At the top of the vault I am overwhelmed by the daylight. The wide open space spread out around me. The terrain seems charred for miles. When I was little I was told about how there were flashes, and that those flashes were bombs. Nuclear bombs that were sent to kill all of us. Luckily my father had registered us to be part of a program that would house us in case of nuclear fallout. I was under the impression that there was nothing above ground. But I was wrong. There are still buildings, and houses, just destroyed. The tall buildings I heard about are crippled into piles of rubbish, the streets torn apart into chunks of useless materials, and it’s here in front of me. It is hot where I am, and it is hard to adjust to the dryness of the air after being exposed to the humid atmosphere in the elevator. I’m going to start venturing out into the world in hopes of discovering supplies necessary for living, but I have a feeling I need to be cautious. I had learned when I was little about how everything used to be. The way a person’s life went, how there was school for the children and jobs for the adults. I learned about how good life was, but I also learned about how bad it was too. About how war was constant and how it escalated until all hell broke loose. It might seem as if none of that matters anymore, but some things never change. I imagine the risk runs high out here so I need to prepare myself. It’s a new kind of war now, and it’s me against the world.
Everything is different than what I was told. I am walking along the torn up road, but not too close as to not be spotted. I can see a figure in the distance and it gives me a bad feeling. It looks like an animal, but more like mutation of one. It is possible it was normal once, just affected by radiation. That is the biggest problem. I need to stay covered up to not be harmed by radiation, it would also help to have protection against mutations like the one I can see in the distance. It looks like it is facing me, almost like it wants to come towards me. I can’t really focusing on looking at too many details right now though, I need to move with haste. I fear that what happened to the creature, might happen to me if I let harm get to me. I am in different territory now, I’m not used to it now and sure as hell didn’t want to test my luck.
So on I go. I’m trying to stay close to the trunks of charred trees in fear of what might see me if I stayed in the open, and in hopes that I can shade myself from the rays of the sun. I have been walking for a while now but I have nothing to tell time with but the position of the sun above me. I am coming upon a neighborhood though, a village of which I might be able to take advantage of. I can see a half destroyed house in the midst of the village. This might be my best choice of cover at the moment so I need to make my move.
As I approach the house, I am soon able to wade through the rubble and force myself in. cleaning up a space for resting seems like a good idea so I take a good look around to make sure no unwanted entities are lurking around.  Soon as that is taken care of, I can now set off to scour for food. The results are surprising in that I am able to find multiple cans of food that were still intact. I did not take this find for granted, because I am sure about to experience that food and time are going to be precious commodities.
This is how I live now I guess, moving from house to house, looking for food to tide me over to my next discovery. Every now and then I still see a creature. Scary looking creatures that I want no part of. I keep my distance from them, and this surely is among the most dangerous factors of the wasteland. Today I am trying to explore more of the city I am in. I have no way of telling what this place might be called, or what it was called. All I know is that it is unbearably hot, so likely close to the equator. Caught in my own thoughts, I let my guard down for a minute too long. I am now standing just meters away from a creature that I believe I have only heard about from when I was really young. It is a fury being with four legs, a tail, and who has a long nose with two perky ears. I am not panicked by this creature, for he looks harmless. Maybe it is the fact that he is skinny, but emaciated would be a better word for this thing. The title for this creature is irrelevant, for it’s title does not affect how it behaves. I am pacing slowly towards the creature with my hand out. The dog does not move though. I speak to the dog with a calm, soothing voice. The voice that comes out is strange to me, uncharted territory that I have not explored in such a long time. At this moment, I am realizing that I have been alone for so long I had not spoken aloud for such a time as well. The creature, as reading my mind, can sense my uncertainty, no matter how calm my voice had come to sound. It steps forward to nudge my hand, as it’s mouth drops open and lets out a scratchy few breaths.
This creature soon became my companion, traveling through the wastelands by my side. I like to think of him as security, even though he most likely wouldn’t be able to protect me from the more intense creatures of the wasteland. It is lonely out here and my companion is my only friend. He is my last hope, and my inspiration to wake up every morning and continue adventuring on. Whenever I get discouraged, or second guess myself about what I am doing, I can count on my companion to pull me through, even as stupid as it sounds. I love my companion though, and nothing can change that. I like to follow my companion around the town, for he usually is good at scouting out places to seek shelter. He is my compass, and I consider it a partnership.
