“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent."

The night I saw a bluebird, I had a trepidation that something is going to end, either the world or how I see the world, its this difference that kept me awake every night, I don’t know what is going on with me. I am not a freak neither I am facing a mental breakdown.

After the nuclear blast, I am not the only one who has trouble sleeping. I remember that night more vividly than any other. We had been told to keep yourself locked in the den, which was created just to save us from the nuclear blast, I wonder what happened outside, I wanted to see the open sky and drink fresh water but for the last five years water has been contaminated and been poisoned. 

Only the one who has the proper combat training can be inside the den. Its been six months, we were inside and had not seen the sun. Surviving takes a lot the same repetition with no contact with the outside world, I repeatedly read the same book thirty times, now I know it verbatim. Part of the survival training involves intense concentration when you are alone. Part of the training involves sustainance by killing the creatures, snakes, rats earthworm if you ran out of food.

The supplies will get over after a one year, if no one comes to reach me I have to find my way back to the destroyed city,  everything is toxic. I am more terrified than my partner she believes everything will be okay, which also concerns me because she will be hallucinatory after a while. Its normally warm inside, due to the den being placed in such a way that the sunlight falls on it due to which I suppose it is warm and hospitable, but I feel everything  irritates after you feel it every day. You are a prisoner and you don’t know about it- but something about bondages which hurts that’s exactly we are here.

The same routine made us close to insane and unnatural- I want to see other things, more faces, rather than the same walls which are shrinking on me and I might die suffocating and the worst part is we don’t even talk to each other. How much you can talk about, you know everything about the other person and desperately looking forward to seeing something more than the same.

Due to lack of protein, my partner felt sick, and she was too weak to even walk and part by the part she is dying out of weakness. Her words became mild and she does not even know what she was talking about, I went to fetch water and saw bubbles oozing from her mouth. I couldn’t understand how to medically treat her, I injected her with serum but she went to sound coma, her breath was becoming lose. As she moved to the left I saw a snake crawling back to the hole whence he came, the sheer fear of losing my partner paralysed me. All the training did not work, we have not been taught how to cure snake bite.

She passed away in her coma, and I saw my partner transform from being alive to a dead body. I wrapped her body and kept it aside, there was an eerie of silence. I wished to be dead too, but death chose her and left me alone exercising this ruthless surviving.

Day and night went away figuring what to do, there was a stench- which made my surviving unbearable. The dead body was creating hallucinations that it will wake up any time, the mind plays tricks. 

One night I heard a loud crying sound which was impossible because there was no way sound can travel from outside, after a while it ebbed, maybe the sound realised there is no living creature here only a body breathing.

The next morning the stench became so toxic I was unable to breathe- I dropped a cloth to avoid the foul smell, but still it was all over that’s what happens when germs start to eat the inside of the dead, her face was covered- I wanted to see what has become of her, my  hands were shaking and I uncovered her face and her eye socket was filled with worms, I puked right away all the food I have eaten. 

I couldn't eat anymore, its inhuman to take meals beside a dead body. If I don’t eat soon though I will be the next dead body, then I decided to get out of here and die outside-rather not to take the stench inside my lungs. 

I walked to the opening and hit hard where it was locked, and it was impossible to break out, it was hard metal which was covered in hard rock. There was a emergency tool which was kept aside and we have been told only to touch it in dire need, and this was dire need.

My mind still oscillating between, whether she was alive- I saw her hands moving, like a twitch, I walked carefully. I have a sensation she will rise and start walking. I reach the corner of the room, the light started flickering- it was half past one at night. My heart was beating fast, sweat was all over my body. Suddenly, the light completely went off, and it was pitch dark- so dark that I couldn't sense my own body. 

The light came back for seconds when I saw her standing - and then it was dark again. I opened the emergency casket and put my hands inside- after foraging I found a loaded gun. I pulled the trigger, in the flicker of the light, I saw her again this time sauntering towards me. I forgot she was my partner, I forgot her name too, she was a dead body to me.

Out of fear I kept shooting in the dark.

And then I saw sunlight, and felt the warm air- the stench suddenly evaporated. I saw two commandos walking towards me clad in black overalls.

I knelt and sobbed like a dying man.

They put me in a stretcher and pulled me up and after sixth months I was out on the surface. There is no substitute for life, I figured my partner died- I began crying again, for some reason I am a kid again who has been found.

After a week I completely recuperated. It was then that the news was disclosed to me.

The nuclear blast never took place and for no reason, we were inside and my partner died. As I looked outside at the garden, a butterfly sat carefully on the window.