I had been traveling on foot through the barren wasteland once known as “home” for days. The dark sky still lurked ominously overhead as it was constantly filled the murky, grey clouds that appeared on doomsday. It had been ever since that day that everything I had come to know and love was shattered, or at least blown to bits by the bomb. The government had dropped the bomb three years ago today, supposedly in an effort to target terrorists hiding out in the Midwest states, but little did anyone know though that the military had been planning something much more dark and sinister; to eliminate the overgrown population, not just the elusive terrorists.
     The bomb killed millions and injured hundreds of thousands, as its radius extended all the way out into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. I had somehow survived the attack by hiding out in a cave in the Mojave Desert, where I always escaped to after long days in high school. I was living alone; my mom and dad had passed away nearly six years ago, each from cancer and each four months apart, so no one ever knew I was out here. I still remember what the shockwave had felt like from when the bomb went off, what the bright explosion had looked like. Every single iota of that blast was burned into my memory. Everything before my eyes had been leveled and crushed into nothing but embers from the force of the blast. Not a building stood in front of what used to be the crowded city’s main street. Not a sound rang out except for the sound of the howling wind and thunderous clouds left over from the nuke. Not a person was left to weep except for me, though I had been weeping far too long my entire life anyway. After all, I knew that a bomb was going to be dropped soon somewhere in the world by the U.S.; I just didn’t know that it would be the end-all be-all of the American nation.
     That was the event that led me to where I was today, back out in the middle of the desert littered with concrete rubble. Today was the first day that brought hope along with its sunrise. After three years of forced survival and struggling in a world that was clouded with unsettling amounts of ash and dust, I had a chance to save whatever was left in the country. As I finally neared a massive, collapsed bridge in the middle of the desert, with heaps of twisted scrap metal lying all around it, I uncovered the shining beacon of light in my hands. Its round shape glowed with a light bright enough to burn through the stormy clouds above, something that it would definitely do if I made it in time. As the winds began picking up and lightning cracked overhead, I dropped to my knees and started feverously digging a hole into the dirt, just large enough for the stone. I dropped the ball of light into the hole, and once it struck the ground I took off running like a madman. I knew that my life’s end would mean the start of a new hope, thanks to the orb of light, but my indomitable spirit to make sure that the apocalyptic clouds never hung overhead again would not die.
     I pushed forward with every ounce of energy I had left in my body, sprinting as fast as I could across the desert to find some form of shelter before the blast went off. Before I could even process what was fully happening, the explosion rattled the area, propelling me forward onto the ground. I turned to look behind me right as the second blast went off; shooting not only more dark clouds up into the sky but also the scintilla of light. It was this detonation that launched me into the air right as the light broke through the tempestuous sky. The cumulonimbus finally parted in the sky, allowing the fecund sunshine to once again bathe the formerly populous land with a light that screamed “life”. The sunlight that had not been painted onto the desert in three long years finally beamed again, meaning that life had a chance of starting over. While the sun’s rays had vanished as quickly as my own will to live on after that fateful day that the bombs went off, as I closed my eyes for one last time, the sunlight became the last thing that I would ever see. It was finally time.