The Golden Valley

The difference between light and dark could be as quick and simple as a flip of a switch, the drawing of a curtain, the opening of one’s eyes. It could be more gradual like the slow adjustment of the diaphragm on a microscope, the turn of a planet on its axis, the growing light as you approach the end of a tunnel. A flicker in the dark, a steady glow in the distance, a flash in the night sky.

And that’s all it was.

Five years ago, the sun, the moon, and the stars all disappeared, all hidden behind a dense blanket contaminating the beauty of the sky. It only took a matter of minutes to curse the earth with perpetual days of gray and nights of black. None of us were prepared for the apocalyptic cloud that exploded on the horizon. Our eyes deceived us into thinking it was too far away, that the danger was insignificant, but we were gravely mistaken. We stood in shock, paralyzed and unable to comprehend the utter devastation we were about to face.

Sometimes I wondered if I had survived a nightmare or if I was living in one.

The thick lead door of the van slid shut with a heavy thud, shocking me back into the present. We were enveloped in complete darkness and uncertainty. Despite being in this situation more times than I could count, my heart still leaped and slammed against my ribcage at an uncomfortable pace. Blood rushed into my ears, ebbing and flowing, and echoing against the inside of my standard issue helmet. None of us knew where we were going. It was a reconnaissance mission, that’s all we knew.

But that’s how these missions worked. You’d be recruited, issued your gear, and shoved into the back of a black van ready to take you into the unknown. There were no windows in the back of the van. Not that seeing our surroundings would quell our nerves.

The van lurched and sputtered its way across the seemingly rocky terrain, and we jostled against each other as we struggled to maintain our place on the unforgiving metal benches.

We all knew what lie outside of the monstrous city gates, beyond the ice-capped mountains. We knew, but not from pictures or from movies. Any type of photography wasn’t an option. The residual radiation obliterated film and electronics from before the blast. Several new instruments existed, expensive instruments provided exclusively to the elite, that could withstand such high levels of radiation without being destroyed within minutes. We only knew what existed on the other side of the mountain pass because we were told by all of the scavengers before us.

I could take a guess as to what it looked like outside. It was the same every time; gray ash, decaying debris, a lunar landscape that was cold and desolate. A sea of yellow across the valley was the only reprieve against the gray. It was surreal. The yellow didn’t belong. The landscape was a painting an artist had forgotten to finish, leaving most of the canvas dull and colorless. The cruel irony that the only flower resilient enough to grow in such an environment was named after our occluded star was not lost on me.

The van screeched to a stop, and we braced ourselves. Two doors slammed, followed by heavy boots crunching. Adrenaline shot through my veins as the captains pounded on the back door three times, the metal resonating in the small space between us.

Three times meant gear on, be ready to go.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my chest straining against my protective vest. Everything about these missions toyed with my fear of confinement. My eyes snapped open at the rush of air and gray light flooding the van. We lifted ourselves as quickly as possible, most of us on unsteady limbs. No matter how many times any of us had done this, it never got any easier. With one last deep breath, I jumped from the ledge of the van and hoped my legs wouldn’t betray me as I hit the harsh terrain of another world.