The missile dropped and Smallsville started burning. It came with interesting side effects. People burning. Running. Trying to get to safety but burning, crying and dying. The air became darkened with some soot and smoke like fire sending people to their graves. The airport has fallen too and no plane could fly anywhere. Everything came to a stop and most planes were thrown into the ocean like a space.
"Come on duck behind that plane, the fire won't get to you." A man shouted at some children when they stood in the road crying.
"We can't," one of them said. He looked older than the rest and beside them was a dead man. The man came down from his car and quickly ran across the road to get to them. As he reached them his car burst into flames and he had to run with the children.
"Come with me," he said. They ran to the side of a lone plane standing in the shade. It seemed okay.
"We'll stay here now. Hope something better comes our way."
The youngest among them started crying.
"Where is daddy? I want to go home."
The man took him into his hands and said. "Boy, calm down. Home is here."
That moment a flying blade coming from the east smashed into them and the man's head was spun around like a crazy wheel. The boys ran.
The fire continued stronger, grabbing major buildings into its fold. Folding them up like files and making more people anxious and not ready for what comes next. Everyone is now running. Ten cars drove into the airport's western wall at once. People ran left and right. The darkness increased and wafted away their thinking, making them more emotional about everything and because of that people continued dying.
It wasn't funny but the fire touched the fortress. It has been empty since Alpha's disappearance. The doors were left opened and rodents scurried about enjoying their life till the fire came and roasted them into edible chunks. It was like a play when they saw it coming.
"Move. Move," Sam said. He ran towards the gate to make sure everyone was in good shape before they ran out. They had a coke to get some people who later got there to be saved but on getting there they found a phone amidst the destruction and no food. So the woman in charge dialled the first number found on the phone. It was Alpha's phone and the first number was Catherine's.
"Hello, please I'm with some children. We need food. We have been here for days. Please help."
"Where are you?" Catherine asked. She knew Alpha might be dead but right there she thought how could the voice with the phone get his phone.
"We are in a fortress. I don't know where but in Smallsville.."
"Okay. Don't worry, we'll come to get you."
"Thank you. Thank you…"
The fortress started burning after the impact of the shock wave. The aftermath of the missile wouldn't be that simple for them, the Dikkorps knew this. The fortress started burning from the left side then rapidly the fire engulfed The right side turning walls into ashes.
It started burning fiercely as they ran across the street. They have gotten the woman and the children.
"Sarah," Catherine yelled. Her voice was shaking. "Sarah, be fast."
Sarah ran up to them with a boy, the woman and three other children. They shouldn't be more than six years old. The woman is pregnant and somehow can't run faster. They had to pull her along since the fire was running after them like waves from an ocean. The fire had engulfed the fortress and its fumes and ashes will grace the land and soon afterwards people might see it as relics. They ran towards the alley, breaking into two teams because the fire was coming from all angles.
"Duck behind that tree. It's coming this way." Sarah said. She ran towards the maple tree holding one of the children. The others were following and shouting and panting harder as they went.
Minutes later they ducked behind the maple tree. The fire ran faster than merged with the larger forested area leading to the main road. Later the tree's canopy began dropping fire like it was raining. It was one of the children who first noticed it.
"Fire is falling," she said.
"What!"
They ran again now further into the empty road with burning twigs and falling branches.
"Smallsvile is going down," Catherine muttered after they got back into the bonker. "Everything is hot. What do we do next?"
She walked toward the bathroom realising that she signed up for this and more. She knew leadership comes at a cost but she never really wanted to have that experience.
"Sam, what do we do next?" She asked anxiously.
Sam walked back into the bunker holding a bag filled with potatoes. He dropped it on the floor and said:
"I don't know what should be done next. But I'll say we should wait."
"We might die soon," Sarah said. She held one of the children closer. She's chubby and blonde like the two other children they have in the tiny room closer to the bunker's bathroom.
"We should have an exit plan," Catherine said. She walked toward Sam to inspect the bag. The potatoes are still intact and they only need to cook them well before eating. Now that there is fire everywhere it'll be easier to cook. She thought and smiled.
"Bring in the bag. We need to protect it with our lives."
"Catherine, don't you think we need more?" The pregnant woman said. She spoke for the first time since they got back to the bunker. She is a mulatto with longer locked hair. She wore a nightgown that was rough and dirty at the edge.
"We will see to that," Catharine answered and glanced over at the bag. " Sam got that bag from the fortress last week. It's harder to get any now. You saw the fire burning down the fortress."
"Yeah." She nodded. Her brow contoured into waves. She looked younger that way but when relaxed she looked like an older woman. She was from Fifth Alley too and she looked like one of those scientists working there.
