dutchrain
* der Weisheit
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2012
- Posts
- 12,542
Eydis
My head hurt.
My left leg hurt.
The first children born after the Big Blast -what ever the Blast had been, it had destroyed society all over the world: killing about 60% of the population at once, most of them in the cities, polluting crops resulting in the deaths of many more, now in the countryside and ruining all electronics beyond repair- had grown to adulthood a few years ago.
At first the survivors had used cars to get to places they thought safe and to scavenge food in the cities –literally fighting to survive, people even set fire to gas stations or supermarkets to prevent others from using them, thus destroying whole neighborhoods- but they ran out off gas around five years after the Blast. Most people left the depilated cities and towns and found a place to live in the country side. Some founded new communities, some trusted only their family and friends and lived in small and smallest groups.
We, the new generation looked upon the good old times and the people still reminiscenting them as mythology and dreamers. We had known no other life than one of hard work, periods of abundance and scarcity.
I am part of a large family, most of them blood-related to each other. My mom, pregnant with my eldest sister, and mom’s best friend had managed to flee the city they lived in on the day of the Blast. Actually they had been on a two-day trip and simply hadn’t returned to the city. The two women got raped on the third day. They had entered a small mall to get food but became prisoners of six men who were able to hold the mall for eight days until they got attacked. In the ensuing melee my mother, her friend Irene and Frank, one of the attackers, got away. Irene never was able to tell if she got pregnant with her first child before the Blast, during the time in the mall, or by Frank.
The three of them managed to find a farm where they lived happily for two years. Now five, and both women pregnant by Frank, they escaped a fire –no-one knew if it was started by a lightning bolt or by a candle or the cooking fire, all what they were able to tell was: they grabbed the children, a few clothes and some food, threw it all in the old cart in the stable, reigned the horse to the cart, just before the fire jumped to the stable, threw two plastic buckets, some reigns hanging by the door, some ropes too into the cart while they maneuvered it out off the stall and looked from a little distance how their home burned down. Their two dogs waited with them in the cart, and three cows and a calf. The cow with the calf wandered of around morning, and one of the others was dry, and wandered off a little later, before the mooing of the last cow and the soft wailing of my sister waked them out off their shock and Frank got a bucket laying at the pump and started to milk the cow while mom bound it to the cart.
All the thinking I just had done hadn’t bettered my headache, but I nearly had forgotten the pain in my leg. Slowly I got to my feet. And doubled over as my stomach cramped. Not again! I thought this had passed. There was nothing in my stomach anymore, and the dry heaves shook my body. I picked up three of my arrows and put them back in the quiver over my back. I needed water. I needed warmth.
Step by clumsy step I moved away from the wild pig I had feasted upon two days ago. I had thought it the right revenge, since the darned thing had grazed my left shine with his tuskers when I knelt down beside it to gut it.
I had been hungry. Four days of hunting on a nearly empty stomach does that to you. I know I should have known better. I should have cut his throat before I attempted to gut it. Wild pigs are tough. But supplies were low at home and I had decided the four of us would not take any with us. I wished I hadn’t been out here alone, but not having killed anything on the first day, we split up. I hoped Xander, or Lea, or Dorian had more success than I had. I hoped one of them, or two, had brought home a deer. Or at least some rabbits or squirrels.
I moved along until I stumbled over a little spring. Eagerly I gulped up as much of the water as I could before my eyes closed. Awful stomach cramps woke me up and I soiled myself. It took a while until I was able to drink some more and clean myself somewhat with a wad of moss. I had to get warm. I had to get up and get out off the forest and hope the sun would give me some force back. I was too far away from home to go there.
We wouldn’t starve. There always was the emergency supply. Enough to last for four weeks. It should have been enough for twelve weeks, but hunting had been bad the last autumn. The fields hadn’t given us as much produce as in other years either. Only the two apple trees Frank had planted beside the cave were full of fruits. It was just one of the bad years. Not an evil one, no-one would die from hunger, but two old people, three middle-aged ones, four young adults and five kids between two and fourteen needed a lot of food.
Warmth touched my skin. Not from above, from in front of me. The sun. I had reached the seam of the forest. Slowly I moved through the underbrush at the border. I stood on an old field. A very old field. No-one had harvested it in many years. The wheat had grown wild. I raked a few handfuls of stalks together and sank down on the little heap.
Far in the distance I saw some ruins. Nothing I hadn’t seen before, but these ruins I had never seen. I had no idea were I was. A cramp made me hug my knees and I soiled myself from above and below before my eyesight got narrower and narrower until I couldn’t see anything anymore.
