Welcome

The war had ended over a year ago. Radio signals about a month ago. Minutes before the first impending explosion, Robert Oppenheimer appeared on the television. Standing at the podium in a suit with his porkpie hat, he cared a grim filled look on his face. He looked at the camera before looking back at the top of the podium, where his speech was. Taking of his hat, he began to read his speech.
 "Hello, America, Russia, and the rest of the World-"

 He stopped himself, then began to speak again, with a penitence look on his face.

  "When me and the team at Los Alamos labs created the first atomic bomb, we created a peacemaker and the destroyer of worlds. When we watched the test of the very atomic bomb, we knew that we created a power that shouldn't be used in anyway, but we knew it would be used, but we hoped not to a magnitude like this. To America, Russia, and the rest of the World, I'm truly sorry for the creation of our demise."
All radios and televisions went to static afterwards. Screaming, gun fire and utter turmoil was all that could be heard through the thick, concealed ceiling of the shelter. Sitting back in the seat at my single-seater dinner table, Leer looked at the glass of water that was in front of him. Waiting for the slightest signs of disturbance in the water's flow, signaling the beginning to the end.
The glass fell over, with all of the water spilling out to the right side. The books began to fall off of their shelves, covering the floor in an assortment of titles and pages. The shelves began to rattle, shaking violently, with the glassware in the shelves beginning to hit the ground below; The wire hung lights shaking back and forth, to the breaking point.  Leer sat there in his seat, away from the razed environment that sat around him. The shaking, the swinging, and the shattering began to cease. Everything layer motionless, with not a sound being made or a movement. It was like time had stopped. Droplets of water began to hit the table, which was the only standing object in the room, next to the seated chair. The only sound was that of the chair running over the floor, creating a hissing screech. The though that he could be the only living creature for hundreds of miles, or possible the only one left in the world. His mind was running into all sorts of places, and he knew allowing it to continue would lead to regrettable results. He put his head down on the floor, looked at his watch and closed his eyes.
   That was over a year ago.  Leer has stayed in this unit since the bomb droppings, not having set foot out since days before the occurrence.  The thought of an outside world without life was terrifying to Leer, what could be even worse, there could be outside life, who reacted to him in a negative way. The food and water levels in the shelter are imminent to run out soon, leaving Leer with two options, dying of starvation in this shell, or exploring the outside world in hopes of survival. While one option holds promised death, the other one lays way for an unforeseeable future, where the unknown is. Sitting at his dinner table with his hands to his head, Leer looks at his watch with, then back into the distance, back at his watch, then back into the distance of his base, this place that was his home for so long, but it wasn’t his home. His home, or rather where his home once had sat, laid near the grounds of this base. What lay left of it he asked himself? Did anything within his home survive the explosion? He knew that none of these questions would be answered, unless he got out of his seat and went above ground.

  He removed his hands from his head, placing them on the table in front of him. He began to lift himself up, rising from his chair. He walked over to the kitchen cabinet that was filled with chipped and broken dishes. Feeling around the back of the cabinet, he begins to pull out a rucksack that’s covered in fragments of plate and dust. Leer puts the bag on the counter top underneath the cabinet, going through the sack. Within, there’s a 32 oz bottle of water, a first aid kit, a rain jacket, and a thin knife.

  Closing the bag, Leer puts his shoulders through the shoulder straps and begins walking towards the exit. Turning the vault like exit counter-clockwise to open it, he stopped and dropped to the floor. What could happen if he stepped outside? Would he die of radiation poisoning? Would it be a field of raze? What if the bombs never went off, and the noises he heard a year ago were from something else? He couldn’t concentrate, or bring himself to open the door. The thought made him sick to the stomach, but he knew it had to be done. Without opening the door, he would never know what awaited him on the other side. He got on his feet, grabbed the vault knob with both hands, and tired as hard as he could, while pushing forward. The door opened, and he fell through, landing on something that has been unseen, but not forgotten - the outside world. Putting his hands on the ground to get up, he felt a grainy material, like sand. Leer got to his feet, taking in deep breaths, clenching his eyes closed. The air was different than what that of the underground, it felt un-recycled, like what was below.

  No longer being able to take being without visions of what the new world looks like, Leer opened his eyes wide. Before him was what was the neighborhood he had once called his community. All that stood before were the remains of buildings that had once stood. Once fully bloomed pine streets were blow into charcoal sticks rising from the ground. The surface of it all was covered in all sorts of debris, which would rise into the air when a wind came by and picked it up.

  Starring out into the distance of it all, Leer just stayed standing there, motionless, barely breathing. The wind hitting his face, scattering the remnants of what’s left of the place he once called. A feeling of abandonment came over him, which was physically unseeable, but leaving him a mental wreckage. He wanted to turn back around, to enter his shelter and die there, but he was curious as to what this new world was like. Beginning to take a few steps forward, he was about to find out exactly what this transformed land held. The remnants of the buildings that once stood were charred pieces of metal now. Pieces that once created the foundations for modern architecture were now broken frames. Art and life was scorched to nothing. Stopping now, he looked down at the ground, where outlines of a doormat were thinly visible. Looking even closer, you could see the outlines of a few letters that had once been a apart of the mat. Leer got down on his knees to examine the letters even closer. He started to look at the letters closer and closer. He saw a “W”, followed by an “E”.

“We?” Leer said to himself.

But there was more than that. He started to see another letter, a “L”, then a “C”.

“Welc?”

More letters began to become visible, with an “O” coming next, followed by a “m” and “e.”

“Welcome.”