AFTER THE FALL
"Post-apocalyptic interactive grungy city with aliens, quests, combat and
adult role play. Meteor showers blanketed the Earth, bringing with them
our doom. How will you survive?
On the verge of economic collapse, with the world in a very vulnerable
place, astronomers predicted frequent and disastrous meteor showers.
But they couldn't predict what came next... Dark and gibbering creatures
emerged from the impact craters, decimating everything in their sight.
As a human, how will you survive? As an alien, what's your next move?
After the Fall has an elaborate interactive grungy urban city, aliens,
and adult-themed role play."
Every picture tells a story and usually i leave that
story to your imagination, but today i want to tell
you the story behind the pictures.
(written with lots of help from a very dear friend~TY!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the meteors fell, I was living alone in the city, living the glamorous
life of retail sales, and trying to forget an emotionally abusive crook of
an ex. The eerily calm local news anchors were advising everyone to stay
in their apartments, and to duct tape our windows,
but when I looked down at the streets below, what I saw was terrified
people struggling and fighting, piling on anything with four wheels.
The reports from the the first populated areas to go thru the meteor
showers were horrid at first, insane and unbelievable, and then each
city went silent.
Nobody wanted to stay in their apartment and rely on hope.
I would never be able to fight for a place in the chaos on the streets.
My only choice was to hide, but not in my apartment, that was for damn
sure. I packed up what food I had, which wasn’t much, in my old college
backpack, and packed a little duffel-bag with towels and a blanket and
some minor supplies, put on an extra layer of clothes and a worn
running hoodie. In the mirror I looked suitably sexless and shapeless.
I had a minimal plan - find a hiding place, somewhere nobody would
think to search, as far away from normal human living areas as possible.
I knew where I wanted to start looking. The basement of this old
building was a maze of storage areas and tunnels. I would go down,
and hide like a cat.
Luck was with me, because I found a stinking janitors closet with a
massive wooden door that locked from the inside. Moldy rags,
ammonia, drain cleaner, roach powders, and rat poison packed a paint
spattered shelf, but, there was a treasure, a sink with running water.
I locked the massive old deadbolt lock, packed the rags against the
base of the door to block any noise I might make, and made a nest on
a painters drop cloth stiff with multiple layers of old paint.
And when the strange sounds came, booms and muffled noises that
might have been shouts or screams, I lay there and tried to be as
silent as the tins of rat poison.
Over the next few days, silence was my religion. I had pulled the battery
from my phone after locking the closet, because a somewhat paranoid
old boyfriend had told me that phones were like radio beacons shouting
“here I am” to the authorities. (I later learned he had reason to be
paranoid. But that’s another story.) I was so determined to be silent that,
no matter how much I longed to get some news of the outside world,
each time i nearly popped the battery back in, I stopped myself.
The food lasted a week. That’s okay because i was thinking i could stand
to lose a few pounds. The hot water had gone cold the second day, but
i had plenty of water at least, even though I could only turn the tap to
allow a tiny stream, because the old pipes were so noisy. Then the water
stopped flowing altogether. I lasted another day after that.
The closet stank.
I needed food and water.
I had to go out.
When I reached the street, the city was dark. And empty, except for the
trash piles. I was too thirsty to care, I needed something to drink, my
tongue was swelling in my mouth. I might have just wandered a bit, I’m
not exactly sure. Maybe that was why I ended up at that bar. Later i
thought it might have been fate, because that's where I found the
preppers map.
The map said I could find water nearby. The thought of water made me
lick my dry lips. When I found the water I nearly cried, it tasted so good.
I trash picked a plastic bottle, cleaned it and filled it to take with me,
then hid the rest to come back for later.
My stomach growled. The map had a crude drawing of a crate, and an
arrow pointing to a bad section of town, the warehouse district.
I needed that food, so bad district or not, I started walking.
I cursed the guy who left that map, because I had to search warehouse
after warehouse, but when I found the hidden MRE’s, and tore open the
first pouch of vanilla pudding, I swore I’d name my first born son after him
...If I ever found out his name.
