radio linked in to the military's private frequency so I knew exactly what was going on. They were planning on launching nukes! Even I knew that would end in disaster and, well... I wasn't wrong. Look at the place now. Entire blocks of buildings completely gone. Nothing but bricks and mortar lying on the ground. Then you get to my area; buildings still stand but anyone outside of a bunker (that being everyone except me) evaporated leaving nothing but "ghosts" on the walls.

The nuclear war ended in complete disaster. Entire countries were completely wiped from existence. You may be asking yourself how I would know COUNTRIES were wiped from existence. That's thanks to the astronauts who unfortunately passed away on the ISS. They had enough supplies to survive for a few months after the war was over and that was enough time for them to jump onto the same military frequency I was on to keep me up to date on the rest of the world. They had only a couple of minutes each orbit they made of Earth to talk to me, after that, they were out of range. I remember them telling me they had an escape pod they could use to get back down to Earth when it was safe to do so; that day never came. They all knew it would be more painful to die from radiation poisoning than starvation so they all opted to stay up on the ISS and let the inevitable happen.

The radiation from the nuclear blasts died down enough that I could leave my bunker, I would guess, about a year ago now. Having plenty of time on my hands and being a scientist, I scavenged everything I could in an attempt to create a time machine to go back and warn the governments about the future. I found a working polaroid camera to show the true destruction of Earth; the photos I took were faded but you were still able to clearly see the destruction.

I knew no-one would believe a crazy man claiming to be from the future so I had to think of a way that I could prove the photos weren't faked and I was in fact from the future. Luck was on my side as I was able to scavenge one of the last newspapers to be printed before the war broke out.

The plan is to take photos of the now destroyed US to the past, a week or so before the war broke out. I show the photos and lock the paper in a box so no-one can read the news on it before the date of the paper. This would stop the butterfly effect, the idea that someone may see the paper and create a replica using my "future" paper as reference. All people would know is that there is a "future" paper in the lockbox but they would have no idea of the contents. Therefor, when the paper is officially published I can open the lockbox and show that the paper is the same. It isn't a fool proof plan but it's the best I can think of in the circumstances.

I won't go into details on how I created my time machine as it would take way too long to explain and would make no sense to the people who're going to be reading this diary. As simple as possible, it's made from a refrigerator (it had to be a metal box big enough for me to fit in). I can program the time and date that I want to arrive, the place is dependent on where the machine is; I cant move it, it arrives wherever it departs from. I give it a huge blast of electricity and the machine does the rest. I harvested power from the many nuclear blasts over the past couple of years and stored a hell of a lot in my power banks in the bunker. All I need to do now is grab my things, the photos, newspaper and of course my wife's locket, get inside the machine and flick the lever.

Wish me luck!

Alfie