The broken road stretches out in front of us, the wind blowing harsh and dry across the once green lands of northern Washington. A worn scarf is wrapped around my face, offering protection from the sand that stings my skin and the sun that threatens to burn. It’s been almost two months since the bombs dropped; two months since America became nothing more than a shell of what it once was. The sun still has that red glare to it, casting the world into a constant glow that makes my eyes ache. Luckily there was no radiation in the residue, or we would all have been dead long ago.

Luck. I call it luck that I am alive, thousands of miles from my home and only praying that my family has survived this. I was lucky, honestly, that I happened to be driving back from a weekend in Las Vegas when the bombs dropped; one struck Los Angeles and obliterated the city. Had I been at the university then I would be among the thousands who died.

Every major city in the nation was struck, every military base, everywhere that could be a possible threat. Wiped out, gone, destroyed, whatever you want to call it. I had stood on the highway and watched the plume of destruction rise from the city, and my only thought at the time had been that I hoped my family was safe.

See, I’m from a small town in Alaska, and if they truly only wanted to break America’s systems, then they would have left them alone. But the worrier in me needs confirmation that they survived, confirmation that they were okay. 

With the collapse of all structured development, there was no one to fix the phone lines, no way to fix the electricity; we were doomed into a land of no technology. I had driven my car as far north as I could, stopping at abandoned gas stations and filling it with whatever gas I could get from the pumps, stuffing my car with food and drinks. I made it quite a ways, all the way out of California and into the lower parts of Oregon, but then my car quit on me. I’m not sure what happened, I’m no mechanic, but it puttered to a stop despite that the gas tank was showing more than half a tank. So I filled my backpack and duffel bag with food and drinks, grabbed a blanket for warmth, and set off hiking. 

It was within a few days that I met up with the first two of my companions… they were people who had been traveling as well, stuck far from home and desperate to get there. The man and woman, husband and wife, they’re from Canada, a little to the East of the coast but we all figured it’s safer to travel in numbers. They were the first two I’d met up with, and since I had already heard the screams and violence in the towns I passed through, I was wary of them at first. They begged to travel with me, begged for food because they saw my bags, and finally I gave in. It was her eyes that did it, her eyes when she spoke of her children at home in Canada. I had automatically thought of my little brothers and couldn’t deny them the chance to get home to see if their children were alive.

To my shock, they made great companions. The woman, Marissa, was funny and chatty and she tried her best to make the mood light and steer both her mind and mine away from our worries. Her husband wasn’t as easy, Derek was the quiet, brooding type. But he happily carried a bag and did whatever was asked of him, and after the first few days, he began to open up more and became a nice companion as well. I could see in the lines of his face that this had aged him mentally; he was supposed to be the protector of his family, yet here he was stuck hundreds of miles from them, unknowing as to if the sitter they’d had watching their two little ones for their getaway weekend had cared to watch over them. I could hardly imagine the pain that they were in, and so my heart went out to them. 

My third companion… he is a new addition. We found him in Seattle, running from a bunch of guys with a can of food tucked under his arm. I had felt terrible not helping him, but didn’t want to risk not seeing my family again and stayed back as he passed. Derek, though, must have seen something in the other’s face, because he grabbed his walk