I can never know for sure whether my father is still alive. After everything that happened, I just want to think that he survived somehow. The logical part of my head said that this was not true. There was no way of knowing where he went, or what the people did to him. Even if he was still alive, the chance of me discovering him is close to none. They could’ve turned him into one of the monsters that lurk the wastelands for all I know. Maybe that’s what they are. Human experiments gone wrong. I don’t like to think about those possibilities, but to keep my mind from wandering into those dark places is such a challenging thing to do. With nothing to keep my mind occupied with, it is all I can help to do. All that I know is that I need to find him. My companion might be the only reason I still have hope, but I owe it to my father to seek him out, even if it is impossible. His dying wish was for me to keep on going, so that is all I can do to repay him.
I have been traveling for quite some time now, and by this point I have no agenda. Most everything I have discovered in this town is destroyed, or I picked clean for my own personal uses. I have nothing to show for it though. I can carry nothing on me except for the few snacks I am able to carry. My companion is leading me to a sign that I can see and he is breathing rather heavily, what he always does when he wants my attention. The sign appears to be pointing in a direction following train tracks. Since I have nothing left to do, naturally I start shuffling my way along the tracks.
The journey is rough, really rough. Living in a post-apocalyptic world means that food and clean water is rare. My companion likes to catch small beings, which he brings back to me most times so we could eat them raw. There is no making fires to cook what we catch, in fear of getting discovered by anyone, or anything. I never know for sure what I could be hiding from, but it is always safe to assume, that in this new world, drawing attention to yourself is a good way to get yourself killed. Water is easier to come by than food, for I recently found a portable small water purifier that could clean small amounts of water. It seems to clean the water but I could never be so sure. I have no other choices at this point but to take my chances.
After what seemed to be ages, I am finally reaching a group of people. There was a specific type of defining features about them. They looked serious and like they meant business, which signified that they were not to be messed with. I walk up to one of them and I ask to see who is in charge, so in response he tells me that he is the leader. He is six and and a half feet tall, which looks like a mountain compared to me. He immediately provokes me with a question regarding what I want. Startled, I tell him about my father and how he was taken from me at a young age. He then talks about how it was not uncommon to have someone stripped away from your life. I catch him glancing at my companion and I get a pit in my stomach. He is slowly unsheathing his knife until he looks into my eyes and senses that I know what is going on. The man pounced onto my companion and put his knife around its throat. Using my instincts I dive onto the ground and grab hold of his torso, a risky move for the height disadvantage I was at. I swiftly moved my arm up and made contact with his face. My agility formed out of the training from my stay at the vault had payed off. The man dropped his knife after I had committed my action, followed with my companion biting his arm, causing him to bleed profusely. This obviously is causing a scene so I started booking it, my companion close behind.
I make a break for the train tracks, right where I had split off. I make sure I am going the same direction I was going before I had split off. This was my first sighting of real people, so it was a wake up call. Not just in the way that shows how people are corrupt now, but that there are others out here. It is possible my father is out there. I just need to keep on going, my companion at my side. If I was able to get through that situation, there is much more we are capable of, I’m sure of it.
Traveling through the wasteland was is not ideal at all. It isn’t about me though, is is for my father like I mentioned. I want to do this for him because it is what he told me to do. The only purpose of me living now is to find him. I have no lead, no where to go, and no ideas of what to do next. Following the track is what my companion wants to do, and he is never wrong. I am stuck in my own thoughts as I stride along through the ripped up tracks. This is why it is good to write down my thoughts in my journal that I have. It is good to get my feelings out. Documenting my days is the only way to keep in touch with myself. I am just walking along these broken tracks but something keeps catching my eye. It is a small light being reflected from behind the tree trunks surrounding the tracks. It is almost like a signal, so I might as well check it out.
I start wandering towards the flashes and everything was strangely quiet. The sound of gravel under my feet is being magnified by the echoes bouncing off what looked to be a shack. The sound is growing louder and faster, but my feet are moving the same pace. I look behind me and there is a man in a mask.

