The End

Memorial Tribute: Atomic war from the perspective of the innocent victims.

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The End

 

"Mama," a little girl said. She tugged on her mother's skirt, "Mama," she said again. The mother looked down into her four-year-old's large brown eyes. The girl's straight black hair pulled into two ponytails, swayed as she turned her head to look upward. She pointed a small baby finger into the air. "What's that?" she asked sweetly. The mother looked to where her daughter was pointing. It took her a few seconds to figure out what the black circle was. She screamed and grabbed her daughter up into her arms to shelter the child.

All around the park parents ran to their children, pulling them off slides and swings. The children's questions were drowned out by the adults' screams. Seconds later everyone and everything was silent, never to be heard of or recognized again.

 

A bride and groom walked out of a church. A loud cheer went up from the crowd gathered outside. Parents and friends came up to say goodbye, wish them luck, and comment on how beautiful the bride looked in her flowing white gown. Suddenly a deafening crash rang out. Debris showered the couple and the crowd. The bride buried her face in her husband's chest and he held her tight.

Screams replaced the cheers, but only for a few minutes. One by one the bride saw her parents, friends, siblings, and finally her beloved husband of five minutes die. She kneeled down next to her husband and died crying.

 

A man burst into a house practically tearing down the door. "Quick," he yelled, "Get to the shelter. Leave everything, just go." A woman came running with a baby. A ten-year-old boy came down the stairs. Together they hurried to the shelter behind the house. The man closed and secured the heavy metal door as he praised himself for having the sense to build a bomb shelter. Being in the military allowed him access to incoming radio reports, even when off duty, which were what warned him to get his family to safety. They heard the crash, and the woman began to cry. The boy tried to comfort her but was obviously scared himself. "Don't worry," the man said, "this will stand up to anything known to man." Just then the shelter became a tomb as it came crashing down around them.

 

Miles off from all these scenes were others like them. People dying slowly and painfully of radiation poison. Children clinging to dead parents. Mothers nursing their babies with burning breasts in the hopes of keeping them alive. People screaming as their skin burns off in front of their eyes. A child watching in horror as his sixth birthday becomes the worst, and maybe last, day of his life...

 

And high above, safe from the agony, horror, and death, a man in a plane pulls out a gun, put he barrel in his mouth, and wishes he had the guys to pull the trigger.

 

Jennifer Michelle