Living without the lights on Ch4 pt 1

It was hard to tell if it was night-time or just dark outside. Either way the light seemed blinding on our weakened eyes. It was cold up here... yet not as cold as below in our shelter. I suddenly became aware of the starkness. There was nothing. I could see remnants of objects, bent street lights, fallen buildings to rubble. I could even see the dust in the wind. The dust stung our new eyes.
Faye shivered. She was colder than I. I stood there. Rooted to the spot as Faye slipped through my arms to the floor. The world was different. It cried. Time passed like nothing and still I stayed there, just looking at our 'utopia'. I wanted to scream yet my mouth was firm and I wanted to cry yet I'd no tears left. The horror of it kept me still. I didn't notice that Faye had gone for a while. She had come back now and was trying to say someting but her words were half lost in the wind. I crouched lower so she could place her mouth to my ear.
Her cracked voice told me how she'd found water. Told me that she'd found our old blankets in our rubble of a house. Found a jar of something that looked edible. I nodded and hoped. She led me along; like I was a ragdoll or one of those toys with wheels on a string.
Indeed, she had found our blankets. They felt even softer now, the fabric of the duvets were unused in a long time and the down inside hadn't bunched up into awkward clumps. We grabbed them, it was like we'd flipped a switch and turned to survival mode. I started to scrabble in the rubble, looking for something to carry our little belongings in. I found a schoolbag and emptied it's contents onto the floor.
She led me furthur into the ruin, under a beam that hadn't fallen and past walls that weren't walls but piles of plaster and broken timber. It was just about the kitchen when she stopped. The cupboards! How could I not have thought of them! They were filled when we had hidden inside the shelter... they must have something left in there. Inside it was like christmas. We saw a pure heaven in food. Tinned raviolis, peaches in syrup, cans of vegetables in brine or oil, tinned fish like mackrel and salmon, even homemade jams and pickles. Our mouths watered simply looking at them. I put the bag on the floor and crammed as much of the food I could in. Soon realising I'd need a few more bags. I sent Faye to look for more bags in the rubble as I carried through the cupboards and drawers looking for thinsg we'd need. I opened the side pocket to the bag and started placing in my finds. Lighters, matches, can opener, pen knife, cutlery, cups, a saftey pin that might be needed, a small bottle of iodine and at the back of the medcines cupboard I saw what I knew I'd need, The bottle of Rat Pellets, lethal to more than just rats. Faye came back with a suitcase and two more school bags. We filled them all with food and supplies.
"Can we eat something now Rachael?" Her bony hand pointed to a jar on the top, a plastic jar of pineapple chunks in juice. It was resealable so I twisted the lid and pulled a few chunks out for Faye. They looked so big in her little fingers and it was most probably more than we'd eaten in a long time. But who knew if we were going to survive? We might as well eat and live now. I picked an equal amount of chunks for myself and closed the lid.
The sweetness of that stringy fruit was the most amazing thing, like a firework of flavour in my mouth, I chewed it until it was mere mush and no flavour and swallowed hard, putting another glorious chunk into my waiting mouth. Faye seemed overjoyed at the food aswell and had perked up slightly.
"So you said you found water?"
"Yeah, you know we used to have a pond in the back garden... "
"Uh-huh"
"Well that's it."
We wandered to that place.
That wasn't a pond... It was a lake of giant proportions that gave birth to life and the cool liquid miracle of water.

