The War
My name is Normand Brousseau and I am a survivor of World War III. Me and my younger sister, Cher, survived by retreating into Cité metro station. And this is our story of life after World War III in The Metro. The end began when the war began on December 20th of 2033. Russia invaded Germany and forced the world into war. Within hours the war was everywhere. In almost every city, or town. Berlin was burning. On December 21st, one day after the war started, a large amount of the population of Paris had gathered at the Notre Dame Cathedral because the war was at our door step. I was 9 at the time and my sister was 8. As the distant sound of war grew closer.
At about 12:40pm the nuclear launch alarms started to go off, suddenly the city was in panic. My mother, sister and I started running and saw a few large groups of people entering the metro station after metro station for protection and we did the same thing when we got to Cité station. Our mother told us to run into the station and hide in there, she said she was going to go and help this elderly couple that we ran past a few blocks back. I took Cher's hand tightly in mine and we kept running to the station. When we got to the platform we heard the large blast doors at the entrance to the station close tightly.
I looked over at the clock and the time was 12:46pm. Cher was crying and looking around for our mother, she was nowhere to be found. I sat down on the floor and she sat on my lap and I held her close. I kept saying to her "Don't worry sis. We will find mommy, she helped that elderly couple into another station and we will find her as soon as we can leave." Little did we know. That was the last time we would see the surface as we remember it. And the last time we would see our mother. Everyone around us was hugging and crying. They didn't know what was happening either.
At 12:48pm, I remember the time because every clock in the metro is frozen at that time, World War II came to an abrupt and explosive end. The earth shook as a large scale nuclear weapon hit the outskirts of Paris. We could hear screaming from the surface, along with missile launches and more explosions. It was the longest 20 minutes of our lives. Right then me and Cher knew we would never see the Paris we knew and loved.
At about 1 there were a few members of the French army in our station who knew where the Army had stored a large amount of supplies in a maintenance tunnel a short way down one of the metro tunnels, I do not remember which one. A large group of men went down the tunnel to gather the supplies.
I looked around worryingly when I heard Cher say; "Normand, what happened, why are you crying?"
I wiped my tears and said; "Don't worry Cher. Everything will be just fine. But we will have to stay down here for a while."
"What about mommy, when are we going to find her?" Cher replied.
I started to cry; "Cher. I don't think mommy made it into another station."
Cher started to cry again, and then we just hugged for the longest amount of time. The station was filled with the sounds of sobs. Everybody there had lost someone they love on that horrid day.
About 20 minutes later I noticed that Cher had fallen asleep on my shoulder I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her and gently laid her down. I got up and started to wonder around. As I got up the group started to come back with supplies, it was man after man with boxes of canned food, Gas mask, blankets, pillows, and everything we would need to survive. I found the guy carrying the box of blankets and pillows and asked him if I could have one of each for my sister and I. He looked at my tear soaked face and then looked over at my sister who was laying on the cold floor with only my jacket on.
He then placed his boxes down, knelt down and asked wheres your mommy or daddy. Truthfully I didn't know where my father was. He was off being a hero and fighting for France. He is most likely dead. I then looked down sadly and he pat me on the shoulder and gave me two pillows and a large blanket. I looked up at him and thanked him, then I ran back to my sleeping sister lifted her head and put a pillow under her head, then took my jacket back and laid facing her and covered us in the blanket. That was the day we were forced into the Metros.