Dead Ohio Sky

Under the dead Ohio sky, the bones of men lay scattered across the gray fields. The fallout came swift and unrelenting, a storm of fire and ruin that left the world in ashes. Explosions shattered the innocent, and then darkness fell. New York, Kansas, California. The vibrant cities were now reduced to smoldering toxic wastelands.

There was almost a beautiful silence that followed, the clouds swarmed far and wide. The effects from New York were evident in Northwestern Ohio, radioactive air killing everything. The silence was a heavy oppression, the only sound from the occasional crash of a falling tree or the distant howl of a dog, lost and searching for its human in the ruins.

Heading north meant certain death, the ash-choked air freezing the earth, temperatures plunging to lethal depths. The south was my only hope, though I knew not who had carried out this devastation—Russians, Iranians, it mattered little now. The world had been unmade in an instant, and all that remained was survival. The roads were impassable, littered with the wreckage of cars and the bodies of those who had tried to flee.

Alone but for my dog, Debo, the only light I had left in this horrific new world, I set my sights on the Gulf. The path promised danger along the way. All I had was the past, determined to salvage whatever pieces remained. In the distance, the horizon was a bruise against the gray sky, an omniscient unwelcoming presence.

As I trudged south, I witnessed the brutality of war. Fields once full of crops now lay barren. The stench of death was lingering, a constant reminder to the lack of life. I passed through abandoned towns, their buildings crumbling, windows missing, and the streets silent.

Debo stayed close, his presence the only comfort in the desolation. The nights were the hardest, the cold seeping into my bones, the darkness filled with the sounds of the dying world. I would sit by the fire, Debo's head resting on my lap, and think of my family.

The journey was a relentless struggle against the elements and the remnants of humanity. I encountered bands of marauders, desperate and dangerous, willing to kill for a scrap of food or a bottle of water, or worse- cannibalism. I avoided them when I could, killed them when I had to, the violence a necessity in this new reality. Each encounter left me more lost, more disillusioned, but I could not afford to stop. The landscape changed as I moved further south. I had to keep moving.

Debo and I reached the Gulf, the bruise against the gray sky a reminder of what we had lost, but also of what we had gained. In this new world, survival is finding life in the ruins.