"I will see if we can improvise after this finishes. We can also eat organic stuff around. But don't worry," she said and walked towards Catherine.
"I'm a molecular biologist. We'll see what we can do." She smiled and held her stomach. It looks bigger than when they were on their way coming and the tacky nature of one of the boys made Sarah mad but she couldn't voice her anger. She knows the boy needed to be afraid but at the same time, she hates him. They came down from her lap and walked to the bag then said.
"What's in here? Can I play with it?" He began smiling and some of the other children joined in. Catherine looked at them and smiled. Hope is good sometimes but then there are times it turns out to be another fad.
"So we will be patient on this. And when famine comes we embrace it. It's here and ready."
The pregnant woman nodded and stared hard at the floor. Thoughts running in her head. She thought she would have not gotten pregnant in the first place. She thought she could have said no to her husband. He died during the rain and now she's alone trying to go survive the fire. The fire that landed to end their world and replace them with cyborgs or something else. She has been thinking in that line too. Bumping into ideas, throwing them around in her head and then sitting back to hope for the better.
"All we have now is hope," she said.
"Yeah," Catherine muttered. "That's all we've got."
Somehow she has forgotten she's a scientist though she dabbled in thought experiments sometimes and tried solving hard problems now she is consumed and her thinking isn't focusing on most things. It's a colour wheel.
***
Most of the Alleys have been turned into a dark world and every living thing seems to have stopped living. The trees are burned down and houses with memories of people have been turned into nothing. The werewolves and humans aren't around. Most have died in their houses, and hideouts and most were still running. The missile touched down and scattered throughout the years of building. It's from there that advanced military experiments John Dikkorp started fifty years ago. He mastered the trick of warfare and now his missile dropped for the first time.
Outside of the three islands, there was no connection with the other worlds. For them, the global economy broke down two centuries ago and now they need to break away from each other too. John Dikkorp, Maddy and the other elites they use as pawns knew at some point they needed to either win over Smallsville or let her go extinct. After the extinction, they planned to repopulate it and make it theirs forever. They are certain they aren't dying but the other elites will die and others will replace them.
***
"What are we doing next, guys?" Sarah asked. She sat beside the wall where they have a makeshift lab to run things. The laptop on the table was the only thing connecting them to the world and now the internet is down and the batteries they have are running out of voltage.
"It's going to be like forever here, right?" One of the boys asked. He looked older than the others and they had not even asked them about their names.
"Forever?" Sarah said. Catherine and Sam are outside trying to make sure they find some solution to the initial problem of the werewolves losing their identities.
"We can not be here forever?" They asked again.
"Not really. We can only be here for some time. The universe itself is in a state of chaos."
The boy giggled and moved closer to Sarah. The pregnant woman was watching and listening to them.
"That's entropy. We can never beat that. That's what my mum told me. She said the cosmic energy is built on that collapsed nature and that we'll fizzle out soon. So that end is coming now, I think."
Sarah smiled. She saw the intelligence in the boy. She wanted to continue the conversation but she could not. It's been a while since she reached out to her mother and she doesn't want to disturb her because she said she'll be fine.
***
When Damien saw what was happening he nearly ran mad for the first time in his life. He has never been more emotional than he felt. He ran to the pub again after leaving for an hour. He was with the boy when the missile was captured in the air. But he quickly went to his apartment to get his gun and some of his books. When he came back to see his companion he found the pub burning and the flame was too large for him alone to put out. If he dares to, he will roast alive. He ran back to the road to reach the backyard of the pub. Somehow he believes his boy will be saved from the fire because he's smart. Had it been he ran towards the road, he remembers he never for once asked the boy his name. He shook his head and continued running.
When he got to the backyard, the tree growing along its fringe close to a shallow garden of flowers had been burnt down and the flowers were gone too. Broken vases, roasted rodents and some stubborn insects keep moving in the sand. They are continuing their lives while Damien thinks he needs to find his.
He trotted towards the back door that leads to a second door and that leads to the pub's door and yanked it open with his leg. The door fell like a fallen god and crumbled into tiny chunks. He started looking around and moving to shout a name he thought would be good for the boy.
"Bard. Are you here? If you can hear me come out, please. Bard! Bard!!! Are you there."
He walked around for some minutes without stopping once. He called him and called but no answer came. He sat down in the ashes staring at everything before him, starting inward and thinking of what to do next. He still hasn't gotten himself back but the new self he found makes him feel more vulnerable to him. He still thinks he needs to get his old identity back.
He sat there looking. Thinking. Not knowing what to think. He grinned and stood up then he sat down again. A thought came to him, it was Baldwin's words ringing in his head. It was about freedom. He chuckled and strolled to the next door saying Baldwin's words.
