《The Junkyard and Other Short Stories》


 The Junkyard

    Exworth was without a doubt the most boring town in all of America. It was not small or rural enough to have any charm. It was not large or diverse enough to have any interest. It was a solitary grey splotch of suburbia in an otherwise featureless piece of nowhere.


    On the outskirts of Exworth there was a single junkyard that was the home of many broken and abandoned treasures. Seeing as this junkyard was the only noteworthy thing about the town it attracted many children and teens in search of entertainment.


    Alex was once told that the government had been transporting nuclear weapons over the town when they very nearly accidentally dropped them. Since then Alex has been convinced that the world would end in their lifetime, if not intentionally then from sheer stupidity. Alex was of course correct in this assumption. Alex found the space around the junkyard a convenient location for creating a small garden of edible and medicinal plants. They also found the junkyard a fun spot to practice scavenging for supplies.


    Quinn was brimming with creativity seemingly from the moment of her conception. Every small inconvenience in her life would eventually evolve into an idea for some invention or another. Quinn thought that the junkyard was the perfect spot for finding scrap bits and pieces to add to her contraptions. She built herself a workshop on the outskirts of that junkyard and it was in that workshop that she spent most of her time.


    Mason was practically born feral. He was born with a pet dog, courtesy of his parents, and he soon acquired another dog, every stray cat in the neighborhood, and a few ravens that loyally follow him after having been fed. Training a small army of cats and birds was frowned upon in residential areas so when Mason was not busy volunteering at the local shelter he found himself at the junkyard.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    The three of them spent all of their days in the junkyard. Alex grew in their gardens food and medicine for the three of them. Day after day passed and the group grew more and more thankful for the food and medicines that they grew because it was becoming difficult to get to a grocery store or a pharmacy safely. Each little thing that Alex grew was something that the others did not need to find a way to buy or steal.


    Quinn kept building little contraptions and bits and pieces of technology. Day after day passed and the group grew more and more thankful for the little contraptions as it seemed to be getting more and more difficult to get power without a homemade generator and it seemed to be getting more difficult to be friendly with strangers without a radio length distance between them. Each little watt of energy was a thing that they wouldn¡¯t need to worry about later.


    Mason kept to his pets and his animals. Day after day passed and the group was thankful for the increasing number of birds and critters Mason kept around as they all knew that there were fewer trees for them to live in otherwise. Each little critter that Mason took in was a small little life that they could save.


    Day after day and month after month the group of young teens grew into older teens. Month after month and year after year the three of them lived day by day as they had been.


    One day the three of them were sitting together in the junkyard and they realised that during the day by day life of theirs the world had been ending, piece by piece.

 Bug In

    It was monotonous. Wake up. Do chores. Eat. Go to bed. How long had it been this way anyhow? Ady was supposed to keep track of time. There was a clock on the wall that attached to a solar panel up above ground. The clock said it had been five years. Ady knew that in five more years things would change.


    ¡°About ten years¡± a memory. Ady tried to dwell on those because at least they were something other than the present. ¡°About ten years, maybe a bit more. Then the dust will fall from the sky and it will be safe to leave.¡±


    Wake up. It was an uncomfortable bunk tucked into a corner in the gray room. The air was always musty and damp but at least it was breathable. That was better than most. Chores consisted mostly of tending the gardens. They grew from grow lights that worked from a solar panel somewhere up above ground. The main focuses were nutrients and preservability, far above taste, so the only things that grew were dull vegetables that were canned and eaten daily.


    Ady spent the rest of every day sitting at the door or by a radio listening. The door shook every few hours every day. Ady swore that faint voices were at the other side whispering ¡°is anyone there?¡± or more often  ¡°I need help please please¡­¡± someone would say ¡°I have a child, they¡¯re sick¡± or  ¡°I have a wife¡± or more often ¡°I just want to see another person¡±  Ady could sympathise. Other than the picture on the wall, when was the last time they saw another person anyhow? You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    The radio used to work. A memory. It used to play music and news and other interesting little things. It was always obscured by static but there used to be voices. Nowadays it just plays static. Ady could sit by the radio for hours and listen. Sometimes it sounded like there was a voice on the other side. It always faded away before they could say anything comprehensible.


