This is the second story in the series, taking place one year after the events of 15 Minutes Before Hell. You can read that story as well as the third in the series by reviewing the archive.
#2
I’ll
never forget the day we first emerged from the pod. You’d think that while
spending a year confined to a 30ft by 15ft room as the world burnt to the
ground, that it’d hit you at some point that the world would be different. But
it didn’t. I’d spent the last year taking care of Isaiah and Sophie. Trying to
teach them and prepare them for the world we were going to emerge into; a world
we would know so little about.
I awoke
on the day of the one year anniversary to the sound of a soft tone ringing towards
the pod door and a green light flashing all around it. I grabbed the booklet,
now frayed at the edges from the many times I’d read it, and flipped to the
last page. I already knew what it said, but out of sheer habit, I read it
anyway.
Day: 365
Today is the one year anniversary of the day you entered the pod, and
the end began. Your pod has been fully shifted for 1 month and has monitored
the radiation levels continuously to ensure the environmental safety. As you’ve
read earlier in this booklet, your pod was programed to shift you to one of 4
locations that radiation has been estimated to be at the lowest or non-existent
on the planet. Each location will have 5 pods programmed to arrive. Your
location is: Antarctica.
If the light at the exit of your pod is green, you are free to exit and
begin the mission. If the light is red, this means the estimated radiation
levels were incorrect and the location cannot sustain life. If this is the
case, DO NOT EXIT. Use the control panel to shift to the nearest of the other 3
locations.
Your current mission: Find the other 4 pods and collaborate with
coworkers to begin your new society.
Nex-Bio Corp is dedicated to the health of you, your family and the
future of mankind. You are the future; Serve us well and good luck.
Sophie and Isaiah were still asleep, so I
headed to the exit. Just to the right of the door was another control panel,
lit up with two options highlighted: Exit and Shift Pod. I selected “Exit” and
waited for the door to open. There were three soft clicks, the door receded
outward a few inches and then slid open to the left. I closed my eyes, and
braced myself for the eminent blast of arctic cold that was sure to come racing
inward. One second. Two seconds. Three. Four. No cold came in at all. Only a
slight breeze that felt nearly tropical. I stepped out of the pod and onto a
desolate, barren beach. The temperature couldn’t have been less than 80
degrees. I looked around and began to survey the area. It was truly surreal.
The land was red and void of greenery. The ocean washing up the beach had a
purple tint to it; an unexpected effect of all out nuclear war I suppose. The
air was hot, stale and the scent of sulfur lingered. But worst of all was the
sky. To the south were storm clouds, laced with the same purple tint that now
dyed the ocean. And to the north was nothing but red. Not the beautiful sunset
kind of red. This was fiery red. A color that filled you to the core with
nothing but dread and horror.
“What
have we done?” I asked myself aloud.
I walked down the beach and in the distance I saw them; two
more pods with figures standing outside them. As I walked closer, I noticed
that each pod contained the exact same occupants: Man, wife, son and daughter.
The company must’ve planned it perfectly for the reproduction of our society.
As I grew closer, I yelled the “Friendly Phrase” to signal that I was one of
the pod survivors, and that we were all well.
“My ship
has landed safely! How goes your journey?”
The
tallest man looked my direction. They clearly hadn’t seen me approaching and I’d
caught them slightly off guard. “Safely as well!” He bellowed in reply, “Come
join us!”
I
walked the remaining distance to the pod and instantly recognized the man. It
was Samuel Fisk from the accounting department. Even though he’d worked in
accounting and I in marketing, Samuel had been one of my closest friends from
work. “Sam!” I yelled. “God it’s
fantastic to see you! What’s it been? Three years?”
“Every
bit of it,” he replied. “Ever since they moved accounting to the home office in
Britain. How are Lily and the kids?”
The
mention of Lily’s name made my heart sink. “The kids are back at the pod,” I
replied. I paused for a bit then said, “Lily was too far gone for the cure to
work. The cancer had spread to all her major organs. She died about 6 months
before we went into the pod.”
I was
suddenly taken back to the day the company announced the cure and how all eligible
families would receive it. They said it would save anyone, and so we applied.
Because Lily qualified, we were all given the dose. Sam’s demeanor grew somber and he simply said “I
truly am sorry, Max. I know just how much you loved her.”
“I miss
her more than anything,” I replied. “But I am grateful. If she had never got
sick, we’d have never got the cure, never been part of the pod program, and we’d
be dead now. It’s the epitome of a bitter-sweet situation.”
I’d
worked with Sam for a decade before his department was transferred, yet I’d
never met his family. So, he introduced me to his wife, Melissa, daughter,
Tessa, and son, Davey. “Davey here is the reason we got in the program,” Sam
said. “He was diagnosed with Juvenile Parkinsonism about a year before the cure
announcement. The cure saved his life.”
“The
cure saved all our lives,” I said as I looked north, toward the fiery sky. “Best
be getting back to the kids.”
I
turned and headed back for my pod while Sam went to greet the other survivors
on down the beach. All this talk and reminiscing about the cure had brought back
Lily’s memory within me, and it was all I could do to contain the tears. I
decided it would be best to lock those memories back away and focus on the now.
I went back to surveying the landscape and noticed the distinct waving of tall
grass in the wind; like green waves rolling across the landscape far off in the
distance. I felt a smile starting across my face. Life. Amongst all the
desolation and barrenness, there were signs of life. As I approached the pod, I
decided to inspect it. I’d just ridden in it for a complete year and was
curious as to how it’d shifted from the coast of Texas all the way to
Antarctica. The best I could tell, it was some kind of a cross between a
submarine and a monorail train. The pod itself looked like a sub; oval type
shape overall with propellers mounted on a small wing on each side. However, in
the sand at the back of it was a single rail leading down the beach and into
the water. It made sense I suppose. After we were all dosed with the cure and
inducted into the program, Nex-Bio Corp had moved our family to a company owned
house on the beach; the same house we’d fled from a year ago.
Just then I heard a small voice and looked to the front of
the pod just in time to see two heads poking out of the doorway.
“Daddy,”
Sophie said, “where are we?”
I stood
there staring at my beautiful children in silence for a few moments. Growing
up, we’d always been told “You are the future.” But what I was looking at now,
those two small, innocent faces; that was the real future. I looked out over
the ocean, and back to the kids.
“Home, baby doll,” I replied. “We’re
at our new home.”
