1 Chapter One

12 years after the apocalypse

There used to be a lake near our grandparents' house. My younger brother and I would call it The Great Lake; of course, we knew it wasn't an actual part of the Great Lakes, but it was nice to maintain our illusion. Every summer when we visited our grandparents, we would dive into its crystal waters and pretend that naiads were waving to us as they brushed their long hair. They would enchant us with their voice as they guided us down deeper into the Great Lake. Then it would all be over as my grandma would shout for us to come back inside. Some of our best childhood memories had been inside that house. Aside from the Great Lake, we would go exploring in the nearby woods pretending that we were knights in a dangerous quest and that our mission was to rescue a princess on the other side. We would also listen to grandpa as he told us tales and stories, all identifying different creatures that could grow bigger than a dragon. On those nights, we would settle by the porch with our glasses of lemonade and a big pile of cookies that would be devoured by the end of the story. I could never have these precious moments again, and I would not be able to join my family in the next journey we take after we die, simply because I had been trapped in a contraption at the wrong time.

Those happy memories were all that I had left of my family. Those joyful moments would make me warm from the inside until I remembered where I was. Then the loneliness would hit me, making tears stream down my face again. In my whole life, I had never truly been alone, now here I was, all alone on this vast planet. This thought had been circling around my brain for many months, the first few months after I had gotten out of the god-forsaken bunker I had not wanted to believe it. I had started to search all over the world as I tried to find any other survivors: I had set up traps and signs to find another human, but none had come. Eventually, I had returned empty-handed back to the bunker using the map that I had created. My returning also had to do with another reason: the reason was that I was afraid. I was afraid of the horrors that now inhabited this new world.

The best parts of my life currently were the dreams. The dreams that reunited me with my family in grandma and grandpa's house again or in my parents' lab, in which I also spent a considerable amount of my childhood. But the worst feeling was facing the harsh reality of the world as you opened your eyes to feel the humid air on your face and you looked around and no one was there. That heartbreaking feeling was something that I experienced every single day as my hope for other survivors diminished. I tried to make myself believe that the reason I still put out signs all over the world was that I hadn't lost hope, but I knew the true reason, no matter how many times my heart tried to quash it. It was because I didn't want to believe that there was none else; I didn't want to believe that I was the last of the human race and I really didn't want to believe that I would die of old age by myself. Because I knew deep in my heart, that I was truly the last human on this planet.

The only reason I had been able to survive this long was due to the knowledge my parents had provided for my brother and me. During those survival lessons that they had signed us up for, I had always been so bored and I had never wanted to attend the lesson, but now because of them, I was alive. My parents had been biochemists and had always made sure that we would be able to survive in unlikely climates. The teachers in the lessons they signed us up for taught me how to make a water purification system, how to identify different animals and see if they were harmful or not, they had also taught me how to plant plants in different scenarios. But arguable the most useful lesson they ever taught me was how to make saltwater into freshwater, therefore making the water drinkable. Another extremely useful lesson was identifying plants, because of what they taught me I could Identify which plants I can use. After the missiles detonating, the plants and the trees had burned down, but they had all mostly grown back to their original height and population. It had taken some time because the soot of the explosion had blocked most of the sunshine that Earth receives and also because of the climate changes that the planet was experiencing. But as soon as the soot cleared up and the climate stabilized, there was an explosion of growth.

As for me? Well, I had gotten myself into a routine over the last decade, and I had started to adjust myself to this life. I would often travel in a new direction, a direction which I would be sure that I've never visited before. But then I would find another one of my signs and return back to the bunker dejected and empty-handed. I had often wondered if I was truly even considered sane anymore? Due to being completely and utterly alone, I had started naming objects and trees, just to have even a little of my old life back. I would call the river that provided me water, to bath and to drink, Anne. It was an ode to a book that I had read a few years back. Now it seems that it was a lifetime ago. While I would call the apple orchard, Frank after one of my uncles and Lily ( the sunflower meadow ) after his wife. I had tried to call the bunker home, but I had choked up halfway. I suppose there were just too many memories with my actual home to replace it with this contraption that had saved my life.

On a more somber note, I would often come across skeletons on the ground, the first thing I would do when I saw them is to mutter a little prayer underneath my breath and make an unnamed grave. I would not consider myself to be religious anymore, the type of life I continued to live had just not made me believe in god anymore. I just wanted to do whatever I could, to make sure that they were remembered. So that they were never truly forgotten and so that could rest peacefully, as well as move on in the next part of their journey. I had also wanted to make sure that my fellow humans did not have to face the same horrors I did.

Another thing I found was the debris. The debris of fallen buildings, the wreckage of people's homes, and the remains left behind of human civilization. I found dirty, old pieces of clothes, which I would wash and sew together to use with unbearable guilt. I felt dirty wearing a deceased person's clothes, but I didn't know how else to acquire pieces of clothing. I had also been working on a project, this project is going to be extremely valuable in this new era for me. The project is a map; it is a map of the world as I now know it. Every time I find myself in uncharted territory; I examine and explore my surroundings and then I map this new piece of land. I had not dared to go into the ocean, for I had seen the true horror that it contained. While it may seem that I had simply gained this "home", it is not true. I had to overcome many, many hurdles to achieve this setting. So here is my story, the true story about what happened to me after the nuclear disaster of 2030.