Living without the lights on Ch3 pt2

I shiver and pull the blanket close around my body, my ribs sticking into the fibres with rebellious abandon. I scrunch my toes and hear the clicks of the aching bones. The warm movement of stiff muscles and the harsh feel of the blanket against the skin.
My clothes felt so thin, nothing could keep the cold out. I know the water had been finished just yesterday and I could feel the dryness in the air.
I hadn't heard a sound in the shelter for a few days other than the eerie echo of my own laboured breaths. I feared the worst yet couldn't go near what I supposed were the corpses of my family as it would have been too real. I found my face wet, just thinking of that.
Without thinking my skeletal arm emerged from the covers and felt for a body. Soon my bounty was found in a cold shoulder, soft and cold. yet the faintest of pulses remained in that skin. Relief washed over me and quivered in my fingers as I wretched my own body up. The floor seems unreal... so hard and unforgiving yet more real than the edges of my mind. I stumbled blind into the black, arms outstretched for signs of life. It was too quiet. I forced sound from my chapped lips.
"Are... you... alive." the words scraped like sandpaper against scabs. just Faye made a noise, an unintelligible yet alive noise. There was nothing else and my face wettened again.
My hands came upon a foot, sticking out from a cover and it moved up the leg. It was hard, cold and belonged to Lilac. I tucked a cover over her exposed foot and crept over to the face. I felt her face. She had slipped away asleep or at least with her eyes closed. Her face was so soft, like a smooth marble. I will never forget that feeling. My hands wandered across the sheets to another body. Huddled close to Lilac. Georgina and then my mother. They died together on the long bunk, hopefully peacefully, or as kindly as my mind would allow me to believe.
I went back to Faye. Clutched her to my shoulders and strained for her weight to lift.
She was so light it felt like nothing. But I could hardly feel anything. I told her that we were not going to die. Not here. We were going to see the sun one last time, or try to survive. Her hair fell against my shoulder and I pushed her onto one shoulder and grappled with the barred hatchway. The lock was stiff but after a short shove let way. The hatch was heavy. Like something was placed against it.
I stood Faye on the wooden step. Felt her sway in weariness and hold onto my jeans just for balance. I used the remainder of my little strenght and struggled against the exit. It opened and a pattering of rubble dust fell upon us. There was a small shaft of light and we glanced at our family once more. Together. I picked Faye up again and we ventured into the unknown.

Living without the lights on Ch3 pt 1

I don't know how many days I have been laying here on this campbed.
The air around me is cold, too cold and my skin prickles with goosepimples. I pull the blankets closer around my corpse.
My sister Faye is asleep next to me, her breath brushes against my cheeks but is not a relieving warmth.
The darkness is too quiet. Too black. Too encompassing. I can't tell if my eyes are open or closed, there isn't any difference.
My sock has slipped half off my foot and I push it fully off with my toes, I can feel the soft fuzziness of the blankets but the cold of it is just too much.
I reach down to put the sock back on and the rustle of the blankets breaks the deadly silence in the shelter.
"Are we still alive?" a hoarse voice echoes into the room.
I comfort Lilac and stand up to get some water.
We're running out surprisingly quickly. I don't know what to do when we do run out.
I feel out for some food and my hand scrapes against the sharp edge of a can. I carefully reach in and my hand touches the strange liquid and lumps inside. I cup a few of the lumps and taste them. Barely un-frozen baked beans and some thin tomato sauce. I feel inside the can and fish out the rest, hardly two mouthfuls.
The hunger rips through my body and I shake in the cold. I hurry back to the bunk, knowing that when my shin hits the rough fabric of the top blanket that I can collapse underneath them.
I think I closed my eyes and felt the comfort of my weary mind return.
As I left the waking world I could hear Lilac talking, saying "Are you sure?".
Honestly I don't know, but I hadn't the strenght to open my mouth.

Living without the lights on Ch 2 pt 2

But that was a long time before I was born. I was born at 12:36pm on the 20th July 2093 in Worthing District Hospital at a not so healthy 4lbs 2oz. I was the first born of eventually, four girls, Lilac, Georgina and Faye.
My name is Rachael and I am just 17 in the year 2120 – one hundred years since the station was built. The rest of my life is really just filler until The Day. I fell down the stairs once and broke my leg; I have a scar on my arm from falling through a pane of glass when I attempted to run into the patio door and my parents split up in 2108. As I have mentioned before, just the everyday filler.
Today we watched as the nations of people who hated us died in flames and we still suffered, not because of the physical implications that were inevitable, but because... I don't know. I think it's that we are all human and human life would be so indefinitely precious to us if only we could understand why it should be.
So we wept in the shelters, for those who died, for those that caused it, for those that will die and lastly for ourselves – we were as far as we were certain the only ones still drawing breath into our lungs, and the only ones here to witness the end of humanity. What more could be have been so sure of?
The dim lights in our shelter flipped off, the underground cables had been jolted and snapped our power. I tried other electrical items like the radio and the television, but none flickered into life.
We were cut off from the world, in darkness and too scared to open our hatchway in fear of death. Now, we were truly alone. We huddled together on the camp-beds in the shelter and my mother, sisters and I pulled the covers on to fall asleep. If we died, it was together and if we survived we would stay together. Faye was still weeping into my arms as I drifted off into a painful, dreamy sleep. I knew no better comfort now than the echoes in my mind and the warm touch of our hands as we left our dark world.

