H3

• Jacob Anderson
• Short Story
• 2009

I stared at the blood running down my leg. The gash was deeper than I had thought. This felt like it would never end, and yet it was just the beginning – the beginning of World War Three.
“A nice welcome gift from Cuba,” Bryce whispered as we pushed aside the bent steel and broken glass of our destroyed aircraft. I glimpsed a dead body inside and didn’t want to continue, but as the only survivors of this crash and stranded in hostile territory, we would need all the equipment we could find.
It was hard to believe that this conflict had begun over some lumps of dirty coal. In the year 2065, coal had become the rarest and most valuable substance on earth. Then a mysterious gas was unearthed by a research team in the centre of the Gulf of Mexico. Extensive analysis revealed it as a reliable new fuel source now known as H3. The substance was originally thought only to exist on the moon, and experts theorised that it may have landed on earth with the giant meteor that may have killed the dinosaurs. It wasn’t long before, surrounding countries began to quarrel over the ownership of the H3 rich gulf, then, war began.
Brice, was my best friend, he was about 178 centimetres with blond hair, tan skin and a clumsy attitude but also had a stubborn attitude towards war. After searching the air craft Brice had found a map and a rifle and all I found a dusty compass
“Well, according to this map there is a base east of here that should escort us to USA,” Brice explained
With every step I took I felt as though I could be heading closer and closed to my doom. My legs ached, and so did my stomach. After a day of walking I spotted a village about 2 k away from us. I ran as fast as I could towards the village hopping I could rest or at least get a drink. I stopped at a small shack to catch my breath and then I realised, this isn’t a base, it’s a different country. Bryce shortly caught up and panted rely hard. I yanked the map from him and realised, that idiot had the map upside-down.
We then saw the village was a wreck. The houses needed repair, the people needed new clothes and worst of all most of the people looked terribly ill.
“These people look terrible” Bryce said
One of the villagers grabbed us and pulled us to a small hut that had two blows of food on the table.
“Do we eat?” I asked, but Bryce was already eating.
After awhile I realised no one else was eating.
“Bryce, I think you should stop eating”
“Why rush the war over H3 is out there and we are safe from it?”
“That’s it, I know we can help these people, we can get some of the H3 from the gulf and then they can sell it”
That next day I devised a plan to get a small amount of H3, just enough to fix the village. After that I gathered military supplies from the near by villages, I even found a submarine that had been abandoned. I spent the next few days repairing the submarine and modifying it, then I would steal H3 from under everyone’s noses.