A buzzing noise. Whether it is my ears ringing or something else I don’t know. My field of vision is fuzzy, but as my eyes are adjusting I am familiarizing myself with my surroundings. I am sitting in a bright room. There are no windows. Crystal white lights are illuminating from above. That is the sound, yes that must be the buzzing noise. I am at a table. I turn my head left, and slowly back to the right. I am in the middle of a room. There is a white door straight ahead of me. The environment is calm, yet I am extremely disoriented. I feel, despite the calmness, worried. I don’t get up to try the door. I am wearing clean clothes, but I don’t remember changing. There is no one else in the room, but I feel as if I am being watched. I start to recall what had happened to me and I am starting to get worked up. I start putting together pieces and theorizing. The white mask is the last thing I remember seeing. The same mask I saw on the day my father was ripped away from me. What if these were the people I was looking for. What if they had found me instead.
Just then the door slowly swung open and a man slowly strides in. He is tall and has a distinct face. Gray hair was slicked back on his head and he wore a stark face. A scar above his right eyebrow. I stood up and faced him. We are opposite sides of the table still and we stand there looking at each other. He than speaks to me saying, “Hello”. I am confused by this simple statement. I am frustrated. Why in hell would they bring me here, contain me, look me in the eyes and simply say ‘hello’? Was it a joke? I can’t take this anymore. My mind is running rampant. In response I sit down, just because I know not of what to do. He is staying standing. I am filled with so much rage, but my face must not have shown it for when he smiled at me, I could not hold back. My emotions overruled my actions. Maybe my mind just thought it was an act of self defense. I jump up and leap over the table. Everything went in slow motion as my hand pumped back. I then punch with all my might and it lands square in the jaw of the man before me. Blood came splattering out of his body and stained onto the wall. He started falling onto the ground and I run to the door. I open it without looking behind me but then I hear a yell, “Stop!”. I froze. But not because he called for me. I recalled that memory of us in the vault. My father's last words echoing in my head. It was his voice. It was the same voice that I used to listen to. My father was here, “wait son, I just want to talk”. I turn around and he is the man.
We sit at the table. He is sitting in a chair in order for us to relax for a moment. I am sipping on a glass of water as he starts to explain what was going on. Back on that day when my father was taken from the vault, was the day he had been selected to be apart of a group of special people. My father is speaking to me about how he is the current leader of these people. The base is underground, just like the vault we used to live in together. Surviving under the earth is definitely easier than surviving up top. So many emotions are going on throughout my head but I feel relaxed to know that my efforts did not go wasted. My father’s goal is bigger than the average man. He tells me that the reason he was selected for this group of people was so he could lead them to rebuild the world. They were the revolution of the wasteland. Not the bad guys, but the good guys. The same men who stole my father from me as a boy, were just trying to recruit more members for the greater good of planet earth.
He continued on after that saying how it was no mistake that I found myself here. He was in control of the creature that led me here, which he referred to as a dog. It was a fabricated beast machine created in the underground labs of his corporation. It was created to attract me and lead me to be successful in finding the base. I then halted my father in asking him why he went through such efforts to guide me here. He responded by telling me that he needed me. The community that lives down here needs a strong leader and he tells me that I need to take over. I ask why I would be crucial for that position and he just replied saying he wants me to continue his legacy. This of course is not effective immediately, he told me, I just needed to reach out to you or else the wasteland would’ve eaten you alive.
I now live every day becoming used to the ways of life underground again. I no longer have to struggle everyday in order to survive. One thing has never changed throughout my whole journey, and that is the fact that my father has never left my side. Physically, he may have been stripped away from me, but that was not his choice. It was his choice to rescue me, to reach out for me and lure me back to where we can be together. I am ever grateful for man my father is, for no matter what, the universe can never pull us apart. I work now in the graces of the underground life I have been provided, for the greater good of humanity. Here in the land down under, we are always expanding to cleanse and provide living space for refugees of the broken world above. It’s not easy to live in today’s world, but we manage to get by. If there is one thing that I have learned throughout my journey, it would be that nothing in the universe, not even the universe itself, can halt a man in his footsteps. Nothing can stop a man’s determination if he has a passion for what he is working for. So I will use my determination. I will use it to get myself to work my true potential. This way I can live to be my very best, and to serve my duty to humanity in saving the broken world that lies above.