Living without the lights on Ch 2 Pt 1

Here in England, we watched the devastation from within our fallout shelters. After the NWII (The Second Nuclear War) it was pretty much standard for everyone to have large shelters underneath their homes. Massive storage with freeze-dried, dried, pickled, candied, canned – all in all, so much food that in the event of war, the citizens of Great Britain would survive at the least.
I didn’t know at that moment how many others had successfully managed to get to their shelters, but I feared for my family and friends, even my enemies.
Back in the year 2020, Britain had cast off from European ties, although, not from choice but from dismissal from a group of peers. Britain was the little cousin with the snotty nose and annoying voice that the family didn’t speak much about since they peed in the pool last summer. Ok, more of a state of corrupt politicians with too little power for their liking and an adapted view of democracy who lead the whole of Europe into the First Nuclear War. That war lasted only six years but ground over half of Europe into ashes and memories, hardly more than one eighth of Britain was damaged let alone gone altogether.
Europe had tried to be rid of Britain since and there was always a horrid of taste of hate that floated across the Channel ever after we were dismissed.
Soon after we were dismissed they built that station. We were unable to access that power and many people immigrated to Europe, looking far back along their genealogy until they found some European blood so they could be accepted to the country as a legitimate immigrant. If you couldn’t find any in six generations on one of the sides of your family they turned you away, and as ‘pure’ English, you were even unable to travel into the continent to go elsewhere.

Living without the lights on ch 1 pt 2

On The Day, security guards to the station started to disappear, later found dead or severely wounded. The nuclear reactors were sabotaged, the control rods were removed or replaced with more radioactive material, the station was drenched in petrol rations of the protesters, bought rations and those they were allowed by the government – a huge bomb waiting to go off, and the petrol was set alight, the reactor switched on for the last time.
Needless to say, most of Europe was destroyed, plumes of gas and the contained pollution were spilt out, burning oils and ash filled the air and rose up to the atmosphere, blocking the sun from most of the world, radioactive material was ejected all round, the invisible danger emitted over the globe. All of the surrounding area was ablaze until few areas on the main continent weren’t aflame. Rain couldn’t quench the fire and the toxic fumes created acid that killed most of the aquatic life in lakes, and threatened the seas, everyday more creatures washed ashore, radioactive and acidic, unable to be eaten and dangerous to the surviving animals.
Mainland Europe was floored, the entire area looked carpet bombed and no living creature was able to get near. The huge metal dome like a burst spot, the power cables that remained set alight and travelled to further regions that were largely unaffected before and burnt areas the size of towns in their wake. Crops failed under the sun block and animals starved.
The shockwave of the blast sent earthquakes across the globe, triggered volcanoes and tsunamis unparalleled before. It sent a shockwaves so large sky scrapers in New York fell. Islands were engulfed under the massive waves and the super-volcano of Yellowstone Park in America was jolted awake… sending more devastation across the globe and remitting many of the problems. The Earth it seemed – was dying. And the hum of the world fell silent – life as it seemed – stood still.

Living without the lights on... Ch 1 pt 1

They’d all known that they were doomed when they built that industrial power station, big enough to power the entirety of Europe; it was ugly and stood with a defensiveness and hatefulness. Grey and dirty, but more efficient that several separate stations, the cables were thick and charged as they spread their web over the countries, protected under waters and high lining the skies – of course there were still separate stations where the massive station was opposed and here in England where the independent state ruled, but still it was the main energy supplier to Europe.
It spread over thousands of kilometres, burning tonnes and tonnes of fuel, nuclear reactors, wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams on every river it crossed – all creating a buzz and surge that filled the rooms with light and sound when those in Europe simply flipped the switch. Encased in a metal dome, recycling the waters, making the wastes into something new and useable, it was a dream suddenly in motion and ominous in its reality. Most of the old stations were destroyed, the building materials reused elsewhere, the old turbines moved the new station – it cost billions and revolutionised the European life. And it lasted for nearly a hundred years.

