Ciel Byrne's Story

It was a Friday. And it was a day he'll never forget. The day that financially struggling in your early twenties with a wife and a baby on the way in a small one bedroom apartment suddenly looked like a huge luxury. Every detail of the day has been ingrained in his mind since it happened, and he will always remember where he was and what he was doing on that day. The temperature was 53°F (12°C) outside, with a slight breeze that made the chilly air nip at his arms even through his light The Legend of Zelda hoodie and his Aeropostale brand ripped jeans. The overcast weather bathed everything in a blue-ish cold tint, and he almost rear-ended an idiotic driver who wasn't paying attention and swerved into his lane, probably texting or something. His name was Ciel Byrne, and he was a twenty-year-old newlywed man, driving home from work in his dark green pickup truck. "Kiss This" by The Struts was playing on his car radio, and he was tapping on his steeling wheel, bobbing his head, when the song was interrupted. The song cut out and went silent, then the radio host of the particular station he was listening to began to speak.

"Sorry to interrupt the song folks, but the Russians seem to be doing another bombing run and our president is giving a live speech about it, so we're going to play that." The audio switched instantly to the president's voice as they spoke. "Yes, there have been reports of Russian bombers flying over major cities. Our fighters have shot some out of the sky, but it is recommended that everyone get inside, get somewhere safe-" There was a long silence. Then, "We have... Dear God. We have confirmed reports of nuclear detonations in-"

Static. Then, an instant later, his car was shut off, and he slammed on the breaks. And everything was bright. Clamping his eyes shut tight, he saw the telltale purple of a single giant lightspot over his entire vision. Eyes still closed, he turned the key in the ignition frantically, but the car made no sign of starting, no noise. After a few moments, he was able to open his eyes again. Looking around, every car in sight was stopped also. The street lights down the street were black, not red or green. Off. Then, looking behind himself, he stopped breathing. Dear fucking God. A second sun peaked over the horizon to the northwest, around it a halo of darkness. The fireball soon flared out and showed a mushroom cloud, far, far off. Ciel, at the time, didn't know exactly where it was, but a plane carrying a hydrogen bomb on it's way to Lubbock Texas had been shot down but before it crashed, the crew activated the bomb to set off at it's intended height, still inside the plane. One hundred and ten kilometers away, 1,170 km in the sky above Seminole Texas, the 15 Megaton hydrogen bomb detonated with a mushroom cloud that could be seen up to 122 km away. All Ciel knew was at the time, however, was that he was stearing at the modern embodiment of death. His car was dead from the electromagnetic pulse, as would anything else electronic and exposed to the sky in this side of Texas, but coincidentally, he was three block away from his childhood friend, Zeric's, house. Almost ten minutes later, right as he was about to reach the house, he stumbled as if he had been pushed, covering his ears as the sound of the explosion finally hit them. The windows on the nearby house bowed and vibrated, but didn't break. Ciel broke out into a run to his friend's house.

Zeric's car had been in it's garage, and so it still worked. Ciel, being the prepper he was, had already had plans for if the apocalypse ever happened, and had shared some of them with his friend before. He gave him orders, things to pack, and after ten minutes they were in his friends car and weaving down the street, in between the sea of dead cars, with a full trunk of some supplies. That was when the second boom hit, because twenty minutes ago a detonation went off above El Paso. Too far to see, but definitely close enough to hear. Five minutes of driving, and two more booms, one the same as the last two, and one many times louder. Austin and San Antonio, a 15 megaton and a 100 megaton. Sound of the second shockwave was powerful enough to travel across the entire globe five times, so it would not be the last time that day they'd hear that particular bomb. And many more like it across the united states. They eventually had to pull over and take refuge in a nearby storm cellar in the back yard of a stranger's house, who didn't appear to be home. For the rest of the day and late into the night, booms from 38 different detonations echoed across the united states like gunfire. The next morning, they climbed out of the storm cellar to see smoke stacks all around the city. So began Day 2.

That morning, the only thing on Ciel's mind was his wife. They had rushed to his apartment to find it empty and looted. Ciel wasn't good enough at reading scenes to tell if it was his wife who had taken things or someone else. They spent the better part of two hours looking at likely places they could be, to no avail. So it would just be him and Zeric. Ciel would not give up so easily, but at the moment survival was necessary. He could tell from the sounds all night that the USA was ravaged, there was no government, no longer any law. "We're going looting."

