Today it is all about {Just Write}. Let's stop the small talk and jump right to it! I am excited to put my words on the paper, and I hope you are too!
Our WORD of the DAY is:
The walls were closing in on me. I was having trouble breathing. I felt as if I were outside of my body, looking down in horror at the picture of myself, in the dark, with the only light coming from that single light bulb.
The rest of my family were sound asleep in the other room. They were sound and comfortable, given the circumstances.
Johnie was standing in front of me. He saw the sicken state I had taken, all too quickly. He knew that it was to much for me to handle, yet he had to tell me or I would find out on my own and it would result in something far worse than just the knowledge of what our World now was.
"Kas, are you OK." he spoke softly, as he held me tightly, cutting off the only breathe that I could now take. I could not speak. I could not think. I was numb. I felt foreign, sitting there. It was time for me to take the news that I had just learned and go to my Journal. I needed to write. I needed to decompress the feelings, the thoughts that were roaming freely throughout my body. I felt as if I had just received the ultimate blow. I knew what it all meant. I knew that there was no escaping the fate that we now faced.
"When do we go underground?" I said in a voice that I hardly recognized. Fear was embedded thick in my words.
"At Dawn would be my guess."
I knew it was what had to be, as much as I wanted to believe, to trust, that this was temporary. That I would be in my kitchen making a homemade chicken noodle soup in no time flat. Now, I had no idea if I would even see the daylight again. I had no idea if we would survive. This internal pull was causing me to choke. Johnie held me tighter. He took my hand in his and kissed my head. I now knew what was keeping him so quiet. So still.
April 22nd, - day #5 underground.
Today I was taken above ground, for the first time since this whole ordeal started. I saw a vast emptiness surround our home. Beyond the windows and doors, the earth stood still. The sun still set and the moon still shines, but what was left of the people who inhabited the earth I had known for my life was gone. Cars were not a part of the road, lights were burned out.
I stood in my attic, of a home that we had built with our blood, sweat and tears and I saw nothing all around me. The things that inhabit our home are useless in the world that now exists.
It had been a vibrant world when we had made the decision to start planning for the unthinkable. We gave our all, extra money, extra time to creating a safe haven, deep underground, away from civilization. A place where we would not only be safe, but live, thrive. It had been a dream we built, one that was as much imagination as survival. I had never, in my wildest dreams, thought that this safe haven would be our home. I never thought this could be our reality. Yet, here I stand, in the now, in the know of what had happened, having been blind for five whole days to facts that should have been instinct.
We were survivors. I can say that now. We survived. Why? I shouldn't question it, but I am left with a need to ask this simple question. Had this been God's plan? Were we chosen to live? Had we fulfilled God's duty when we created our safe haven?
These questions, I fear, will forever haunt me, as I have learned what epidemic, if I may, has invaded our mankind. It had been an attack against people. It had stemmed from Government actions and a country that was on the downfall. It had caused one man to lose sight of reality and create a gas that turned the world inside out, taking all of those who had not sought shelter into something alien. People were still among the living, yet, they were now hollow, for a twenty four hour stretch, then they would meet the fact of the nuclear effects and the mission of that one person was complete.
Would we survive this? Can this gas reach our still living bodies? I had so many questions, but yet, in the shock, horror of this knowledge I felt numb. I now knew our fate. It was not to live. It was to suffer until death knocked.
Tomorrow we will descend further down into the Earth. Into the pure ground. When will it be safe to come above again? I know that we have prepared for such an occasion. Such a silly word for a devastation. This was not a Birthday. This was a death. Our air down here and further yet had been on the filtration system that we had purchased a year prior. It had been a fluke, which I believe is the irony of this whole situation. We created an underworld that should not exist, one that we created for a chance, not dreaming ever in our lifetime, that we would be relying on this for survival.
Survival.
This one word will haunt my existence. I am preparing to put up a fight, as good as any, to keep my children safe, to keep them alive, to keep them healthy and thriving. My family as well. We will survive. One way or another.
I kissed Johnie before settling in next to my family on the blow up mattress.
Hopefully we are all enjoying the writing words and making the most out of them. It is an adventure with our keyboard, finding a way to make these words fit into a story-line, in a way you might not have thought could fit before.
Again, please leave feedback! If you have Word of the Day ideas, please share! I am always open to improv.
~Kelley~
No comments:
Post a Comment