Although, all the safety measures, all the protection in the metallic casing, the recycling, reusing, sustainable energy, it was all faulted. Breaches in security had allowed the plans to be readily available by all who wished to see them by the grace of the internet search engine. Protesters against the mega station sabotaged the separate generators…

They jammed the wind turbines or removed the huge fins, broke the solar panelling with sledgehammers and hi-jacked all the trucks bringing in fuel to the station, dumping them in the reservoirs and rivers until the hydroelectric dams were beaten down or incapable of creating more energy than it used.
Then they all lived on energy rations; one half hour of energy output per person in a household per day, no more than eight people per household and no luxury electrical devices, no hairdryers, no more than an hour of computer usage per day, no television, no hoovers, no lights during the day, no stereos, no tumble driers, no dishwashers, nothing that couldn’t be done by the sweat off of your own brow. It was all on the strictest of timers per household and as soon as your ration was up – there would be nothing but darkness in the houses.
But they survived; candles were no more just something you kept for during blackouts and hallowe’en nights, but a staple in the home, fires in the home rather than radiators – children learning how to make quilts, knitting, crochet, carving ornaments, making furniture with hand tools, even lots of adults learning the skills.
They lived off of the small surviving stations and the nuclear reactors in the mega station, the entire of Europe, living on a handful of stations. Some people even sold off their rations, and made do without for days or weeks on end, only using energy when the clothes they wore were too dirty to last longer.
There was a halt in new manufactured goods. Hand-me-downs between families, charity shops and reclaim, sharing the wealth and selling old furniture rather than just throwing something away, fixing items that failed – it became vogue. Wearing things you made with your hands, hand stitched, hand knitted, remade from scraps of fabric – Europe became resourceful to a point of pre-industrialisation. But it wasn’t enough for the protesters, and then came The Day.

Living without the Lights on...Prologue

The icy tundra wind was edged with a note of sadness on the second day of pain – and it bit at the skin with extra ferocity, chapped the lips and kissed the flaked skin with a false love.

Inside a kernel of warmth hidden under the white flurries that flew and danced outside, was a fire crackling, the resin seeping and sticky on the logs and filling the room with a gentle pine scent, a clatter of cutlery and crockery immersed in soapy water.  Suddenly the wooden door flew off the hinges and the glass the man was holding fell on the floor.
Snow blew past the monster in the doorway, the door in tatters about it, blood and ripped muscle and sinew stuck to its frozen limbs. Its face was twisted and frostbitten, the nose and ears green and dead, the eyes framed with icicles and the lips blue. Guttural, primal noises filled the air and the creature paced forward, slow and frozen. The fire blew out and the tiny house was bathed in darkness.

Welcome

Hello short story lovers!
As this is my first post I find it obligatory to say a little something about myself, so here you go I guess:

• I'm an 18 year old full time student in the UK.
• I work in a nursing home, and I clean, fix clothes, cook and also do kitchen assistant - I'm just awesome.
• I have a very, very rare problem with my brain. I am the first person to have this problem in the world; I have a form of congenital cortical dysplasia. By the time the sufferer reaches 18 the problem clears up. In me however, the problem is getting worse and my neurologist says he's never even seen it documented before... so I'm also special.
• I am very humble, my awesome-ness and specialness just shine through too much.
• I am me, nothing else and nothing more. Unabridged, unadulterated and raw.

So that's all for this post, my first part of a short story will be posted in a while and I hope to post regularly on a saturday at some point during the day. Expect a progress update/small personal blog once in a blue moon. But most importantly enjoy, leave comments and any helpful critques, no trolls please.

All the best, Rouxlette (like roulette) x