u/EcstaticBuy1194 — reddlx

My heart was raging faster than the drums of war that used to sound were loud. It's been roughly two and a half years since May 15th, 2998. Even now, that memory haunts me. All that fills my eyes are visions- visions of Carter, of him dying in my trembling hands as I held his shaking body. I still see the terror in his eyes, the blood gushing out of his chest and onto my uniform. He’d been shot, shot straight through his lung. Every breath he took was harder fought than the last one as blood filled his lungs; slowly suffocating him in his own blood. I still hear his pleading gasps, him begging for me to tell him he’d be alright.

“Live the life I wanted but could never have..You always said you’d die for me, but looks like I beat you to the punch” Carter laughed, as if he found himself amusing. “Icarus, please… do me a favor,” His voice was fading, wearing out with the effort of staying alive. “Live for me. I don’t want my death to go to waste…” He knew I knew what he meant. He wanted me to live ‘til my hair was grey, to find a girlfriend and be the family man he so desperately wanted to be himself.

His last words haunted me, cursed me. But in the moment, I only whispered a soft promise. “Of course I will, Carter..I-I won’t die until I’m dead. But- but you’re gonna- you’re gonna pull through this!” I rasped desperately, knowing he wouldn’t make it. “You don’t gotta talk like you’re gonna- like you’re gonna die. What about your girlfriend? She’s- she’s still back home waiting for you,” I sobbed, tears falling from my cheeks onto his skin. The air smelt toxic, like smoke and decaying flesh, but that’s the smell I had gotten used to over the last few years.

“I always knew I would die in your arms,” Carter smiled weakly, and with that final sentence, he died in my arms just like he said. All too quickly and not quickly enough, my mind processed he was gone. I didn’t know what else to do. My best friend was gone. I had to leave him, there was no possibility I could take him with me. My body acted before my mind, and I swiped his dog-tag off his neck, still otherwise frozen as I let out a scream of utter despair.

Every time I close my eyes, I see his bloodied dog-tag. Maybe it’s because I kept his dog-tag..maybe I should’ve thrown it away. But, even now, I still wear his tag like his name was my own. No matter how desperately I try to forget that day, I can’t. It only was a couple minutes- but those minutes are forever seared in my memory. I always wake up in a cold sweat like this right after I take his dog tag from around his neck. Shortly after Carter died, the whole world ended, not just my own.

I never heard the comms. Not over the ringing of my ears. I didn’t see it either. Not with the tears blinding my eyes. Before I reacted, my colonel did first. She had grabbed me by the arm and drug me deep into an underground bunker. Minutes later, nine billion six-hundred million people died instantly. Nuclear warfare had broken out. Only two billion people and a wasteland of fallout and ash survived. In the following months, it's estimated that another five million people died. Somehow I survived..I don’t know how, but I did.

Hunger, exhaustion, sickness, pain, infection, death. I’ve come to know  it all in these past two years and four months. Hunger isn’t anything compared to sickness and infections though. Medicine and hygiene products were the first things to be hoarded and disappear from stocks. Artiellary went next. Now, bullets are worth what a luxury car used to be. To save effort and gain ‘protection,’ some people formed groups. Camps. Sanctions. Whatever you want to call them. These ‘camps’ are nothing but a false sense of safety. Groups are more likely to be attacked and raided by stronger camps for resources. Solo survivors don’t have that problem. Those groups don’t bother chasing down a solo survivor. It's simply not worth the effort. I wouldn’t have enough goods to feed a whole group. Sanctuaries are somewhat better than camps. At least sanctuaries don’t do raids. Instead of stealing, they work on growing their own food. It’s a miracle they even can with the soil we have now. Additionally, most will let you come and go. Some even offer protection if you are fleeing from someone or thing, although, from my personal experience, that protection is often half-hearted, cheap, and conditional.