    Ady ate canned vegetables. The same thing every day. Some days it was sunny out or Ady found a new tank of gasoline in another row of hidden storage and there would be just enough energy to heat it up. Most days Ady wouldn¡¯t bother.


    After eating, Ady would walk from the garden through the rows and rows of storage where people used to be. They would find themselves back at the row of empty bunks and climb into the one tucked into the featureless gray corner. It was monotonous.

 Of Hearth and Home

    The old world had bards and poets and storytellers once long ago.


    The old world used to tell stories about gods. There were two who lived below the ground, Hades and dread Persephone. They were of death and oft unnamed for fear that a name might gain their attention. Above the ground in a mountain lived twelve others. They were Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Artemis, Athena, Ares, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hephestus, and Hermes.


    You may notice that above I only listed eleven when I said there were twelve and that was because the twelfth varied from telling to telling.


    When I find books of the old world and they list the twelve gods they will either list Dionysus, a god of alcohol and madness and death in his own way, or Hestia of hearth and home.


    I suppose in the old world they never prayed to her or any of the other gods as the old world only recorded them in storybooks telling of how they used to be worshiped.


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    I always had the feeling that Hestia of hearth and home knew that she had been forgotten. Do you think she was there as homes were destroyed and brought down to ashes like an act of the gods by the hands of man? Do you think she watched as the fire of her own design was harnessed for destruction and turned against the very humanity she had always protected?


    Even today as I wander in a world of ruin with only the ashy echoes of what humanity used to be around me I feel that she watches. I wonder if she feels wrath, the divine kind, at a world of people without a home.


    I remember waking up with a screaming siren in my ears and hearing the panicked scrambling of my parents outside of my room. I saw a light shine through my window, so bright it looked like day had come early. It looked like some divine act of wrath as the burning glow lit up my room. A rumble in the distance rang out as buildings fell, quickly followed by a deafening boom like the voice of a god. In an act of man looking like the act of god the world as I knew it ended.


    I pray to Hestia often. A return to the world of hearths and homes would be most appreciated, but I mostly just pray for myself. For the goddess of hearth and home.

 The First

    Meyer lived a life full of hope and music, unlike many who came before him. Meyer loved the world he grew up in despite how broken everyone insisted it was. People often spoke of an old world he had no chance of remembering. Those people spoke of a bright sun filled sky that would not burn unprotected skin and air that did not need to be filtered through a gas mask. Meyer had no need for sun and sky in his already joyful life.


    Meyer was not the only child. Not long after him came others, and there were now four kids for the people to worry about. Meyer was not the healthiest child. That honor went to Edna, the youngest yet, who seemed largely unaffected by the cough that haunted everyone who dared to live on a dead planet. Meyer, however, was the oldest and had the strongest capacity for hope.


    People spoke to Meyer like a blessing and a tragedy. He was a burden borne to a dead world. He was the first chance for humanity to start anew. He was doomed to a life of loneliness and he was the future, if he had a chance at living long enough for either fate. Meyer never understood the reverence people showed to him. He thought the only unique quality he held was perhaps that he was the oldest of all of the children he knew.


    Meyer loved life. He did everything with excitement. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    He went outside with a gasmask on. Four layers of jackets and gloves to keep the fallout from reaching his skin and a bullet proof vest underneath. The air was full of poison and the sky greyed with clouds. Meyer could not care less. It was a sad world and a dead world but it was his world  and he was the first born to it.


    The people raised all of the children with some of the same reverence and tragedy that they showed Meyer. Meyer brought childish games and much needed levity to their lives. He jumped with excitement in simple games of tag and encouraged the other children to carry the same sense of hope as him.


    The people moved from place to place, looking for a store to scavenge or home to take shelter in. They told stories of a dead world, a world that may as well never have existed. They carried white scars from fallout dust and cancerous illnesses from the air they breathed. As Meyer ran excitedly from person to person, singing songs and playing games they saw hope they otherwise would not dare to carry.


