0600 Hours, March 26, 1963  the Sirens began to blare as they seemed to every morning, I was already in the shelter so I didn’t have to worry. Every since the crisis I had slept in our shelter, My family all thought I was crazy until one day, the strikes came earlier than ever before, the car, the house, and my family, was all gone, nothing remained but radiation and scorched earth. I’ve been in the shelter for almost three weeks straight now, normally I can leave every few days and scavenge for supplies, but the Cubans have increased their strikes to one every day. This made it almost impossible to venture out and survey the area, for my hazmat gear s relatively cheap and can’t protect against high levels of radiation. The canned food and water that was supposed to last years, has been slowly depleting and is probably only going to last for another week, so any chance I may get I have to leave. The worst part of this situation is by far the isolation, I haven't had any contact with another human being for almost a year now, and I fear for my sanity. The only thing I have to do here is watch the emergency broadcast channel for any new developments on the war. 
    The war is something special in its own right, everything began with the downfall of the Axis powers in world war two. We were in bitter struggle for power with Russia and tensions kept escalating, everyone thought it would be a war of spies, but that was before the invasions began. The Soviets had positioned troops in Alaska to  distract our military and draw them out west, but they stormed the east. The first made landfall in New York and quickly took the city, next came Philadelphia and then Washington fell, one of the worst days in history for our country. People were being dragged out into the streets and executed and all government leaders were captured and taken back to Russia for intel extraction, everyone knew they would be tortured and killed. That would’ve been the end of it if they had captured the president. He was the only one who really mattered, Russia figured if they captured the president the entire country would fall, but they were wrong. The President and the Government didn’t matter after New York, all that mattered was revenge. All able bodied people began gathering firearms and ammunition, they were determined to fight back and retake the country. That's what started the strikes. Russia was already low on troops so they pulled out and began to bomb us instead. Everyone thought they were just normal bombs at first, so after a city was hit with a strike people would go back and try to set up bases and scavenge all that was left in the city, but they became sick, more and more people were dying from illness. The death count for disease almost tripled that of those killed in the bombings, that's when we learned they had the same technology as us five years prior. Everyone started building shelters and gathering as much food as possible, it was no longer about winning it was about survival. We had to keep the country alive, we just fought a war to establish ourselves and we had to prove that we are still the greatest nation in the world.
    Which brings us to today where the only survivors are just like me stuck in a shelter waiting for the chance to go out and salvage whatever is left of their former lives. I’m only hoping for no strikes tomorrow morning, I’m running out of soups and canned vegetables, and I’m going to need to raid some of the shelters in what used to be my neighborhood.
0500 hours, March 28, 1963, the emergency broadcast station has gone offline, that could mean one of two things, 1. No strikes are being carried out in my area today, or 2. All radio and TV transmit stations have been destroyed. The first seems much more likely seeing the stations for Spartanburg are very well dispersed. Either way I’ll wait an hour before leaving or doing anything stupid.
0618 hours, everything is quiet, I should be happy about this seeing I can actually get more supplies now, but I feel nothing more than a deep rooted dread, my skin is crawling and my heart is thumping almost audibly in my chest, I’m terrified of what's out there, but I have to leave it’s now or never. I slowly climbed up the ladder and clasped my hands onto the hatch, I pushed as hard as I could in case and debris may have been blocking my only portal to the outside world and the hatch flew open and slammed against the concrete. I clawed my way up onto the surface to find… nothing. Everything was gone, all that remained of the house I grew up in was a few scorched boards. I didn’t have time to reminisce. I had to find food. I ran over to my neighbor’s shelter and grabbed everything that was left in their shelter. They had evacuated to Europe right when the invasion began, they would rather risk living under occupation than trying to survive a war on the homefront. They had plenty of supplies, enough to last me another month and a half. I hurried back and dropped everything back in my shelter and quickly sealed the hatch. Now I had to wait and see what happens, maybe there will be another break in strikes, so I can get even more, maybe I can find people who survived, maybe the war is over. I ran through every possible situation in my head before going to sleep. I had nothing better to do as my library has already been read and if I sleep, then I don’t have to eat, it’s a win-win situation for me.
0725 hours, April 12, 1963, it’s been two weeks, I’ve had no word of anything from the broadcast station and I haven’t heard any sort of explosion. I have to see what’s left of the world. I grabbed a bag and filled it with water and food and decided I had to venture outside of Spartanburg and find the broadcast station to see their last report. Right as I was stepping foot on the ladder the radio clicked on.
    “Hello to whoever is out there, this is the final broadcast of our station. The war… the war is over and the country is in shambles, if you’re listening it is safe to come out of your shelter, but I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway. The world as you know it is gone, everything is gone, I don't even know why I’m still here… existence at this point is worthless. Listen. You need to find other people and at least try to rebuild or just do whatever you can to survive through this, it's up to you now. Welcome to the Wasteland.” The radio clicked off. This was the first time in an entire year where I had felt any drive or invigoration, I was ready to go out and rebuild all that was lost, this was for all those who were lost in the war and the bombings. I grabbed all I could carry in my rucksack and quickly burst out of the shelter.The words echoed in my mind as I walked off to find my fellow survivors. Welcome to the Wasteland.