Life and War in a wasteland

Growing up

I have heard stories about the few embers of civilisation that persist still. They live behind heavily fortified walls, manned by men so big, our ancestors would call them giants, with weapons that shoot metal so fast they can kill you in one shot. They care nothing of outsiders. The only thing on their minds is their juicy steaks, their entertainment and their soft bed that waits for them at the end of the day. I don't judge them. Given the chance, I would care for exactly the same thing. I wouldn't even think of their existence, if they weren't responsible for my situation right now.

I was born and raised in a collective, sheltered in the ramshackled ruins of a residential building. My life as a child was not so bad. I was playing hide and seek in the ruined building with two other kids my age, or soccer with a ball of rags. An older kid was my tormentor for some years, he used to pull my ear and hear me scream until help arrived from the adults, but that didn't last long. Soon he grew up and became more interested in his wife than little kids playing. I also had some schooling. I learned to care for our crops that we had on the roof, to read and write and some basic arithmetics. As I learned later from my father, I was very lucky to be born there. In other collectives, other people my age can barely communicate with each other with speech.

When I grew a bit older and my body got stronger, they started training me for battle. Wooden clubs, rusted pipes and rocks. We made sure to preserve our clubs very very well, to prevent rot. They were made from curtain rods, solid wood, made before the wars, thus very rare and strong. We took them out of their sheath only when we were traveling to the outdoors for water, herbs and maybe even hunt animals.

I can remember the first time I got out of our building, two winters after the beginning of my training. My father told me to stay close to him. He didn't like it that I was commanded to be part of the mission. I saw the remains of the old city. The majority of buildings being completely collapsed. Whenever we were seeing buildings standing, we were changing our route. Those were the homes of our enemies, my father had told me and in my mind I was picturing hunched monsters with long nails that were feeding on human flesh. But those monsters were living in buildings just like our own. Some broken walls, chipped away paint and heavy barricades at all the entrances. On the streets there were huge holes on the streets. Craters from a war, my father told me.

I remember when I was just a little older than a toddler, being scared from the sounds and fire of war. For some time, maybe for five winters, war was frequently visiting our ruined city. When it happened we all run to our basement and waited out for the explosions to stop. Our basement was open and vulnerable from all sides and I remember being worried for the possibility of enemies coming in. My father reassured me that we didn't have to worry about our enemies, nobody would dare travel out on the streets as long as war was going on and the giant warriors with the firearms were not interested in us. We had to stay in the basement, because one miscalculated explosion could bring the building down. We spend days and days under sturdy tables or anything else that seemed robust enough. The eldest or the most fearless of us ventured on the roof during the day to manage our crops. Because nature doesn't wait for wars to stop.