Shadows of Mankind | Teen Ink

Shadows of Mankind

January 17, 2015
By Chromebook BRONZE, Berrien Springs, Michigan
Chromebook BRONZE, Berrien Springs, Michigan
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do― to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.”
― Stephen King


A glass sits on a table with dust coating its brim. A door slams and rattles the rickety old house, knocking a speck of dust from the cup. The speck floats slowly from room to room through the empty house past broken windows and shattered dreams. The stench of singed paper permeates the air. Paper that should have housed the dreams of the next Melville or Steinbeck. Footsteps echo off of the lonely walls of the house. A step is misplaced and breaks through a rotted board of the floor. A shard of the old world penetrates into the skin of the new as a splinter breaks the skin and draws blood from the boots owner.
It’s ironic that someone birthed from past destruction, housed by the carnage of a world that no longer exists is now destroying the floor boards that his oppressors called home. I don’t mind that I have a splinter in my skin. It’s nothing compared to the hardships I’ve been forced to endure. I’ve lived through a hell unspeakable caused by the bickering of fat old men in suits who could have anything the free market could grant, but could only be satisfied by complete and total annihilation.
I’ve spent years searching for others like me. Those who don’t want to resurrect the greed of the old world. In the place I call Earth, there may be fighting and arguments, but it’s over things that people truly need like food and water. Back before everything was destroyed, I remember how people were. People trampling and killing each other to buy the latest hot item. All the ticker tape stories telling of pointless killings. It’s no wonder that somebody didn’t try to end it all earlier.
The new earth, scorched, irradiated, and desolate as it may be, has hope. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of its past life, mankind will struggle and claw its way back into a better existence.
A world without greed, a world without taxes, dollars and cents, or the free market. A world that is much more simple and filled with love. I believe in humanity.
I take one more breath of air in the old, dilapidated house before I leave. One last breath of greed and commercialism before I step into my real home: the wasteland. Dangerous and cruel? Yes, but it is still more of a home to me than the old world ever was.
A scorched doll sits on a rotting mantelpiece above a fireplace left unlit for decades. The door of the house slams shut. Once again the house is empty. Forgotten along with all the material possession inside of it that were once craved and fought over. The house, the objects, all of them now left to rot and sit in their own sins. Hoping that someday maybe they can be forgiven for what they caused and how they made people act.
The sun has set in the sky, leaving a silver hue over the house as night settles in. The moon glides across the violet night sky. Light to dark. Dark to light. Soon the sun will rise, and it will be a brand new day for Mother Earth and all of her children.

The darkness settles in and covers me in a shroud of black. A steady crunching echoes through the night as my boots glide across the ground. The rhythmic pattern my feet create as they scrape across the dust lulls me into a dreamlike state of nostalgia.
The dust being kicked up around me feels empty and lifeless. The air no longer filled with the magic of life just a stale bitter silence. Crickets no longer fill the nights, and birds haven’t sang the song of nature in countless years. The world as I once knew it is gone. Everything that made living life through the plastic age worth it is now gone. Hope, love, and creativity vanished with the birds. 
The rhythmic pattern that my feet create is interrupted when my boot catches on something in the road. I stop where I am and bend over to be greeted by the weathered and melted smile of a Polly Pocket doll.
Nina would have loved it. She used to stay up after I would tuck her in playing with her dolls. Most mornings, Christine and I would wake up and find her fast asleep on the floor with one hand wrapped around a doll and the other glued to her mouth because she sucked her thumb. Some nights I would come upstairs to check on her and see if she was asleep and I could see a little strip of light from her door as I made my way down the hallway. But just like clockwork, every time I would get close to the door, the strip of light would vanish and her little feet would thud-thud across our bare wood floors to get into her bed. By the time I opened the door, she would always be snuggled up in her blankets the only sign that she had ever been awake the little pile of dolls she forgot to clean up still left on the floor.
A smile finds itself on my aged face and once again, I can feel the warmth of home from my memories. The warmth fades as a cold wind brushes against the small amount of skin I have exposed, sending a chill coursing through my body.
The silence of the dark is interrupted by engines in the distance. Adrenaline writhes through my body and the glare of headlights start to appear over the hill in front of me. I dart to the side of the road and press to the ground. Not even the dirt is the same as it used to be. It used to have a smell that was earthy and natural, now it just seems manufactured.
The truck rolls up to about fifty feet from where I’m lying. I can make out the symbol on the side of the vehicle, a large cursive red K. It was truck belonging to Members of the society of Kellogg. A group of people post-atom (born after the bombs were dropped) who have devoted themselves to restoring the world to its former glory and they branded themselves with a K from the Special K cereal boxes. The K had no meaning to them they just thought it looked sophisticated, because of its cursive red simplicity.
The engine goes silent and the headlights dim. I see four figures clad in white get out of the vehicle. My palms are sweating and my gloves are damp because of it. My heartbeats are war drums being pounded over and over against my temple as the men creep closer to me. The best bet for survival is to lay where I am and hope they don’t see me, because if I try running, my punishment will be far worse than if I just stay put. Wandering the wasteland is a crime worse than murder in the society’s book because it means you aren’t satisfied with the towns they’ve set up for survivors to live in.
Boots are in front of my face and my vision is obscured by a white garbed hand that grabs my face. I hear shouting around me from the other society members, but I stay quiet. I drop the Polly Pocket doll in an attempt to save it, wishing I could have saved Nina. The world suddenly gets darker, and my thoughts slowly come to a halt as I pass out from fear.