The day was spent breaking into houses. They avoided stores, because other people would be looting stores and it would be dangerous to confront others. They broke into garages and stole ten car batteries that would fit Zeric's car. The stole a few tool boxes, and they stole many empty gas canisters to fill later. Ciel also found a laptop, and promptly deleted everything unnecessary for it to run, freeing up as much space as possible. Wifi towers had been EMP'd, so they didn't have conventional internet access, but Ciel set up a wifi hotspot with his phone, and by some miracle the satellites were still running, and so it worked. Connecting the laptop to the hotspot, he spent several hours downloading the offline version of wikipedia. Continuing their loot search, they had a filled trunk of clothes and blankets and other things, but they filled the backseat with first aid supplies stolen from bathrooms. Band aids, gauze, several bottles of disinfectants like rubbing alchohol, all the meds from several houses that they could fit in the several Wal-Mart shopping bags they found in a pantry, and even a box of menstrual pads that Ciel explained would make good bandages for deep wounds. Of course, living in West Texas, 90% of houses had a gun cabinet with guns. However most were empty or locked in a metal gun cabinet. One family, however, had their guns on display and they each stole several hand guns and some rifles, along with some ammo. Ciel also had the foresight to search for a fire extinguisher and a fire axe, rope in a garage, combat knives and pocket knives, lighters and matches, kerosene, and flashlights in laundry rooms. Para-cord was also an essential material Ciel had looked for, learning about it's usefulness in the Marines. While they were driving around, he made para-cord bracelets for each of them. They had found a large backpack each, which they also filled with supplies and kept in the backseat. One house had a compound bow with a few arrows, they probably bow hunted for sport, and Zu seemed interested in taking it. They also had a plastic 28-pack of half liter water bottles in the backseat, and several cans of canned food, because they wouldn't go bad. During the day, they had seen several hundred people on the streets, brawling, running, hiding, burglarizing, but luckily none confronted them. At one point, they had to take a different path due to an organized riot of roughly 200 people blocking a street. Eventually there reached a point where Zeric had asked him how much more they needed. Ciel replied telling him if they wanted to survive, they could never get enough. But it was also a risk versus reward situation, and the longer they stayed in the city, the greater risk someone would realize that murder was a great way to get a car full of supplies. It was sunset anyways, and so Ciel made the decision he would later regret, to leave the city his wife was still potentially in.

"Drive, out of the city, to the north east. Take us to Snyder." And so it began to get dark, and on Day 3 they were outside Snyder, Texas.

It was taking a while, a lot longer than he thought... But it still wouldn't sink quite in. His brain refused to believe that it had happened! It was sad, shameful, and quite frankly; frustrating. Why couldn't it happen? It was such an easy to occur possibility, especially in this day and age. Zeric could still barely believe what his eyes had clearly seen. His hometown, his only ever resting place; 'his' city, in anarchy from the result of the very last thing he had ever expected to occur during his lifetime: Nuclear devastation. "It wasn't even anywhere near us too! What the fucking hell!?" He cursed aloud, turning and looking at Ciel for just a moment before jerking his head back towards the road. They had been well on their way out of Midland, and now were close on the city limits of Snyder. He knew that it was easily possible that Ciel had no clue what he was talking about, but his incredulity was just, too much to contain. "I mean sure I would have freaked the fuck out too if it was as close to us as, I don't know, fuckin' Lubbock! But noooo, it's over fucking Seminole and everyone loses their goddamn shit!" Zeric knew, he knew deep in his heart, that if he were any younger or any braver than he could have ever been, he would have 'lost his goddamn shit' too.

It took them a moment, a bit longer than Zeric thought it would considering how close they were to Snyder itself... But then he noticed it; all the cars that they were slowly passing by, whether it be from their own lack of speed, or because they were half on, half off the road, all of them were without power. Or drivers for that matter. Most of the cars on the road were either abandoned and empty, or had no amount of power running through them; then again, would either of them notice that? Well, oh well. "Hey, hey 'C, what's with the cars?" Zu asked aloud, turning and looking at Ciel with a raised brow as he moved to pass yet another car without occupants. It didn't help that it was just near about early dawn; the sun just barely rising above the horizon behind them... It was scary, almost, in Zu's eyes. He couldn't see a single damn person, and yet it oddly felt like it was crowded.

He became silent then, pausing for a moment as he let his mouth hang open. People here, it was clear enough that some had stayed, yet even still, it was as if everyone grabbed their bags and just.. Left. Stores were missing windows, cars and some buildings were obviously left empty, and the one person that Zu did see was in a state that left him reeling: a man, homeless probably, holding his head and wailing quietly- or at least he was quiet since they were still in the car- his eyes were unseeing, that much was obvious after a few moments of looking at him, for he was staring blankly into the distance with with the whites of his eyes so bloodshot it was clear even from a good enough distance. "Ciel. C', are you seein' this? Do you see that guy? ... Holy fuck that could have been us..."