Two minutes before the world ended, the sky was a bright blue. Not a cloud in sight. I was in the car with my best friend John jamming out to some old C.D.s that Henri had left sitting around. Guns and Roses, I remember.

Two minutes later, it all went to hell. The whistling of bombs cut through the air. John looked over at me fearfully, his hands still on the wheel. "Maren". Just my name. The whistling got louder and I shoved his arm "Move!" I scream, John startled and unclipped his belt, and threw himself out the car. I did the same. The whistling had turned to a shrill scream. We both dived into a ditch at the side of a road, just as the bomb hit the car. The ground shook and the noise made my ears ring. Dust and ash rained down on us.

I don't know how long we waited in that ditch, breathing through our t-shirts. It was silent for a while after. Completely silent. John looked at me, his clothes soaked and covered in ash. "Do you think its safe?" He ventured to ask. As if to answer, the whistling started up again. Now we knew what the whistling meant. Bombs. These ones sounded far off though. I army crawled back up to the side of the road. The car was completely decimated. A few twisted pieces of metal were the only things left. I stood up, and walked over, seeing if we could salvage anything. There was nothing.

"Henri is going to kill me" John said, trying to lighten the mood. We didn't know what happened, not then. I stretched. "You want to race back then?" I asked. He grinned, his face charmingly covered in soot. "Race you to Paradise" He said smiling.

I took off. I figured John could catch up. And he did. We ran at the same stride for a while, eyes only half on the road. Keeping the the other half on the sky. Didn't want to be caught by surprise if there was another freak attack. At the time, I thought that it was a freak attack. That maybe some U.S. army guys, or whoever controlled the bombs had accidentally set one off. That maybe we could sue them for a whole bunch of money and be rich. That was when I was still Maren, still so laughably naive.

We had been a few miles outside of Paradise, when the bomb dropped on Henri's car. It still took us half an hour to get back. We had no idea what was in store for us. We passed the Welcome To Paradise sign, which had been slightly blackened. Neither of us really noticed. To us the sign was just a welcome, just as it had always been. So we had no idea what awaited us.

I've tried to lock the memories of walking into the main square of Paradise down. But every so often I catch a flicker of the destruction behind my eyelids, in my nightmares. I remember piles of rubble, steel skeletons of buildings. And bodies. Lots of bodies. Covered in ash. Bones because the bombs ripped skin and clothing off. I remember saying we were lucky. John had stared at me hard, his eyes tearing up. "How are we lucky if everything we ever cared about is gone?". It was so surreal. Almost like we were in some kind of waking nightmare. Looking back, I don't even think I comprehended what was going on. My brain refused to.

Needless to say, we left the main square fast. Sarahs house was first. The house had collapsed in on itself, we could see the bodies of her mother and father, not Sarah. John kept calling for her though. I didn't. No one could have survived the blast. But John insisted. He sounded like a broken record player, repeating her name over and over. I put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry" I say, my voice cracking. He looks at me, tears rolling down his face. "Lets get out of here" I say softly. He looks at me like I'm crazy. "No. What if there are survivors? What about Sam? And Henri?" He asks me angrily. "You want to leave them?". Tears are rolling down my face. I don't want to go. Not to their houses. Not to see their bodies. I've seen enough today. "John. Don't you think if there were survivors, we'd hear them?" I ask, my voice breaking. John doesn't say anything. Neither do I. The silence lays thick and sorrowful around us, almost choking us.

He ran off. In the direction of Sams house. I follow after reluctantly. I really didn't want to go. I had liked him, well thats what I thought. I wasn't sure. Nothing there. In that the entire house had been entirely obliterated, a few bones stuck out, but there was nothing that we could identify the bones with. The same with Henris house. No one survived. We both stood in front of Henri's house trying to think up good-byes, but neither of us could. I picked some flowers that weren't already dead and put them near the doorstep. First, Katerina, now Henri. That's two guardians gone. We left the house silently.

We scavenged around for awhile after that, trying to find supplies. I won't bore you with the details, because not only are they irrelevant, but I don't want to relive looking through wreckage and bodies for supplies, but in the end we found some water bottles, a motorcycle, sleeping bag, and some energy bars.

We left the smoking hell of Paradise, and rode out onto the road.

Now, we're trying to find other survivors, people like us who somehow survived the fallout. The world is a much more dangerous place, but I can handle it. I always have.

Authors Note: Sorry for not posting in awhile, I had a serious case of writers block. I promise that starting out, this was not supposed to be as sad as it was. I'm not really going to be focusing on romance (because honestly I've overdosed on it and now I'm done for the moment) but it may make an appearance (along with the rest of the gang). But anyways leave me a review and tell me what you think, and what you want to happen next (I'll take them into consideration).

Thank you

~Savvy