I am alone.
The tunnel stands silent. An odour oozes through the air filling my noses with putrid scent, a
mix of burned materials too awful to contemplate. Old lights flicker in the distance like
Morse Code sending a signal from nowhere. I sit around a dimly lit fire, fighting to live,
fighting to hold on, fighting the urge to simply die.
A young woman sits near me holding something wrapped in layers; something small and
motionless. It keeps letting out a little whimper, quiet and faint. The young woman holds it
tightly while small water droplets trickle down her face.
I remember that morning two weeks ago, one that had started out like any other.
It had been an average day; blue filled the sky, birds chirped contentedly, and the streets
were booming. I was on my way to work like every other day. I was just another face in the
sea of mindless drones. Then one sound changed that. It was a sound so foreign to the
crowds of commuters that it hadn’t been heard in 74 years. Once it bellowed out, rising up
and down, calling out its alarm, everyone’s spines shivered with the sudden dread of
realisation.
I close my eyes tightly – I am not able to bear the thought of what had happened next: the
panic, the chaos, the mushroom cloud rising on the horizon. I wonder to myself whether I
could wish it all away, bring back my old life and make everything the way it was. I open my
mouth to cry but no sound comes out.
The girl continues to sit, a stream of water trickling slowly down her face on to the thing she
is holding. The small object lets out a small cough.
We are all alone, together.