The only positives to a camp is strength in numbers. But, with numbers come fights. Fights over food, over hierarchy, over anything and everything. If you don’t show your worth, you’re pushed down to the bottom of the chain. Used like bait in case of danger. Once they can get rid of you, they will. Loyalty means nothing in our modern society. The strong will puppeteer the weak and helpless simply for the sake of doing it. That very logic sickens me with anger and disgust. Those weaker than you are meant to be protected, taught, cared for. If the strong don’t protect the weak, no one will survive in the long run. Even if I don’t like people, even if I don't trust them easily, I have the decency to not sabotage and use those who aren’t as strong and fortunate as me. People whose philosophy is to control and manipulate anyone and everything weaker than them frankly deserve nothing but misery and pain. Perhaps if they learn how it is to be shackled by the will of a higher power, then maybe those corrupt “humans” could stop this.

To me, the thought of joining one is sickening. I was a part of one for a few short months, and well. I wasted six months of my life. The group was no more than twelve kids- all ages from fourteen to nineteen. The leader was some punk named “Mad-Dog.” It’s obvious that it's some kind of alias..but I never cared to learn their true name. The group formed shortly after the apocalypse occurred- I guess they were friends before the disaster or at least knew each other somehow. I joined the group eight months after they got together. Mad-dog treated me like a slave. My hands were always covered in dirt, or blood, or something unsavory. Any time I misspoke or acted in a way they didn’t agree with, they’d bestow a cruel form of punishment.

To them, I was nothing but a pack mule, someone to order around and do their dirty work. I killed so many people in that half-year I was with them. Fourteen people died at my hand. I was used to killing, sure, the war made sure of that, but I don’t enjoy it. It isn’t like I ever found pleasure in another’s death. Eventually, they decided they didn’t need me anymore, and a girl named “Kylie” drove a blade through just above my hip. What’s funny is the knife she tried to kill me with was my own craft. Once Kylie realized she missed where she was aiming for, she quickly retreated and left me to die. Clearly, I didn’t die. The rest of the group left as well, leaving me to bleed out in hopes I’d succumb to my wounds. I survived…gathered my few things, and set out on my own. That’s where I am in life now. I still don’t right now and didn’t want to find a new “camp” to stay with then. I don’t trust anyone with my life, I don’t expect anyone to trust me with theirs. I’m not worthy of such trust. I don’t want anyone to. I much rather be alone…being responsible only for my own wellbeing. No one to manipulate. No one to use me. No one to rely on me. It’s safer for them, and for me. I don’t have some wannabe leader who thinks they know suffering guiding others. I only listened to my own morals and ideals.

I used to think It was strength in numbers. That the people you slept beside were those you could trust with a gun to your head to not pull the trigger. That was before that group, at least. Maybe it was the training, the conditioning to always help your comrade even at the cost of your own life. However I can’t bring myself to keep that philosophy. So many people died during the war, even though we were always stuck in groups..and clearly, groups don’t owe anyone they don’t plan to keep around loyalty. So, now I roam on my own. It’s safer. It has to be. It’s just myself..and if I can trust no one else, surely I can trust myself..? 



Somedays…I forget my own name. I haven’t heard it in so long. Even when I was in the group I wasn’t known by my name, rather Diseseal. Icarus. That’s the name my mother so kindly gifted to me when I was born. I don’t resent my name, I merely wish she looked more into that old Greek mythology. Perhaps if she did, she would realize there’s more to the story than the boy’s escape. If she read into it deeper, maybe she would have realized the boy crashed to his death. She could’ve named me Midas, or Apollo, or Achilles for all I care, yet she chose the name of the boy who flew too close to the sun and plummeted to his own demise. If I ever hated her for naming me Icarus before, I don’t anymore. There isn’t a point now that she’s dead and names no longer matter in this world. I haven’t been asked my name in the longest time, but if someone did, I highly doubt they would know that story either. My name would simply be a unique mash of characters formed into a sound resembling a plausible name. I could always lie about my name, take up a name and claim it as my own. However, it simply feels wrong. It’s the last thing left I have of her, after all.  I have nothing of my father aside from a few memories from my childhood and whispered words from my mom. It’s really not worth half the fuss I’m making.

