I strapped it over my face and followed her out onto the lawn, or what was left of it. We had been living in the shelter for three weeks. Three weeks of eating canned beans and recycled water. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.

Anyway, it’s been three weeks since we have heard anything from the outside. That includes from the radio, the radio we were told to listen to if something like this happened. Nothing but static, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three weeks so far. I think it’s driving me crazy.

They dropped the bomb about five miles away. No one saw it coming, I still don’t know who did it. One day we woke up to a noise like a car crash, a giant boom. We heard it and knew immediately what to do. Just like the drills we grabbed the keys, and the cat, then ran to the shelter. Some how the cat got out, but we’ve been here ever since.

Three weeks is a long time to be trapped in a shelter without any contact with the outside world. We have been playing card games the whole time. I think my sister is starting to cheat at War, only laying aces. I think I’m starting to cheat at solitaire. Wait, can you cheat at solitaire? I’m going to tell my sister to stop cheating… well that didn’t go well. I started to ask her nicely to please stop cheating, then she started to yell at me to stop yelling at her.

Three weeks, I can’t take this anymore. I need to get out of here. I tell my family I’m going out, but they try to stop me. I take a mask and open the door. I strapped it over my face and followed her out onto the lawn, or what was left of it. All that is left is a brown patch of land and a general outline of where our house had been.

Suddenly there are about 30 bright lights shining on me. Finally the military is here. Wait one second… they are not the military. Where am I? They tell me I’m part of an experiment to see how long it would take me to go crazy in a small shelter. I ask if my family was also involved, and they say, “What family? You were in there alone for about five months.”