The last thing I could remember was walking into my house. It was in August, I don't remember the day. Then I couldn't see. I was surrounded in a sea of permanent darkness. Then a wave of bright light overcame the darkness. Everything was hazy and distorted. I squinted as I lay on the ground, uncomfortable. What was I lying in? Rocks? Metal? I couldn't tell. I had trouble trying to pull myself up. I felt kind of stiff and had trouble moving my legs. What happened to me? Where was I? What's going on? Questions banged around in my mind as I tried to see and get up at once. I looked down and noticed I was wearing a hospital robe, stained with black burnt spots and ripped in some spots. I couldn't help feeling something was wrong. Everything was quiet. There was no sound. No cars, no humming of electricity… nothing. Just a slight breeze blowing by on the

I managed to stand up, kind of unbalanced. My feet were burning. The ground was scorching hot and my feet were unprotected from the littered Earth. I still couldn't see where I was. The light was too bright for me to open my drained eyes. As I stumbled around, I managed to see a pair of sunglasses on a body, badly decayed. What the hell happened? I looked around as my eyes seemed to become a little more accustomed to the piercing light. I was able to see a short distance and as I looked around, there were more bodies badly disfigured, burned and rotting. I felt the vile rising to my throat and I staggered away as fast as I could, almost tripping twice on large boulders.

When I was clear of the graveyard of bodies and rubble, I stopped and put on the sunglasses. The image that I saw couldn't be right. I was dreaming. It can't be. It couldn't be. My mouth hung open, I tried to say something but I couldn't mange to utter a sound. I stumbled to my knees, unable to process what was laid out before me. The only thing my mind could think was no. I became dizzy again; the world was swirling around me. I collapsed and I was once again surrounded by darkness.

The image I saw was nothing. Everything was gone… just gone. All that remained was a huge crater. The graveyard continued for miles. The entire world was a huge graveyard.

I woke up a few hours later. I was on some kind of bed, torn and worn out. It was a bit cooler here then earlier. Yet it was still hot, but the shade helped. It was now late afternoon. Then I heard a noise to my left. It was some kind of metal. I turned my head slowly to the left and saw a man wearing old, dirty clothes and was working on a table of some kind. I tried to call out to him, but all I managed was a cough. He heard me and turned around. He was young, probably in his late twenties, but looked like he was 10 years older. He had brown hair and had a beard and an ugly scar below the eye. It kind of reminded him Sergeant Blofeld from the old James Bond movies. He had tired green eyes and had dark bags under them, probably from lack of sleep.

He came over to me and said, "Don't try and talk just relax. You need rest." He put a hand on my shoulder and then something happened to me. I had never felt this type of feeling before. It was strong, powerful. I was propelled into somewhere, I had no idea where. There was a whoosh and all I heard was screaming. There was panic… everywhere. Everything was dark People were on the streets, shoving, yelling at people to get out their way. It was complete chaos. Then he saw him the man. No beard, no scar, trying to push through the crowd. There was fear in his eyes. He was leading someone in his hand; a woman, long jet black hair and stunning blue eyes. There were in the middle of a mob of people filling up the streets.

Somebody bumped into them, gun in hand. He spotted the woman's purse. He screamed at her to give him the purse. The man shoved him away, but the robber was too strong. He pushed him hard into the ground and pointed the gun at the girl, screaming at her to give him the purse. She couldn't move. She was so scared. The man tried to get up, but it was too late. A gun shot went off and the girl came down like a ton of bricks. The crowd around the scene screamed and backed away. The robber took the purse and disappeared in the crowd.

The man on the ground yelled, tears in his eyes, "Michelle!-"

And it was gone. He was back in the tent. Everything was quiet again. The man took his hand off my shoulder like he had just touched a hot stove, fear in his eyes. "What was that?" he asked softly.

I didn't know what to say. I had so many questions to ask myself. My throat was dry, but I managed to rasp, "Who's Michelle."

The man was shocked. "How did you…" He couldn't finish the sentence. Tears filled in his eyes. "My wife. She was killed right before the war started. How did you know? Who are you?"

War? What did he mean? I wanted to ask. But I guess I would find out soon enough. "I don't know. I'm Christopher… Christopher Wey."

Tears still in his eyes, he said, "I'm Reggie. Reggie Mason."

There was an awkward silence and then I said, "Where am I?"

He wiped the tears in his eyes and said "Baltimore. Or what's left of it, anyway."

"What year?" I urged on, desperate for answers.

Reggie gave him an awkward look and said, "2016."

This revelation hitme hard. "What?"

"Yeah… 2016. Where have you been?"

I was lost. What happened to me? "I don't know…"

Reggie gaveme a worried and concerned look. He turned back and reached for a cotton ball and dipped it in alcohol. "Hold still." He dabbed the cotton ball on the scrapes on my head. I squinted in pain from the stings. "Sorry. I have to clean the wounds or it can get seriously infected. The left side of your face is extremely scarred."

I didn't know what to say. That was the least of my worries. I still had so many questions that I needed to get answered. And since I woke up to this nightmare, only more questions have risen. I just sat back and let him talk for now.

"There's lots of sediment inside the wounds. I have to try and remove it."

"Are you a doctor?" I asked.

"I almost completed my degree and then this whole mess happened. Hold still." He continued to treat the scars on the left side of my face. After a few minutes of silence as he treated my face, he said, "Michelle was everything to me."

I glanced up at him. I felt that way about my wife once… a long time ago. He continued.

"I loved her like nothing else. Since that first day I ran into her at the library, I knew. She had the most beautiful eye and a smile that lit up the world. She was full of life. Better than I would ever be." He continued working on the scars. "Not a day goes by when I don't regret what happened to her. I think, it should have been me. I could have done something differently that day." He stopped working and went back to the table, cleaning his supplies.

After he went to the table, I used every ounce of my energy to try and sit up. I then said weakly, "There was nothing you could have done, Reggie. You did everything you could have done. I saw it. And I'm sorry." He didn't respond, didn't turn around. He just stood there.

I laid back on the bed, thinking about Madeline and Julia, about howI hadtreated them before this whole "mess". How stupid I was. What had happened to me? What's going on?I was so tired. I fell asleep thinking about the past…