In the crate I found more notes - and they included cryptic clues to
hiding places for still more food. I stuffed handfuls of the military ration
packets into my backpack and dragged the crates around a corner out
of sight. I hoped no one would find them before i could get back for the
rest.
I had a long day after that. Following the prepper’s vague clues, I hunted
out a few more caches of food, some dry rice and some dry beans.
That prepper didn’t make it easy. I was sure his clues made great sense
to him, but they sent me on one wild goose chase after another. But,
each time, just as I was about to give up, there it was, the key to survival
in this empty city. First the sacks of rice, then boxes filled with plastic
bags of pinto and kidney beans. This could last me months. I did what
I could to put some of it into my backpack, which was getting heavy.
Then I heard gunfire, at first a few POW POW POW's, then an eruption
of shooting. it was far out of sight, and I breathed a deep and very
shaky sigh of frightened relief as it seemed to move away from me.
I scrambled to hide as much of this precious dried and preserved food
as I could, but there was too much to take it all. I’d have to come back
for rest later, if I could.
I tried to eat some of the dried beans as they were - and regretted it.
I would need to boil them for a long time to make them appealing.
And to boil, I needed to make a fire. I searched the preppers map.
It wasn’t very clear, but it looked like he had drawn a flaming match,
and near it the letters W.H. Wet Hat? Welcome Home?
That made no sense. Then it hit me, Water heater.
Where would I find water heaters. In basements. Along with rats, spiders,
and who knows what else. But the prepper had proven reliable so far.
I checked my hidden food - no, only I would ever be able to find it again,
and if the prepper had left other maps, at least I wouldn’t lose what I had
been able to squirrel away.
But as I started to look for fire, I heard more gunshots. I was not
completely alone, and whoever was out there was pretty quick to pull a
trigger. I decided some time in a basement didn’t seem like such
a bad idea.
If only it was as easy as that. I was prepared for basements, but not for
sewers, and rats as big as cats swimming about in the dirty water as
confident as you please. At least I think they were rats, only tiny shafts
of light made it possible to see anything at all, and what I saw was mostly
dark shapes and beady eyes.
But it was actually a rat that helped me find a hidden door, and then
there I was, in a dismal basement, with water heaters and ... a box of
matches.
I grabbed them, and memorized the secret route back. there were tools
here as well, this place was definitely worth a second trip, once I found a
good place to hide and cook my food.
It sure was good to get back up onto the street, and be able to see.
But, the sun was headed down, I needed to get moving, I didn’t want to
be out in the open once the city got dark. Then I yawned. I was losing
steam, I had to hurry.
The prepper had thought ahead, that’s for sure. When I saw his blocky
printed letters spelling out VITES, with a crude sketch of a bottle on a
shelf I had to laugh. Vitamins? But it made sense. My hair felt thinner
from my time in hiding, I probably did need vitamins.
Compared to finding the matches, hunting out the vitamins was easy.
There was other things that might be useful at the same location, and
I rushed to hide some of it.
But it was getting dim, and I was getting tired. I noticed some spots
of blood on the floor, then realized I had cut myself on broken glass.
Ouch! And it was bleeding more and more. I tried to wrap the cut with
a page torn out of a porno magazine, but it needed better bandaging
than that.
I managed to stop the bleeding enough to study the preppers map.
If he had thought of vitamins - and there it was, a red cross, crudely
drawn, and over the warehouse and commercial district. I had hoped I’d
be able to stay in the good part of town, and maybe find a house to hide
in, but this cut needed care, and it needed it right now.
As I started to walk towards the warehouse district, I heard the roar of
loud motors, towards the east, where it was already darkest. Someone
wasn’t scared here. That meant I better be, so I hugged the sides and
backs of buildings as I moved towards the preppers red cross.
