The Future For Us

It was dark and gloomy, with leftover pieces of buildings flying everywhere. After the attack in Chicago, there’s nothing much that’s standing still. Sure, there are some buildings and streets, however there are only a few people left. As I walk up and down the streets I see all the fun memories in the exciting tall city buildings I have, well I used to have. Finally I came across my old school. I used to love dark and gloomy days like these because we didn’t even have to show up. That had me thinking about the last day I almost went to school.

It was a summer day in the city. As usual I was fighting my way out of going with my mom.

“BOO DOO DOO” went the tv as a news alert went on.

School was canceled which made me almost as happy as an Olympian receiving the gold. Whenever it looked very gloomy and cloudy outside, the government wanted to everyone to stay inside their homes in case a terrorist attack was coming our way. Only very few times has that actually happened. I jumped on my couch and turned on the tv. There were so many options but I went with the reality show of the astronauts living on Mars. That show was to die for! I clicked play on the remote not thinking anything else would happen other than the show to start playing. There was a loud rumble coming from outside. I dropped the remote and sprinted to my window to see what was going on. It sounded as if a spaceship was landing in my backyard. For some strange reason I didn’t see anything.

So I waited and shouted up the stairs “MOM DID YOU HE-” then POW. My entire street blew up. I was in shock and didn’t know what to say.

“Maria are you okay?” screamed my mom. We had to get out.

We both sprinted outside as fast as we could. Not only were we doing that but also were all of my neighbors. BOOM BOOM POW. The explosions kept coming. I was running, running for my life, running away from my home, running away from all my friends, running away from all my problems, there was no stopping. Until POW the building blew up right in front of me. There was no where to go and nowhere to hide. All I could do was stand there and cry.

“Come here” screamed a stranger. My mom and I didn’t know if we should trust him because he looked a little bit sketchy, but at this point, it didn’t matter.

He took us over to this ally that I’ve never seen before. The ally is right off of Michigan Avenue so I’m kind of surprised I’ve never seen it before, I walk past it everyday on my way home from school. However I kept on running away from the danger. My mom, the stranger, and I stayed there for another hour until the explosions ended.

“I think we’re good” whispered the stranger.

My mom asked “Is our town ruined.”

“Just a little” he replied.

We started to crawl out and Chicago looked like an entirely different place. Michigan Avenue was torn up, the Willis tower collapsed, and there were so many buildings and junk piled up in Lake Michigan. My heart stopped. The ruins of my town weren’t even the worst part. Right in front of me were several dead bodies piled up in each other. I have never seen anything as depressing as this in my life. They just kept on coming body after body.

“I have to go now” said the stranger.

“Wait where? How? Why? What’s even your name?” replied my mother.

“I just have to go. I hope you all find safety,” shouted the stranger as he ran away towards the big cloud of smoke. Still to this day I do not know the stranger's name.

My mother and I decided it would be best to just keep on walking. Every step led us a step closer to another building collapsed or a dead body on the ground. Finally after walking forever we made it to this small pub near Chinatown that still managed to be standing. Not only was it standing but some how a tv was operating too with the news blasting.

“It’s official, World War III has started,” said the news anchor with as much of a straight face as she could maintain. At that moment it looked like she was scared, scared as if she could die in any moment.

Then right then and there it hit me. Never in my life have I ever thought that I would be able to die any age before 70. In so many movies there’s always a happy ending to these wars. Usually the good and the evil make up and hug in the end. I wanted my hug, I wanted my happy ending. Sadly those are just movies and can’t always occur in real life.

We stayed at the same pub near Chinatown until help rescued us. It was the red cross coming to do their duty. Literally, they had to go to the bathroom but luckily they ran into us. We jumped into their van and got a ride all the way to Washington D.C. It was painful but so worth it. That leads me to right now. Since the war has died down, I have decided to come back to my main city Chicago. Seven years later this one town that I used to know and love still looks the same as I left it. This past weekend leaders around the world including our President and the leader of ISIS came on an agreement of ending this war. Hopefully this will be the last World War of them all. Sadly with some deaths and the destruction of the world, I sort of got my fantasy movie happy ending. Whenever there is a success in your life, there will always be challenges that lead to them. As Edmund Hillary once said “When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.”