A blazing white fire burns my retinas when I lift my eyelids to see where I’m at. The synthetic lighting shines brighter than anything I’ve ever experienced before. My eyes frantically focus and unfocus again, as they struggle to grip the area surrounding me. Nothing but bright white. In the midst of the barrage of light I hear movement. The deliberate shuffling of human feet across concrete.
“He’s awake.” I hear a voice say as I squint to make out the outline of a man with long hair.
“Ask him what he was doing out there,” replies another voice that reverberates off the walls in the small room.
My eyes slowly start to adjust to the fluorescent lighting of the room and I start to see more of the young man with long hair. Where is the owner of the second voice? The young man is standing in the far corner of the room back to me, fidgeting with something resting on a table that I can’t see. The young man’s face displays lines of hardship. A burn scar crawls up his left arm and various cuts and deformities can be seen around the cloth of his plain white shirt. He sets down whatever he was fidgeting with and slowly rolls the balls of his feet across the dusty and broken floor towards me.
“How are we doing today?” He smirks as a scar on his brow is twisted to make him look truly sinister.
I try to respond to him, but my mouth and throat are so dry that all I can manage to utter is a singular dry croak.
“A little thirsty I see,” he says while looking down and examining me.
“Well, I would hate for you to not be comfortable. That just plain wouldn’t be civilized of me. I’ll fetch you something to drink.”
He walks across the room and grabs a small wooden cup that appears to be handmade, and dips it into a large metal basin that rests on the table in the far corner. The water fills the wooden cup to the brim, and he starts towards me again. I try to reach for the cup, but my arms are restrained to the chair that I’m sitting in.
“Don’t trouble yourself; I’ll get it for you.”
  The cup is raised gently to my lips and the cool water rolls down my throat, alleviating me of the burning in my esophagus.
“Now that we have taken care of that, I have a few questions to ask you,” he says while still holding the cup to my lips and pouring water down my throat. The water creeps into my lungs and I can’t swallow anymore. I start to panic, realizing that the young man is trying to kill me. My lungs cry for a release from the torture.
“I’d just like to know what exactly you were trying to do wandering out in the wastes in the middle of the night when the Society has such a nice little town set up for you to live in here?”
He continues to pour the water until the seemingly bottomless cup is emptied. My lungs erupt in a fit of choking and coughing, as the stale air pours back into them. The burning in my throat is irritated more with each hack and cough that I emit. My eyes water and mucus starts to run from my nostrils.
“Are you still thirsty? I can get you something more to drink,” he offered with a smug look on his face.
“No.” I mutter trying to blink away the tears that formed in the corners of my eyes during my coughing fit.
“It’s impolite to mumble. Please speak up when spoken to.”
“I said no.,” I reply with an acidic tone.
“Well then, why haven’t you answered my question? A civilized person replies when they are asked a question.”
“No they don’t.” The bitterness in my voice increasing.
“Is that so? Why don’t you enlighten me with what you know about civilized people?” he says to me starting to yell.
“Civilized people ignore each other when spoken to, civilized people see someone dead on the streets and do nothing about it. That’s what it means to be civilized.”
“How would you know? You’re just common wandering trash. I don’t need your ‘old world greed’ speech. I’ve heard it a hundred times, and I’ll hear it a hundred more nothing you say to me can make any difference. You’re inconsequential, and that’s the cold hard fact. What we’re doing here that’s important. We’re rebuilding society as it once was. Look at this here this is a picture of New York City. We’re going to rebuild it and restore the world to what it once was. What we’re doing here is noble. Why can’t you see that?” He spits at me angrily.
“Because resurrecting what once stood is no noble goal. All things happen for a reason, and when those bombs fell they destroyed all the major cities in the world. While where they fell, and their falling may have been man made, it was entirely fact that civilization as it was known was destroyed. I’m done talking to you now, do what you will with me, but there will be others who don’t want things back to the way they were, and they will stop you,” I say with a solemn finality to my tone
“If that’s how it must be,” he says scarily calm.
The young man walks to the other side of the room and goes to the table where he was fidgeting with something earlier. He walks back towards me again meaningfully. He raises his hand which contains a gun. The cold metal beast in his hand slowly rises up my body until he draws a bead on my forehead. I close my eyes awaiting the final deliverance from this planet. I listen to hear for the metallic click before a deafening crash, but silence is the only thing that can be heard. I count in my head starting at one reaching to twenty nine before I hear the roar of the weapon ambushes me from all sides.

All is quiet. I don’t open my eyes in fear. Fear of the black most likely surrounding me. What am I doomed to for eternity? I take a deep breath, then I open my eyes. Standing in front of me is my captor with the gun pointed out with smoking streaming from the barrel. A pool of blood starts to form around my feet. I assume it’s coming from behind me,
This isn’t the end for me. This isn’t the day that I die; not yet at least. With breath there is life, and with life there is still hope. The sun of a new day can barely be seen as it wicks on the horizons of the never ending night.


The author's comments:

I wrote this piece over a three week period where I felt just plain awful. I was in a very hateful cynical mood at the time, and all my frustrations of modern life came out of my pen tip with this story.


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