Bryanne Sullivan

Lights Out

I was born into a world without electricity. I am sixteen years old. I am also dying. My name is Anastasia Irina Smirnova, but everyone calls me Ana. Twenty years ago, Chinese terrorists set off an electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere above Saint Petersburg, Russia, where I was born. That was the day the lights went out. Everything electricity-based was immediately rendered useless. I have never known computers, airplanes, smart phones, refrigeration, air conditioning, or clean hot water from a faucet; only through stories do I know of these things. I was born into the darkness.