Retrospect (Part Four)

Region: Unknown

Nathaniel Alistair

Retrospect

(Part Four)

Nathan stood quietly in the darkness confused by what had just happened. A billion different thoughts ran through his head at the same time, most of them bad and handful good. As he listened to the soldiers moving throughout the rest of the house he kneeled on the floor, once again hiding behind the bed just to be safe. While he waited there in silence, he narrowed his scrambled thoughts down to the two most obvious possibilities about his run in with the blonde soldier; she was either one of those 8th Day sympathizers he had heard stories about or she had plans of her own for him. It no longer surprised Nathan how women reacted these days when men were involved, not to mention how tempting the black market male slave trade was. Someone one like him could make a woman wealthy for life. Either way Nathan decided he was not sticking around to find out what the soldier’s motives were. At the first chance he got he was getting out of the house and getting as far away from here as he possibly could.“

Ok this one is all clear.” One of the soldiers said rousing Nathan form his thoughts. Soon after, Nathan heard a loud clattering and bang that startled him to his feet. The loud noise was then followed by laughter and cursing. “Shit that scared me.” someone said. “I am surprised that stupid door has not fallen off a long time ago” responded one of the other soldiers. Nathan listened to their conversation as it continued and faded off into the distance then he stepped from behind the bed and made his way out of the room. “Now’s my chance” he thought to himself as he left the room and headed back down the hallway. When he got to the back door he paused looking back into the house one last time and shook his head as memories swam through it. “I’m sorry” he whispered and then stepped out into shadows and disappeared down the alley.

Nathan moved here and there slinking from one location to the next in the alley, tracing his path back toward where he had first entered the town earlier in the day. Now he was able to move a bit faster due to the fact that it was nearly 4 a.m. in the morning and most of the people around town where asleep in their beds. After the chaos that occurred across the world due to the huge vacuum of power (the absence of men) little fortified towns and cities had popped up all over the North America. What lay between those towns now were miles of abandoned buildings, roads and unknown troubles.

Women, children and the remaining men at first tried to continue on with their lives acting as if nothing had really changed but that didn’t last long. Soon electricity, water and many other things the world took for granted began to vanish or fail and people began to fight for what was left. They fought for their lives, they fought for their families and some just fought because that’s all they could do. Shortly after all this uncertainty, leaders sprung up in different parts of the world and they began to realize that the very survival of humanity depended on one very valuable thing, men. Numerous different theories on how to protect, save, use or abuse the few remaining men in the world came about and along with those theories came the women who stood behind those ideas and opinions. Wars started, countries and order fell and the world was changed forever with most men were left to hide and fear for their family’s lives and their very freedom. Nathan was one of those very men and his memories about those times tortured him daily.

When Nathan managed to find his way safely back to the side of the wall he had snuck in through earlier he breathed a sigh of relief. “It was foolish to even come back” he thought to himself as moved the few pieces of junk and tree branches he had used earlier to cover the drainage pipe he had come up through to get into the town in the first place. Somewhere deep down inside he had been hoping for something that he now knew would never be. Looking back at the place he had called home for many years before the plague of man, Hepatitis X, had hit he sighed knowing he would never return again. He crawled into the pipe while pulling branches back over the opening and then began his long crawl toward freedom.

An hour into his trek Nathan paused to rest from his crawling and laughed in spite of himself. He tended to do that a lot lately. “I never thought I’d be acting out a scene from Shawshank redemption” he said out loud, his voice softly echoing down the pipe. After a few more minutes of rest he continued his slow methodic crawl to the other end of the pipe knowing he didn’t have that much further to go. When he finally reached the opening on the other side his entire body was aching. Nathan carefully poked his head out and looked around. Between the waning moonlight and the fact that his eyes were well adjusted to the darkness now it was practically like staring into daylight for Nathan. When he was sure no one was around he pulled himself out of the pipe and stood, wiping some of the muck from the pipe off his hands while he surveyed his surroundings. Nathan finally had made his escape.

Although Nathan had hoped it would go differently in some way he was glad to be on the move again. Noticing that it was getting lighter out he looked at his watch and saw it was almost six in the morning; soon it would be complete daylight, he knew he had to get to a good hiding spot to hunker down for the day. Night time was the only time to really move long distances safely now. Leaning against the wall for just a moments rest he pulled the photo he took earlier from his pocket and stared at it for a bit. A few moments later Nathan was startled back to the present by a voice. “You do realize they leave that hole open on purpose right?” His heart raced. Having stepped out from behind a large pile of debris Nathan figured safe earlier stood the blonde soldier from earlier that night. She had her weapon pointed straight at him for the second time that day. Nathan held his breath cursing his damn sentiment again especially when he was this close to being gone. “And why would they do that?” he asked the soldier attempting to by time. “Why to sucker people into false senses of security” she said with a wicked smile stepping toward him. What happened next is hard for Nathan to talk about even to this day.

The conclusion to Retrospect is next!

Region: Unknown

Nathaniel "Nathan" Alistair