Nightfall Part 1

They say too much nostalgia can be bad for you. That may be true, but in the darkest hours of the night, the past seems as if it's all I have left. ..

I remember it like it was yesterday. Technology was sweeping the nation! Every year or so there was a new, better smart phone coming out, video games were years ahead of their time, transportation was becoming faster and more efficient, hell, the mere creation of the engine was still awe inspiring. If there was anything that I could complain about, it would be that societal values were becoming less and less common, but right now, I would trade all the values in the world to live just one day in the past. But I guess that's just a dream.

It was a day like any other. I would wake up, make breakfast for me and my dog, brush my teeth, and head to the train station to go to work. I would always wake up late so I would always watch the news on my phone while I rode the train. I can still remember it. A small convenient store on the east side of town was robbed late last night, and accident on 5th street earlier in the morning, nothing was happening that was uncommon for a city. I got to work, punched in, worked my hours, then headed home. Nothing special happened that night. I made dinner, watched a movie, and headed off to bed early as I was feeling tired. The next morning proceeded like the previous, but I had woken up an hour late today so I figured if I was going to be late to work, I may as well watch the news at home for a change.

To this day, I thank god I woke up late that morning.

Apparently at around 8am, all power running to the trains was cut off, and nearly every train car in the city crashed. The death toll was estimated to be in the 500's. What a day to be late, huh?

It was like the entire city stopped moving after that. There wasn't a single store open, nor person on the street. They were all too afraid to leave their homes. And so was I. This happened on a Tuesday, and things only got worse as the week ended. Aircraft's fell from the sky, cars stopped working, all power was out on a global scale, and any building with a metal structure collapsed on itself. It was like staring judgment day in the face, but this wasn't the end, oh no. What was to come, in my eyes, was far worse.

Eventually, everyone in the city starved to death, nature and time covered up all remnants of the civilization that once stood, and I was the only one left. You may be asking yourself "How did you survive if everyone else starved?". Well you see, my parents were the kind of people to prepare for the unexpected. They had built a fallout shelter under the house, and filled it with enough food to feed a family of three for four months. Because I was alone, the food lasted considerably longer.

You may also be asking "Well why didn't you try to leave the city?". I had that same idea, but the city is located on an island, and the only way to it is by a large bridge that connects it to the mainland. You remember how I said that all the buildings with a metal structure collapsed? Well the bridge was no exception, so it also collapsed.

After what felt like like eight months, I decided to leave my shelter and look for anyone else who may have survived. I'm a pretty handy person so I was able to put together a raft and make my way across the water to the mainland. After a week of searching, I came across a small village, and to my surprise, they welcomed me warmly. Everyone in the village had their part. There were the hunters, the carpenters, the ones who cut down trees to get wood for the carpenters, the butcher, the blacksmith, the priest, and the miners. A few days before I arrived at the village, there was an accident in a cave and one of the miners died, so I ended up serving as his replacement.

We miners had a few jobs as far as collecting materials went. We primarily collected stone, but would occasionally come across the raw iron, and coal deposits. We would sometimes find gold, and very VERY rarely even diamonds! Collecting and refining these materials was our job. A tough one, yes, but everyone had to do their part in order to survive.

My story doesn't end here, but the sun is coming up and I need to prepare to head down into the caves, so I'll have to finish my story later tonight.

Oh by the way, I forgot to introduce myself. Hello, my name is Steve.

ADennehey (talk) 11:22, November 11, 2014 (UTC)