A New Age

The warmth of the rising sun rose X out of his slumber. He stretched his limbs and sat up, looking out over the desolated wasteland that he called his home for the last few nights.

It had been 15 years since the war. X, among other people, was left homeless, parentless and hopeless. He was a loan transient among the abandoned and destroyed town he was currently residing in. This town was in the middle of nowhere of what once was Alaska. He had gotten here a few days ago after being forced out of his previous camp by the local group of bandits known as the “Kriegs”. He had hiked 15 miles to this new area to ensure he was out of their area of control.

He had lost most of his belongings to the Krieg, all he had to show for himself was a bedroll, a tattered backpack, his trusty “Zipp” lighter, his silver pot, a ripped teddy bear and his last can of “40”. He sprayed some of the 40 on his prosthetic leg and fastened it to what was left of his right leg which he lost when the last round of bombs fell.

He slowly stood up and worked his way over to the broken window of the building he was in. Outside he could see a group of wild moose loitering around a looted camp. They were eating out of what was once a tent, but was now nothing more than ripped cloth. To the south he could see smoke rising indicating someone else was camping near where he was. X let out a sigh and walked back to his blanket roll and sat down. “Hopefully these people are not as big of jerks as the last ones are,” he said to his bear. X rolled his blanket up and placed it along with his other things inside of his silver pan and threw the strap on the pan over his shoulder, “Off we go” he says to keep himself motivated.

X exits the building from the broken window and makes his way towards the tower of billowing smoke. As he walks down the street he examines the buildings which had been taken over by green and brown plants. He found a building that peaked his interest as it had words on it which he had never heard before. He tried to sound the words out to himself, “Ank-er-ige public li-berry”. X was curious, “we will have to come back to this place after we see what's causing this smoke” he said to his bear, gleaming with excitement.

As he neared the smoke he came across a downward sloping path riddled with bones and discarded items. Down at the end of the hill was the fire that he had been searching for. But this was no ordinary fire, this fire engulfed an entire building and from the inside X heard screaming. X sat his pot down and began to run towards the fire as fast as he could. As X arrived at the building he stopped and thought to himself “this building has been on fire for at least an hour” but that did not stop him from entering the burning building. A woman screaming filled X’s ears as he yelled out to her. Around him was a bunch of disgusting figures of deformed men and women, men with hair covering their entire body, severed heads and severed hands. He looked around the building in an attempt to find where the screaming was coming from but he wasn’t successful. As a rafter fell behind him he knew he had to leave so he would not end up trapped like the women. He ran out of the building as fast as he could and as he made it out the building collapsed behind him.

He approached the smoldering pile of debris and found a little burnt book sitting in front of the rubble. He bent down and grabbed it but the book was still hot and it burned his hand. X, curious as to what it was, went and grabbed his pot and brought it back to the book. He emptied out his belongings and scooped the book up into his pot. “We can see what this is later when it has cooled down”. X looked at the debris one more time and wished he had come a few moments earlier because maybe he could have saved the woman's life. “That's enough excitement for one day, let’s go back to that liberry”.

X and his trusty bear made their way back to the liberry and arrived just as the sun was setting. He approached the front door and tried to push it but it wouldn’t budge. He looked around for another entrance but there was nothing to be found. He walked over and grabbed a rock and then threw it as hard as he could at a window and shattered the window. “This building has been through a lot yet it looks as if it hasn’t been touched”.

As X entered he saw piles of books on the floor, on shelves, everywhere. X found an empty spot large enough for himself to set his bedroll up and placed his things down and removed his prosthetic leg. He laid out his bedroll and placed his bear next to him. “Sorry man, no food today. We wasted all of our time walking to that burning building” he said to his bear as he patted it’s head. “But look on the bright side, we get to see what's in the book we found now!”

X reached down into his pot and grabbed the charred book. He lifted it out and grabbed his Zipp lighter activating it at the same time. He sat the book in his lap and gently opened the front cover to avoid damaging it anymore. Out from inside the book fell a white envelope almost untouched from the fire. X opened the envelope and found a note accompanied by some old US money. The note read “you are our annual winner, here is $20,000 to use towards this purchase and anything else you want”. Sadly the world hadn’t used physical currency since before the war. X turned his attention back towards the book. The front page had been burnt to a point where nothing could be learned from it so he continued turning the pages.

The following pages were depictions of horrible things, monsters, aliens, photos of the decapitated people from the shop. X clutched his bear tightly to his chest as if it could protect him as he continued going through the book. He kept flipping through the book, as if his life depended on it and more horrible images were permanently etched into his mind. As he was nearing the end of the book he kept seeing the same phrase repeated under some of the images, “Purchase now and it will arrive by October 31st”. “How horrible” X thought, “people are buying these monsters and these dead people”.

X came to the last page of the book and it showed a large orange circular object that he had never seen before. It had a sort of face carved into it with two triangle eyes and a toothy smile. At the bottom of the page it said “Happy Hallowen”.

X looked up from the book and sat his teddy bear down. “The world used to be a messed up place” he said looking at his trusty companion. “How about we get rid of this that way no one else ever has to see it”. X grabbed the book by its spine and moved his lighter to the edge of the book letting the fire caress the book. Slowly the fire grew on the book and X put out his lighter and sat it down. X watched the fire grow on the book until it was too hot to hold, he then threw the book to the side and laid back into his blankets. “I have a good feeling about this place man, I think it's gonna lead us to mom”. With that, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.