Even now, my hands are still shaky from the nightmare I had while I was asleep. I stretched my spine and sighed while shrinking off the last bit of residual terror left in my bones. It was a quiet and still night, likely around four in the morning going off the height of the moon and dew on the grass.

“Carter..I hope you’re living better off dead than I am alive,” I whispered under my breath, the warm output of air visible in the cold sky. My eyes drifted upwards into the heights of that cold, cloud-covered sky. “I dunno how long it’s been exactly, but I haven’t seen you in two years, y’know? Of course you do, though. You always loved being right and reminding me why I wasn’t Bet you’re laughing your \*\*\* off with your pretty little girlfriend. I know I won’t ever see you again, cause I’m not going to heaven when I finally drop dead” I continued to talk to the wind as if someone were there to listen. I ran my hands through my overgrown brown hair. It’d been too long since I cut it. It wasn’t that I couldn't.  No, I could easily use a knife and cut it shorter. I just forgot a lot. But now it was touching my collarbones, far longer than I preferred. 

“I should probably wash my hair before I cut it’s been a while since I  washed that too. I could wait til sunrise, or I could do it now..” I reasoned as I drug my fingers through the back of my hair. “Where the hell could my knife be? I had it yesterday” I started kicking around fallen leaves, shifting the dirt to look for the misplaced blade. After a few minutes of looking, I sighed and leaned against a tree. Despite having already decompressed, the nightmare still had me shaken up and tense. I even still felt queasy from how vivid the dream felt.

After a few minutes of thought, I waited until the sun peaked over the horizon to go. reasoned with myself that it’d be safer, and I wasn’t wrong, it would be. So, once the sunlight caught the edge of my blade, I picked it up from the dirt and leaves to head down towards the riverbed. Normally, groups of people would camp out near water sources and do anything in their power to keep ‘outsiders’ away from the precious, valuable resource. However, I was fortunate enough to find a crook of the river that wasn’t guarded. Still so, I always went down overly precautious. Just because there weren’t groups didn’t mean that fellow soloists avoided this stretch of the river.

I gripped the crafted knife tight in my hand, eyes scanning the opening vigilantly. I stepped down the steep ridge to access the water. Expectedly, there wasn’t anyone occupying my usual space. So, I knelt down and cupped water to rinse my hair as best as possible while still being on watch. Once I felt it was clean enough, I grabbed at the strands of hair and cut as close to the root as I could. The cuts were rough, uneven and messy, but it was more bearable than if it had stayed long. Besides, no one cares about appearances in modern times.

As I finished up, I kicked the clumps of hair into the river. I sat and watched the ripples form for a few seconds before a smooth, clear, glossy stone caught my eye. I gingerly reached my hand into the river and grabbed the stone. “What kind of stone is this smooth…and entirely see-through at that?” I questioned as I ran my hands over the rock. “Round…fairly thin… This isn’t natural, is this glass?” I mumbled to myself as I picked up my blade and headed back up to my campsite. “If it is, I could probably break it and make a spear or dagger.” I continued to think out loud to myself while weaving through trees and undergrowth.

As I languidly got to the small crook of forest I called home, my eyes widened in shock and my jaws fell open in terror. I hurriedly scrambled to my bed only to find everything gone. My clothes, my food, my blanket, all stolen “No! No! No! I thought I left early enough! I should’ve been back before the raiders..! They took everything! My backpack, my extra clothes, my carving knife and fishing hooks!” I lamented in despair before slumping against the tree that stretched its wide branches over my ransacked hideout.

Hii!!! I'm a young writer drafting a post apocalyptic book right now! I really appreciate constructive criticism