My head hurt.
My left leg hurt.
The first children born after the Big Blast -what ever the Blast had been, it had destroyed society all over the world: killing about 60% of the population at once, most of them in the cities, polluting crops resulting in the deaths of many more, now in the countryside and ruining all electronics beyond repair- had grown to adulthood a few years ago.
At first the survivors had used cars to get to places they thought safe and to scavenge food in the cities –literally fighting to survive, people even set fire to gas stations or supermarkets to prevent others from using them, thus destroying whole neighborhoods- but they ran out off gas around five years after the Blast. Most people left the depilated cities and towns and found a place to live in the country side. Some founded new communities, some trusted only their family and friends and lived in small and smallest groups.
We, the new generation looked upon the good old times and the people still reminiscenting them as mythology and dreamers. We had known no other life than one of hard work, periods of abundance and scarcity.
I am part of a large family, most of them blood-related to each other. My mom, pregnant with my eldest sister, and mom’s best friend had managed to flee the city they lived in on the day of the Blast. Actually they had been on a two-day trip and simply hadn’t returned to the city. The two women got raped on the third day. They had entered a small mall to get food but became prisoners of six men who were able to hold the mall for eight days until they got attacked. In the ensuing melee my mother, her friend Irene and Frank, one of the attackers, got away. Irene never was able to tell if she got pregnant with her first child before the Blast, during the time in the mall, or by Frank.
The three of them managed to find a farm where they lived happily for two years. Now five, and both women pregnant by Frank, they escaped a fire –no-one knew if it was started by a lightning bolt or by a candle or the cooking fire, all what they were able to tell was: they grabbed the children, a few clothes and some food, threw it all in the old cart in the stable, reigned the horse to the cart, just before the fire jumped to the stable, threw two plastic buckets, some reigns hanging by the door, some ropes too into the cart while they maneuvered it out off the stall and looked from a little distance how their home burned down. Their two dogs waited with them in the cart, and three cows and a calf. The cow with the calf wandered of around morning, and one of the others was dry, and wandered off a little later, before the mooing of the last cow and the soft wailing of my sister waked them out off their shock and Frank got a bucket laying at the pump and started to milk the cow while mom bound it to the cart.
All the thinking I just had done hadn’t bettered my headache, but I nearly had forgotten the pain in my leg. Slowly I got to my feet. And doubled over as my stomach cramped. Not again! I thought this had passed. There was nothing in my stomach anymore, and the dry heaves shook my body. I picked up three of my arrows and put them back in the quiver over my back. I needed water. I needed warmth.
Step by clumsy step I moved away from the wild pig I had feasted upon two days ago. I had thought it the right revenge, since the darned thing had grazed my left shine with his tuskers when I knelt down beside it to gut it.
I had been hungry. Four days of hunting on a nearly empty stomach does that to you. I know I should have known better. I should have cut his throat before I attempted to gut it. Wild pigs are tough. But supplies were low at home and I had decided the four of us would not take any with us. I wished I hadn’t been out here alone, but not having killed anything on the first day, we split up. I hoped Xander, or Lea, or Dorian had more success than I had. I hoped one of them, or two, had brought home a deer. Or at least some rabbits or squirrels.
I moved along until I stumbled over a little spring. Eagerly I gulped up as much of the water as I could before my eyes closed. Awful stomach cramps woke me up and I soiled myself. It took a while until I was able to drink some more and clean myself somewhat with a wad of moss. I had to get warm. I had to get up and get out off the forest and hope the sun would give me some force back. I was too far away from home to go there.
We wouldn’t starve. There always was the emergency supply. Enough to last for four weeks. It should have been enough for twelve weeks, but hunting had been bad the last autumn. The fields hadn’t given us as much produce as in other years either. Only the two apple trees Frank had planted beside the cave were full of fruits. It was just one of the bad years. Not an evil one, no-one would die from hunger, but two old people, three middle-aged ones, four young adults and five kids between two and fourteen needed a lot of food.
Warmth touched my skin. Not from above, from in front of me. The sun. I had reached the seam of the forest. Slowly I moved through the underbrush at the border. I stood on an old field. A very old field. No-one had harvested it in many years. The wheat had grown wild. I raked a few handfuls of stalks together and sank down on the little heap.
Far in the distance I saw some ruins. Nothing I hadn’t seen before, but these ruins I had never seen. I had no idea were I was. A cramp made me hug my knees and I soiled myself from above and below before my eyesight got narrower and narrower until I couldn’t see anything anymore.
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