"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn’t got to have an enormous military machine to be un-free when it’s simpler to be asleep, when it’s simpler to be apathetic, when it’s simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important."
He walked through the door after it fell to the ground just like the first one. Soot filled the air and he I'muckled again and continued walking towards the fire.
***
When the missile dropped the boy ran after the shockwaves. It threw him down and he got bruised in the face. He ran into a house. It was empty with utensils littered around. Shattered ketchup tin, lettuce, tomatoes and forks and an opened freezer with rotten chicken wings in it. He entered the bedroom and found a bedspread tucked in the corner in a bassinet. He dabbed his face with it. Found some blood but the pain wasn't much. He smiled at the end.
"I will stay here for a while." He muttered. "I don't know how long."
He climbed the bed and dropped his bag to his side. He took out a book. It was the one they were reading a day before. He smiled somehow knowing Damien will be saved. He was just optimistic though he thought the other way round too. Coots started entering from the window. He stretched towards it and closed its shot. The last line they read came to his mind too and he smiled. Quietly he rested his head on the pillows and whispered the words coming to his mind.
"A country is only as good… only as strong as the people who make it up and the country turns into what the people want it to become… I don’t believe any longer than we can afford to say that it is entirely out of our hands. We made the world we’re living in and we have to make it over."
They are Baldwin's. Damien and he have been obsessed with his writings. They wished they met him. He was a human and not a werewolf.
He rummaged in his bag. His phone wasn't there. He left it in the pub when he ran through the backdoors before the fire.
"Damn it! I can't call him now. Where is my phone?" He rummaged again throwing out the books then flipped the bag over hoping he'll find his phone.
"What's this world turning into? Not even the werewolves are stronger again. I hope Damien is fine. I wish to tell him my name."
***
Damien walked into the flame. It was that stronger again the shallow flame nevertheless made his body hotter than what comes from the sun. He wanted to turn but lacks enough energy. He got it and continued shouting. The place was darker.
"Boy. Boy, are you here?" He found everything fallen including the tables and the bottles of wines and other drinks shattered and burning hot. He strolled to the toilet to check if he was hiding there. He once told him that's where he'll hide next time anything bad happens.
"Boy, are you there?" A bottle sizzled and hot air blew in from the broken windows.
"Boy, are you there?" I walked on. "I need to make sure you are safe. I owe you that. Where are you, boy?"
The blistering heat could not allow him to stay longer in the pub. He rushed out when he nearly choked. His face looked burnt and muffled like a doughnut forgotten in the oven.
"I have to find you mate. I have to. Won't give up easily on you. You are the only friend I've got in this world."
He pulled out the gun he got when he went to the bower, Catherine and others didn't know he took the gun. They never knew the gun was there. It was a second plan to me. He thought he needed to protect himself from other things while meeting with anyone. He held the gun to his head and started talking again.
"Boy, you gave me life. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know. Where are you, boy? Have you gone without me?"
He dropped to his knees and tears declined from his face like a waterfall.
"If you don't come back, boy, I'm joining you."
He held the gun up. It's from the Kalashnikov family. He pointed it to his forehead, breathed in and out and pulled the trigger.
***
The boy sat up in bed. He heard the sound and he knew it was from a gun. He grabbed the book closer to him. He has appeared them around him. His mind skipped and he went to the door with the hope of seeing Damien.
The sound of the gun was immense. His heart continued hoping that Damien will find him. He was shocked but went back into the room. He sat in bed. His face was saddened by everything. He flipped to a page and started reading. Damien thought of that stage of reading. That stage is when you have doubts and lots of questions in your head but answers unless you read a book. He flipped the page again and reached a page where it was a talk about existence and death and nihilism. He smiled and started crying. Everything seemed to blink around him. He hoped Damien would come around. He hoped the island would get better.
He flipped a page again and nearly the book got tired of him.
"What's the world doing to us? Why are we here in the first place? Why?"
He flipped again and found the picture of the city. The bridges in the background lead to the airport. He remembered he was travelling with his parents to Figma P when he took the picture. They are both dead now. They died during everything. He chuckled and shouted, "My name is Adam." He chuckled again.
"You fool. My name is Adam. You should have asked me. I was waiting for you."
He flipped the book again and found a picture of him and his parents. They smiled and he stood between them holding a globe. He was smiling too but like his parents. His mother had short hair and wore a nose ring. She's Bohemian just like his dad. They were both geneticists. They taught him the art of wine. He smiled and threw the photo across the room. His father's last words to him were before they got off the plane to Figma P.
"Son, it takes only an hour thirty minutes to fly across the islands."