I didn't know where else to go. Almost everybody in town was dead or dying, and here I was. Alone. School seemed like the last place I would have expected myself to go after the bomb was dropped, but it was where I found myself.

            My feet shuffled through the abandoned halls of my old high school. After the bombs had been dropped it didn't seem that anybody had even entered the building. A thin layer of dust covered the floors along with shattered glass and what looked like rat droppings, ew. Without power, the hallways seemed more like the halls of abandoned hospitals instead of the halls of a school. My flashlight was the only bit of light that illuminated anything and it created stretched shadows that swayed back and forth with each of my footsteps.

            I never realized how hard it would be to actually maneuver through the school I thought I knew like the back of my hand in the dark. Without the familiar rush of students traveling from place to place, or the teachers standing outside their doorways, without the slamming of locker doors, and the casual high-pitched chit-chat of other girls the place just seemed creepy. Like I said earlier, abandoned hospital creepy. In the dark, each step I took I immediately wondered if it was the wrong way, or if I was going to walk right into a spider web, so it was very slow moving. When I had finally reached my destination, I had run into two different spider webs, both of the times I was not the least bit happy. The library cheered me up though.

            I was especially happy when I discovered that the doors were not locked and that there were windows everywhere. I quickly turned off my flashlight and stuffed it back into my bag, happy that I could save some battery life.

            At first glance the library didn't seem that different, most of the windows were still intact, the floor seemed rather clean, I only found one bookshelf that had fallen over onto a table. The books were lying scattered all around. The room was definitely dusty, and the early morning sun drifted through the windows and I could see all the dust that was floating through the air. When I was younger I used to think that the little specks of dust I could see in the rays of sunlight was fairy dust, and I would run around trying to catch it before subsequently jumping off the table or couch much to my own parents dismay.

            Thinking about my parents tightened the knot in my stomach that had been there since they day they both got sick. In some ways I wish the radiation would have affected me the same way it affected them. Then maybe I wouldn't be alone. I was still here though, alone, tired, hungry, and I didn't know what to do. One of the bombs had dropped in Montpelier. Only a little ways away from my own town. I didn't know how the other towns and cities were fairing, the farther away you were the less impact it probably had. A good half of the population of our small town died the first day, and I knew that every day past the number was rising. It was only a matter of days before it was my own turn. Might as well make life as great as possible, and the library was the place to do it.

            I pushed together a few of the comfy arm chairs to make a sort of bed looking area. I used all my strength, and my knowledge of simple machines to get the tipped over bookshelf back to standing up straight as well as returned all of the scattered books back to their proper places on the shelves. After doing a sweep of the entire right side of the library for spiders I finally returned to my little chair-bed with a stack of books. First up, "The Complete Guide to Wild Edible Plants" By the Department of the Army. Well if they were going to help in anyway, at least they could teach me a thing or two about what plants I could and couldn't eat. While I honestly would have preferred something fictional, it wasn't the right time for happy endings, magical beasts, and perfect romances. Life was anything but what those worlds described it as. Life was a living nightmare.

            As I opened up to the first chapter and started reading the dull writing I heard something strange. In my mind all I could think of was, please don't be a rat. Sure enough though, as I leaned over arm rest I saw the biggest rat I had ever seen in my entire life. I screamed when I saw it.

            It was as long as my forearm, with matted black fur, and a face that could only belong to a vermin like this. I quickly jumped to my feet at the sight of it and grabbed the biggest book I had grabbed which happened to be a dictionary sized, hard-cover edition of "Animals and Plants of the Wild" By Neil Brinsley. Not knowing what else to do I threw the book at the rat and missed by a few inches. I grabbed another book, and not bothering to look at the title I threw it also. This time my aim was more precise and the book hit the rat before skidding on the floor. The rat, startled by this dashed back towards the library doors and I jumped down with a few more books and chased it out of the library. As soon as it had exited I pulled the doors shut. Hopefully there wouldn't be any more rat incidents.

            Returning back to my chair-bed I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and settled back in, reopening my book. Chapter 1...