I searched building after building. I had hoped the prepper would have
put the red cross mark over the actual building that contained first aid,
but, he was too crafty for that. I looked in crates, under chairs, in a
strange place made up like a raver’s den with a mixing table, but found
nothing.
When a motorcycle roared down the street a few blocks away, at first
I thought to wave the biker down for help, then a wiser part of me
thought “Who would roar around the streets like this? Nobody nice,
that’s who.”. I hid behind a pillar, and tried to peek out near the ground
as he got closer, holding as still as possible.
I only could see him in glimpses, between buildings. But I think he was
dragging something behind the bike on a chain. And I think it was a
person. I didn’t move, even tho there was no way he could have seen
me. The roaring of the motorcycle grew dimmer.
And when i rolled over and looked up, a big beautiful industrial grade
first aid kit was hanging on the pillar above me. I almost shouted with
joy, but stifled the shout and made do with a little dance. Some blood
coagulant powder, antibiotic ointment, and high quality band aids and
my cut hand was almost as good as new. I grabbed more of the big kits
contents, but the box itself was fastened to the wall with screws.
I’d come back later with tools to get the whole thing.
I wanted to just stop, find a hole to hide in, and give up this tedious
scavenger hunt. My feet hurt, my backpack was too heavy, and the early
evening chill was setting in. i almost did too, almost climbed in a
cardboard box to call it a day.
But, my plans were interrupted by a very unladylike gurgling and
churning in my guts. Those military rations were concentrated, lots of
energy, not much flavor. And my tummy, which had been empty for days,
was starting to complain. Loudly. I needed some privacy, and, I needed
some toilet paper.
And the Prepper, crafty as always, had printed “TOILET PAPER,
Warehouse” and an arrow pointing up. Rubbing my stomach, I decided
I had better find that paper quickly. I was very happy that I was already
in the warehouse district.
A half hour later, and rather annoyed that it had taken me so long to
figure out the preppers clue, my tummy felt better, and I decided I
had enough energy and daylight left to get the last item on the
preppers list.
Ammunition. I wasn’t sure I would shoot anyone, but, I better be able to if
I was in danger, so, i better get the preppers ammo while I could. Besides,
it would be almost like money in a survival situation. This time the prepper
gave better instructions, and after a few minutes of scurrying up the street
into the retail district, I saw a gun shop sign.
I was pretty scared when I reached the shops door. This seemed like a
place bad guys would be found. I listened a few minutes, and heard
nothing inside, What I did hear outside, however, was a sudden burst of
gunshots maybe 5 blocks away, and screaming and yelling. Then more
shots, and no more yelling. Then engines, oh shit!
Suddenly I was inside the gun shop, and was oddly happy it was gloomy
and dark.
And there were the bullets! Wow, those things were heavy, even just one
box would be a burden. but I grabbed three.
And its a good thing I did, because under the third box was a slip of
paper, and on it the preppers now very familiar block printing. BUNKER,
it said. SUPPLIES, it said, SAFE HIDEOUT, GREY RECTANGLE ON MAP,
UNDERGROUND, HIDDEN ACCESS.
Have you ever looked for a hidden bunker, with the sun below the
horizon, burning aching feet, a backpack that weighed a ton, while trying
to stay as hidden as possible? I felt like the world’s slowest mouse as i
crept along the sides and backs of buildings, staying hidden from the
street when I could. When I realized I had found the right place and the
hidden entrance, I stifled a “YIPPEE!”.
And when I finally got inside the bunker itself, and saw my new home, all
the supplies and the space, I cried from the sudden release of fear and
pressure, cried some more when i found a stove to cook on and sobbed
uncontrollably as i saw a kind of a bed.
I don't even remember laying down, just thinking, “A bed…”, then the
feeling of safety and the realization that i had finally found a suitable
place to live and then …. the peace of sleep.
Thank you for reading my story, i hope you enjoyed it.
Keep watching, a sequel is not unthinkable... smiles.
All pictures taken @ After the Fall
noun: prepper; plural noun: preppers
a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in
the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food,
ammunition, and other supplies.
