Among The Wreckage

• Tara Dean, Grade 9, Chancellor State College
• Short Story
• 2017

Excellence Award in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

All hope was lost. But remembering the hope they once held was almost unmemorable. The hope that made them feel content, at ease but overall the hope that provided them to feel safe. Safe from the world outside the wall. The wall on which protected them from the war was gone. Because of that hope is lost.
I stand on the edge of the wreckage, looking out I could see it was about to rain. A loud blow of thunder shot right through my ears soon trailed by a smash of lighting that made me hurdle backwards. I remember when my father told me about the thunder, that 30 seconds after a crack came a crash, or it was the other way around. Thinking of those times I grin, that was this time when we felt safe but now I feel anything but that. The wreckage of the wall was a mass of garbage. A mass of garbage that which will never be fixed. People told us the wall could never be broken or broken into, nothing would come in or out, unless provided position of the government. What my question is ‘who did have the power to break it down?’ whoever did wanted something, something that would help them to survive or to help someone.
The rain starts to fall, it starts off slow to soon rage into a poor. I toss my head back closing my eyes and opining my mouth. The fresh water drips into the opening, something I haven’t witnessed since this all started. I really wasn’t allowed out here at night even if the wall was still up, no one was. We didn’t want to draw attention to our self’s more even so to draw attention that we were here as that is when they ‘the dead’ where most likely to attack. The rain falls more and hard causing me to look up, there in the distance was a figure. I tilt my head then there was another one. Both walking slowly next to each other. I tried to make them out but it was too far away. My legs start to move gradually, one step after another my old worn shoes fill with water, now my dawdling walk turns into a jog. I jog towards the figures now they come into view. I stop dead in my tracks. One with an undecided blue dress falling to her knees the other with ragged pink shorts and a black top that looked un-touched. They were dead, soon I would be dead. Dead because I am un-armed and I never knew how to kill one.