The World After

• Bella Thorpe, Grade 10, St Benedicts Catholic College
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

Elric Bravo was just twelve years old when the world around him seemed to shift from a working society into an apocalyptic population thrown into chaos, destruction and death. Elric was watching the television at home when one of the newly developed firebombs that launched at his country reached the ground. It was a declaration of war. The entire continent seemed to shake under his feet. His mother and father screamed and shouted for him to dive under the table and they quickly dove under the kitchen benches.
These firebombs were devastatingly powerful and left a ten-kilometre radius around ground zero engulfed in flame. Elric’s home was just eighteen kilometres away from ground zero. Only eight more kilometres away from the location in which everyone and everything was vaporised instantly.
Within minutes of the bomb being dropped the sky lit up like a candle and Elric watched as everything around him was engulfed in flames. He can still remember the screams. His home wasn’t caught in the blast but it was caught in the kilometre long bushfires that spread through the land. He managed to make it out with severe burns across his face, arms, legs and chest; his parents and sister were not so lucky.
Almost forty million people died that first day, including his family. With over one billion people injured or in serious need of medical treatment.

Elric found tears welling in his eyes. His blonde fringe was dangling over his face and the image of his sister was sitting at the back of his mind. He imagined her sitting next to him at their favourite bench; he imaged her engulfed in flame when the bomb hit. Elric looked back to wipe his eyes and there was a small boy standing at his feet panting with a note in his hand and sweat trickling down his brow.
“Elric… Bravo?” He panted between breaths.
Elric wiped his eyes quickly before the boy looked up.
“Y-Yes?”
The boy sighed before flopping onto the floor. He held the note in the air and gestured for Elric to grab it.
“What is it?” Elric asked examining the piece of paper in his hands.
The boy went to speak but he just ended up gagging and coughing. The boy lifted his hand to his mouth to stop coughing. His hand was scarred from what looked like burns. Elric remembered his burns. Underneath his uniform, he was covered in them.
“You can go now, boy,” Elric said gesturing for him to stand.
The boy nodded before flipping himself on his hands and desperately pulling himself to stand in front of Elric.
Elric looked to the boy. The boy’s eyes were full of hope. Elric thought about what life was like before the war.
He had a family; He had a home.
Elric was just like this boy.
And now, every child in the world would be forced to live in a dangerous world and fight in a war that they did not start.