    And one day the people settled in a place. The dust in the air settled and life began once again to thrive in a dead world. The people chose a small patch of fertile land with clean water to rebuild humanity. Meyer loved the settlement and he loved the people in it. He carried within him the hope for a future the people could build for humanity.


    He was the first born to a dead world and the first to have hope within it. He was the first to lead a life of hope and music and he was the first to grow up in a world built for him. He led the generation he was in and the generation after. He was the first to grow old in a new dead world.

 The Wrong Side Of The Door

    Jay saw the world ending two days early.


    He was walking home on a busy road that day. A single helicopter flew overhead. It was grey, a military helicopter. An armored car drove next to him in the direction of the nearest shelter. Jay went home and turned on the news and nothing of note was happening. He felt there was a stillness in the air. Something was going to happen soon and he did not yet know what.


    He thought of those who drove by in the armored car and in the helicopter above. They knew what he did not and knew how to prepare for it.


    That night he saw the world end in vivid color. The knowledge that something was happening that he could not stop haunted his imagination. He saw his death and the death of the world he loved in a blaze of fire.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    The next day he tried to stop the end of himself. He did research in what the end of the world would entail and he did everything correctly. He bought potassium iodide to protect against radiation poisoning, canned food that would last into the apocalypse, goggles and layers and anything he could to keep the fallout dust off of his skin.


    The day after he realised that there was nothing that he could do. He drove himself to the shelter. Abandoned cars scattered outside of the door. The people within the shelter were those he would have never met. When he went to try to enter the shelter the door was already locked.


    He sat outside banging on the door begging to be let in. Anyone inside could have opened the door. Within was enough supplies to keep any number of people alive for as long as was needed. Anyone inside could have let Jay in.


    That night Jay''s vision came to fruition and Jay was on the wrong side of the door when it did.

 The Prepper

    Brooks fucking called it. At least they said they did often.


    Brooks saw it coming a mile away. They predicted everything down to the letter. They fucking called it.


    In their old life Brooks was what might have been called a deranged prepper doomer without any actual plans for their real life. Brooks had a storage full of non-perishables in case they could stay at home, a bag with days of supplies in case they had to leave in a hurry, and knowledge of every bunker and waterway and edible plant around just in case it mattered.


    Brooks was not exceptional at the time. Many others were just as determined in their own survival and just as willing to fight for it. They were not the only one who knew their stuff and were not the only one who had the right supplies.


    Brooks was only exceptional in one way. That was that it actually worked. Brooks somehow despite it all survived past the end into a new life.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    When it all went down they stayed home, stayed safe, bugged in and so did many others. Somehow Brooks was never shot in a supply fight or killed by radiation. When supplies ran low they left the home and knew exactly what stores to raid and what plants to eat and so did so many others. Somehow Brooks never misidentified and never starved. When supplies got better they found a safe place to settle and secure and so did a few others. Somehow Brooks never slipped up.


    Brooks survived when so many others didn¡¯t and despite the preparation and effort everyone else put in Brooks insisted that the reason why was because they called it. They saw it in advance, they knew what was coming, just like everyone else. But still they insisted that that was the reason why.


    Every other prepper, doomer, lunatic in the area died. They died slower no doubt, but they died nonetheless. Brooks somehow, despite it all, Brooks made it.


    They went from empty building to empty building. They spoke aloud to the no one listening. They saw the abandoned shelters, the supply stores, the maps, the bags, the everything needed to survive. And as they went never seeing another soul they insisted that the reason they lived was because they called it.

 Extended authors note

    Hi everyone! This has been a really fun project but I am excited to try to branch out and write things with a different theme and format. If you enjoyed reading this feel free to follow me as a writer so you can see whatever I post next! I hope to try to write some mythology inspired stuff and some longer fantasy in the future. I am not going to make any specific definitive plans yet but I hope to post by the end of August. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Thank you to all of you who read this! Even knowing people were looking at this was really different and exciting for my writing. I hope you guys will enjoy whatever I write next.