Land of the Forgotten

January 3rd, 2033

America is dead. We the people have become our own greatest enemy. We let our egos become bigger than our hearts and the rest of the world has shunned us for it. Canada blocked its borders. Mexico had every citizen work overtime to finish building a wall to keep us out. The rest of the world has been told to ignore us. We have no electricity, and our resources are dwindling. We have become a country of despair with no one to help us. We must do our best to move forward, because we know that there is no escaping the land of the forgotten and the home of the beaten.

In 2025 the Great Hack took down America’s infrastructures and left us all in the dark forever. The people blamed the Government for not seeing this coming. Those who saw it coming could not find a way to stop it. Either way, the people were pissed, and the Capital burned. We lived on the West Coast of Florida. My parents and I packed up what we had in our possession to survive and set sail on a boat that belonged to our snowbird neighbor. We sailed offshore until we found a small, secluded island and made a home there for a few years. It was a peaceful few years, just the three of us, until one day a hurricane came out of nowhere and separated us.

I searched the entire island, but they were nowhere to be found. Eventually, I gave up, thinking that the hurricane swept them out to the Gulf. Part of me wanted to believe they survived and found a way back to shore. I decided to set sail by myself to head to the mainland. I was curious to see what had become of my homeland. I was hoping they found a way to restore the power, but my hope quickly faded into dread as I approached the pitch-black shoreline. I wanted to return to the safety of my island, but my loneliness pushed me forward in hopes of finding my parents. I am not sure if it were the lack of lights or the deafening silence but part of me wondered if I’d find anyone alive and thriving. The other part of me wondered if zombies were going to spring out of nowhere and eat my brains. Either way, my stomach felt as unsettled as the sailboat on stormy waters. I needed to find somewhere to hide until the daylight could shed some light on my situation.

It has now been 6 years since I came back ashore. I have searched most of Florida looking for my parents. It is what keeps me going through the scary nights of screams and starvation. It is cold now as I head north towards the Georgia border. It’s become harder to find food. I search for beauty in the things I fear to keep me sane. I fear the night but with no light pollution I can see stars brighter and bigger than I ever imagined. I fear loneliness, but I have come to know myself better than I could have expected. I also have found solace in my journal writings which I always thought was a waste of time. I hope someone finds this once I am gone and it gives them the courage to keep moving on.

This country of mine has become America the Terrible. The more hungry people get, the more desperate they become. The more desperate they become, the more violent they are. I have heard of people that lure solo travelers like myself into their homes and are never seen again, but the same two residents remain fat and happy. I have heard of the dark horsemen who ride at night and scoop up travelers to use them for trade. But, I’ve also heard stories of those who left to sail across the sea for a better life. I’ve heard stories of communities that have embraced the Amish culture and are thriving, but I have not been able to find them. I’ve learned that it’s best to trust no one and keep to myself. I have learned to stay quiet, keep my head down and live in the shadows. But yesterday all of that changed. I broke all my rules of survival.

As I settled in for the night in an old, abandoned tree house, something down the road caught my attention. It was a chain gang of children being dragged along by three of the dark horsemen. Some of the children cried out for their mothers, while others barely had the strength to keep moving forward. I wanted to shout and swing down from my safe shelter like Tarzan. I wanted to rescue all seven of them, but I knew I was outmatched and there was nothing I could do. Before I could think of another morbid thought, I saw a group of people emerge from the darkness on both sides of the road. There were at least a half dozen adults with homemade weapons ambushing the dark horsemen to save the children. They must have had military training because I never saw any movement on the landscape of that dusty road earlier in the evening. They were camouflaged and moved swiftly without hesitation. The dark horsemen were dead on the ground before the children even knew what happened. A little boy in the back collapsed as the saviors broke them free from the chains.

I climbed down the tree and ran to the road shouting and realized something had startled me. It was me. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I heard my own voice. I asked them who they were and where they came from. No one answered. It was like I was a ghost, and they couldn’t see me. They quickly loaded the weary children up on the three horses and started to lead them away. I ran to catch up to them and saw the words Semper Fi on the sleeve as I tugged at the leader’s jacket. Those words brought me comfort, but I was suddenly distracted by something else. It was the little boy from the back who was so exhausted that he could not hold his head up. It bobbed up and down which made the necklace around his neck sway from side to side like a tree blowing in the wind. I recognized that necklace immediately and froze. It was the gold heart-shaped locket my mother always wore. I had to fight the pain of my cracked voice to speak and beg the Marine to slow down so I could talk to the boy. He looked at me with such sadness in his eyes that to this day I’m not sure if it was the tears streaming down my face or his own sorrow, but he stopped. He lifted the confused young boy of the horse who stared at me with wide alert eyes.

I knelt down to his height and gently asked him where he got that locket. He replied, “It was my mother’s”. With trembling hands, I opened it to find the photo of my mother and me taken the last Mother’s Day before The Great Hack. Before I could pull my thoughts back to reality, the little boy was throwing his arms around me and sobbing the word Sissy. I said my name is Eleanor. As his grubby little fist rubbed his teary eyes, he replied his name was Franky. He stood up, took my hand, and smiled. I felt this unfamiliar feeling and realized I was smiling too. We walked forward together, following the Marines with hope to find a renewed land of the free and home of the brave.