The sky was white, and his skin was burning. The red ball he was holding popped in his hands, sending rubbery remnants flying in all directions, caught on the fierce wind that howled like a runaway freight train forcing itself between the trees and the houses, into his face and eyes and pushing him farther and farther away. There was a loud shotgun-bang as the door to his house swung open, slamming against the adjacent wall enough to crack the knob.

He didn't hear anything, but he felt a firm arm wrap around him and lifted him up. He was carried through the yawning mouth of the doorway into his home, his vision blacking out as he was brought in from a world of eye-stabbing luminescence into a dark room with the lights off. The winds continued to rush past the house, whistling a morbid tune, beckoning any intrepid young lads to come and meet it. A spider-web of cracks began to sound out as rubble slammed against the windows. On every front, he was assaulted by strange sounds, uncanny sights.

The stairs were alive with activity, a fusillade of footfalls charging down the steps with a growing intensity.

"Dad, what's going on??" Someone had asked. His eyes were still adjusting to the low level of light in the house, but the boy knew that was his sister speaking.

"No time, get to the basement! Everybody to the basement!" The authoritative voice of the boy's father commanded. Neither of the children said a word of protest - a unique response that was both refreshing but terrifying, highlighting exactly how grim the situation is. They both ran towards the kitchen, except for the boy who was still tucked securely under his dad's arm.

"Howard, what's happening?" A soft, but shaking, voice asked. The lad could start making out the pink nightgown of his mother on the dim backdrop of the wall.

"I'm not sure. Just get to the bunker. Come on." The father - Howard - said, somewhat more soothingly than he had with his children. The boy finally opened his mouth and spoke.

"Daddy, what's going on?" He sniffled. His flesh felt tender and seared, but the pain was starting to die down.

"Nothing, son. We're just taking a little trip downstairs." Howard answered as nonchalantly as he could. The three of them quickly followed the boy's siblings to the kitchen, hanging a left into the doorway that led to a rickety set of old, wooden stairs. They descended as quickly as they could, almost two stories deep, before dropping down onto the cold, cement floor of the shelter. Howard set his son down finally and turned, closing the thick, steel door in an impressive show of strength, locking the latch securely.

Now in the safety on the blast-out bunker, the two teens proceeded to vomit questions to their parents.

"What's happening??"

"What was that bright light??"

"Why are we down here?!"

Howard raised his hands up to silence them, though it didn't do much good.

"Everybody, calm down!" He finally said, his voice reverberating around the shelter. Both the boy and girl immediately silenced themselves once again. "Now look, I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's...Maybe it's nothing, just some strange natural occurrence or something." His tone defied his words. "But for now, we're going to stay down here in the basement until we know everything is safe."

"How long is that going to be??" The teenaged boy asked, his voice cracking in exasperation.

"I'm sure it won't be more than a few hours, okay? Look, we have a radio set up over there. We'll just listen to the news for the go-ahead that everything's alright, and then we can go back up and resume life.."

The young boy wasn't paying much attention. He had never been down in the basement before, and he was taking time out to stroll around and examine everything. There was a large refrigerator that looked almost bigger than the one they had upstairs, and an equally impressive dresser. There was a small cooler full of bottled water, and a desk where the aforementioned radio was sitting. Off in the corner were several cots, their blankets haphazardly draped over them. Of course, the boy didn't care about all of these details, he was looking for something fun. A toy, or a book maybe. He settled for an old copy of "You're SPECIAL!" laying on the desk, even though he had read it before. As he turned to go find a nice place to sit and read, he glimpsed his mother and father, holding each other in silence. It was a pose that was very familiar to him...

"Lousy sons of bitches!" Howard had slammed his fist on the kitchen table, hard.

"Dear, calm down! You're going to wake the kids!" His loving wife tried to dodge the coming firestorm. The young lad, who had a secret habit of not going to sleep when he was told, watched through a crack in the door.

"They can't do this, Donna. What right do these bastards have to turn us away?!" Howard stood up from his chair quickly, sending it grating across the floor. He threw the letter in his hand to the ground. The little boy had been too far away to read any of it, he only remembers what looked like a picture of a large gear stamped on the front.

"I'm sure they had a good reason, Howard! They can't accept everybody, it's a very limited space!" The mother was now becoming more fiery in her own attempts to sate her husband's anger.

"We've never stepped an inch out of line for this country. We're the Nuclear Family, god dammit! We should have been FIRST on that list! FIRST!" He snatched up the paper once again and re-read it, just to make sure he wasn't dreaming and that someone actually had the audacity to spurn him and his family.

"Please, calm down, Howard. We have the shelter...I'm sure that's just as good." Donna was becoming exasperated. Howard ran his hand through his hair, breathing deeply. With that momentary silence, it seemed, all at once, that all the anger had suddenly dissipated from the room, leaving an even worse depression behind. The husband and wife turned and embraced each other, the same pose that had kicked off the memory. The mother sobbed softly.

"It's going to be okay." Howard whispered reassuringly in stark contrast to his attitude just a few moments prior. "Everything's going to be fine." His tone betrayed him again.

The boy didn't understand fully what he was watching, but he knew enough that it was best for him to leave. He quietly made his way back up the stairs and into his room, falling asleep without a second thought...

"Dad, this radio sucks."

Howard ignored his son's smart-alec comments and continued stalwartly turning the dial on the old tranceiver. Every station was nothing but white noise.

"I'm sure it's just some interference. Once we get out of local range, we should get something that'll tell us everything's safe and we're all overreacting." Howard let out a solitary "Heh.", though it didn't catch on. "Everything's going to be fine."

With an electrical crackle, a voice suddenly filled the room.

"I REPEAT: THE BOMBS HAVE DROPPED!"

As the air was sucked out of the room in one collective gasp, Howard lowered his head. Shit.