Bedrock: 2020

Chapter 1: The Girl on the Train

Imagine red velvet roses. Blue, flying,  cows hovering over your rooftop. Your average Hollywood superstars sipping morning tea on your bed. Imagine strips of rainbow light rays escaping your windows. Every night is dreamt to be a party night. But only in my dreams, is where everything is okay.

The sun escapes through the windows beside me. I rest my head lightly on my hand, staring beyond the glass. The views insist of clear-blue, fresh water lakes and forests with the healthiest and most natural trees you could ever come across. The views count as a once-in-a-lifetime moment to take in what the beauty of nature really looks like. But in my eyes, it's only a matter of time before these green trees turn into blood, spreading fire, spitting flames to humanity, giving it a taste of death. Any bushfire is a bitch, especially if one is living in Australia. Besides the perfect-looking nature outside the windows, my eyes turn to the inside of this old train. It reminds of a childhood film trilogy I grew up watching, the Harry Potter series. I can picture it perfectly because it looks like the train going to Hogwarts, but this train really isn't going to a place like Hogwarts, not at all.

Kids or more like teenagers, roam the seats, all playing little games and having fun while it lasts. I wish I was capable of doing the same, but I'm not that type of boy. I turn to the ever so old record player, if I'm correct it's playing some soft jazz, but no one has bother dancing to it. Maybe it's time to stop playing perfect and inform you on what's really happening. These kids look happy but they're scared, holding onto their lives like pieces of scrap metal, but in their eyes you can see the real soul-less sorrow. You have to be 13 or over to join the forces. No one bothers to sneak in or cheat the system, the guards that check for ID do it electronically, I mean come on, it's a new decade. I hit 15 this month, it's March, meaning it's already Autumn in Australia. Climate change is an ongoing problem as well, most of the bushfires cleared up after February but still in the dry places in the country, they're still roaring over towns and cities. I tend to talk a lot about the fires, I know; I watched most of my family die in the fires, they let me escape because I was the youngest. And no, you shouldn't have to think I'm sad or anything, I've seen worse on Television. So, that's one thing that's been going on with the country.

We don't use electricity anymore, so the train has candle light. Most countries try to hack into Government systems and infiltrate their missile systems as well, most people tend to use missiles for the battlefield as well, some just do it the old-fashioned way and use gas, like the Nazis or Germans did in the 1940s. But Australia uses both guns from World War One and made new ones as well as quick as they could, most Government money went into those companies to mass produce weapons. We never had legal laws for guns anyway, America did though, they came prepared and won a couple of the first largest battles in the history of war. Yes, I've said the word and I've willingly used it; we're in a never-ending war, the third World War, the war that never ends, the war of the decade, the century, or even in history. Civilization and humanity in general have demolished our natural, breathing world. Climate change, government corruption, starvation and airborne sickness, and now war. Millions have died in a matter of weeks, and if you take a look at Iceland, they've already fallen within the first week of the war. But I won't go into any more crucial details, you've dealt with enough information for the day.

The question that you might have is, who started the war? To answer that properly and truthfully, no one knows. People have their usual theories and specifics behind it all but there's no valid explanation for who really started it. Most just say they blame it on humanity, but then again these type of wars went back centuries ago. This is just the worst war in history.

This is my second day on the train, each of us sleep in separate, luxurious rooms. If you want me to describe mine, it's the same as all the others; an old-fashioned, 60s-type, rich, hotel-like room. But they don't bother caring about the cost of making it all, all the different parts of the train can hold up to 13,000 people. And they collect new recruits every week, being drafted into the main, active battlefields to prepare themselves for a painful but quick death. Hardly anyone we've heard of has come back since the wars, and more and more kids come on the trains because they need more troops. I decided to sign myself up for death, because no one these days has anything to live for, right? Anyway, maybe you're wondering about the adults, the people of the age 18 and above, they're all dead. They were the ones who were sent in the first weeks, but against the British, we're nothing but sore losers. No Australian has ever known how to handle a gun since ages ago. So we're now forced to fight for them, they say it's to avenge them but really none of us have a life to go back to. So this is why these kids that I see in front of me are having as much fun as possible, living their lives like they're over eighteen years of age because we all know we'll never get to that point alive. We're all just a bunch of useless, lost kids looking for something worth dying for, our friends. Unlike most, I have no alive friends except for some who I never saw since the start of the decade.

I sigh quietly and turn to a girl that has seemed to catch my eye. She's a short, blonde-haired, brown-eyed, introverted girl who has picked a favorite spot in the seat opposite to me, on my left. I've been staring at her since I stepped foot on this old train, not in a creepy way, she's attractive. She's the one girl on the train that I admire, maybe because she doesn't talk or doesn't seem to panic, which is what makes me curious of what went on in her life before. She's not the only one, all of us have changed dramatically, because there are no laws or rules anymore except the only rule, to be a part of the war and to fight for our country. But I know deep down in her beautiful eyes, I can see a darkness and a hidden, forgotten sadness that she's avoided. She seems empty, after whatever she had experienced, she seems truly empty. Her eyes have just stared beyond the window for hours straight, and I feel sorry for her. And another coincidence is that her room is next to mine, room 347. But I fear that once I get off this train and step into the battlefield, I'll never see her again, which is why I need to talk to her. Somehow, she makes me feel different, at peace, comfortable and no one has made me feel like that since I had my family around. And I need someone, someone beside me to talk to on this trip. I have five more days left of the week until we arrive at Goodwin's Field, one of the smaller battlefields. That's the location they told me I was assigned to fight. You know, I wish I could just run once I arrive. Run through the forest trees in the field and live a happy life in the wilderness. People have already tried that, they got shot through the process, the field goes on for kilometres and there are always surrounding enemies where ever you go. I just want something to hold onto before I get shot, before I die. And this girl on the train, she's something I can hold onto. But she's a total stranger to me, at least for the time being. And I know that within these five days, I will get to know her, get to hear about her life and what happened to her; why she's so empty. But my body still stays put in the seat on the left, no one is sitting next to me; I'm alone.

For now, I can only dream.