Depths: A Doomsday Diary

I stared at the stars, my only source of comfort and familiarity in a world that had become so alarmingly strange. My fingers danced along the chain of the heart-shaped locket that dangled from my neck. I glanced at the pictures inside. The faces that stared back were not those of anyone I knew, the locket merely a trinket I had found while ransacking a half-destroyed house. The others had made fun of me for keeping it, but for some unknown reason, I found myself unable to leave it behind. I wondered about the names that had belonged to the people whose faces seemed to peer into my very soul, the young girl with long dark curls and the older gentleman with furrowed brows. I wondered if they had been prepared for the destruction that had devastated the world, whether they were safe in some underground bunker or buried beneath a pile of rubble. I turned my face back to the stars. How long ago had I been watching the very same stars with my friends, laughing and dancing under the light of the moon? Little did we know, that night marked the ending of everything we had ever known.

Almost exactly two years ago, the world began to change. Somehow the very air seemed to sense the difference, energy crackling with the wind as attitudes began to shift. People were beginning to voice their dissatisfaction, no longer content with the empty promises of those who swore to take care of and protect them. The fighting began in the north and spread like wildfire across the nation. Other countries took notice and waged wars, hoping to catch each other in moments of weakness. Each country eventually realized that a win was practically impossible as infighting drained away funds, and slowly the nations settled into a stalemate. The land had been ravaged and left in various states of devastation, and so much of the population had been decimated that no one seemed to have any fighting spirit left. Simply put, the world gave up. No one seemed to have the strength or the heart to rise from the ruins and rebuild, too concerned with the simple matter of surviving day after day.

My family was not among the lucky few who had been able to find shelter. I had been on a camping trip with a small group of friends when the insurgents overwhelmed our small town. As the mayor, my mother was among those targeted. My father, a powerful lawyer, was also counted in that group. My nine-year-old brother got caught in the crossfire. None of them survived. In the middle of nowhere, I didn’t learn of the events that had transpired until a week later when my group finally came back into range of cell towers. Our phones buzzed like a swarm of hornets, each of my friends breaking into tears or shocked into silence at the news we received. We raced for home as quickly as possible, and seeing the rubble that our town had been reduced to left us all speechless. As the oldest in the group, I decided that I would give myself time to grieve later. For now, we needed to find provisions and a safe place to spend the night. The days following passed in a blur, my mind a whirlwind of ideas on how to best protect the people who seemed to trust my every word. I’m sure none of us actually believed my assurances that help would arrive soon. We just needed a little hope to cling to like a lifeline, propelling us through the horrors that each new day brought.

We set up our tents in the woods just outside the town border and spent our days rooting through the wreckage in search of food and fresh water. The electricity had since flickered out with no one left to repair the damaged generators, and we were left without means to contact the rest of the world. With tensions quickly rising, it didn’t take long for our group to decide to split up. Half of the group thought that the best course of action was to stay close to the town, while the rest of us decided that it would be smarter to travel to neighboring towns to see if we could find any other survivors. After loading as many bags as we could carry with food, water, and matches, we headed to the nearest town thirty miles away. As we walked, we passed abandoned cars on the side of the road, smoke still rising from the hoods. The sun beat down on our backs relentlessly, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep from swallowing every last drop of water we had.

Our group stopped for the night in a small grove of trees, and the mood of the people sitting around our little fire was a far cry from the joyful atmosphere of that camping trip so long ago. The next day, we trudged across the town border, clinging desperately to our last few shreds of hope as a dead silence settled over the city. Those shreds fell away as the absence of life became increasingly obvious.

Months dragged on and, although we came across a few people every once in a while, we eventually let go of the hope that we would somehow find a large group of survivors, people who would know what had happened and what to do next. I had never been so keenly aware of how young, naive, and clueless I really was. The few stragglers we found were young, terrified, and desperate for guidance and help. Somehow, I became the unspoken leader, and my friends started to look to me for answers on what to do next.

My first idea had been to travel to D.C. to try and contact other nations. We walked into a completely empty city, smoke from burned buildings still encompassing the streets. Our footsteps echoed eerily in the Capitol building as we searched for a means to communicate with any other possible survivors. The more time passed, the more my friends gave up and left, deciding that their time would be better spent looking for bottles of fresh water or any food to take with us to the next place we would inevitably move on to. Soon I was the only one left, and my patience gave way to frantic screaming into the domed space, begging for someone, anyone, to answer. Eventually I gave up. No one was going to answer.

One year later, our group decided it was time to stop searching. In an abandoned town overlooking a clear blue lake, nestled between looming mountains, we began to build a new life. It was in this town that I now sat, my feet dangling over the edge of the dock. I looked over my shoulder at the brightly lit homes and the laughter that had started to come back to my weary friends. I glanced back up at the stars, my fingers letting go of that heart-shaped locket and letting it sink out of sight into the dark depths. It was at that moment that I knew that we would somehow be okay. Someday, we might decide to renew our search, but for now, we would focus on remembering what it meant to really live, not just survive.