Afterland Read Free Page A

of the thing kept everyone riveted in place for a moment. At this point, I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer and they began to flow freely, accompanied by the terrified sound of my gasps. My mother recovered quickly and pressed me to her chest so that I wouldn’t see the chaos. I listened to the frightened beating of her heart and felt the salt of my tears in my mouth.
    Everybody in our neighborhood had a motorboat at the time. It was clear that we wouldn’t be able to escape by car since the roads were collapsing, so we took our chances with the river. We begin to run towards the boat. We’ll survive if we only make it...But the air is so thick and the ground so fluid...
    In the dream, we never make it to the boat. The mud of the yard begins to swallow us. The ash piles up faster than we can escape it. I can barely breathe. I can’t see. I can’t feel my parents. They’ve probably already been absorbed into the ground. And now, the mud and ash almost swallow me…
    I wake up shuddering and covered in a cold sweat. My hands are over my head and my mouth opened in a scream that never came out.  Every day I sink deeper and deeper. Someday, I know I won’t wake up before it consumes us. I can’t stop my shaking. I know that it is only a dream. But it feels so real. I hoped that I would eventually learn to be aware in my dreams and that somehow, that it would make it better. But that didn’t happen. For the entirety of the dream, the Eruption is reality again. And the fear is real. The fear is realer than anything else.
    In actuality, it was different. We did make it to the boat. My mother and I got below deck. All I remember after that was not knowing which way was up and hearing my mother whispering more words. We rode away for hours. When we finally got up on deck, the scene outside was devastating: everything was covered in a thick layer of ash. The sun was blocked out. The highway nearby was at a standstill; what looked like a mountain of cars had collided at an intersection. A corpse floated by. I pressed my face into my mother’s leg as she surveyed the carnage around us. I didn’t want to believe, couldn’t believe that this, whatever it was, had happened, that my world has been reduced to an ashen wasteland, that this could spell the end for me.
    Later, it was found out that some extremely rich and powerful organization had managed to drop a nuclear bomb on every super-volcano on Earth and forced the eruption of most of them. They also hired planes to spread metallic dust throughout the atmosphere. All of it was radioactive. It was all so cold, so calculated, so powerful. I can’t imagine ever having that much control.
    For many months, even breathing was dangerous. We weren’t prepared for the toxic air. And we weren’t prepared for the cold.
    We didn’t think that all the ash and dust could out many of the sun’s rays, ending Summer. We didn’t realize that the agriculture worldwide would be devastated. We watched helplessly as economies collapsed worldwide and metropolises around the world lay in ruins. We did nothing except run as millions were left homeless. Even after thirteen years, the Earth hasn’t shown signs of getting better.
    They called it a volcanic winter.
    But it wasn’t.
    It was a human winter. And we simply weren’t prepared for that kind of power.
    I wrap my blankets tighter around myself and shiver. Most of the year is unpleasant. Winter is brutal. Merciless. A quarter of Hopetown’s population is wiped out. Every Spring, I wonder how the human race hasn’t gone extinct. After the roads are plowed enough for a sled to get through, short straws are drawn for who from the snow cleaning crew will take all the dead bodies out. They don’t even bury them properly, just throw them into a large ditch in the woods. Hundreds of lives are just thrown away. I hate it. I’ve seen the sled ride through Centre Street and I still can’t comprehend how much is lost every winter. I