Story: Blinded by the Sun

Authors Note: This story is of my own creation. When I saw the map by Tom Gauld I immediately thought of nuclear fallout and how people would survive and what would happen after thousands of years under the surface. I used mine shafts, nuclear fallout, and evil spirits to make a lot of what is going on in my heroines world. Mine shafts seemed to be the perfect home for nuclear survivors because it would keep them safe from radiation. The Nuclear Fallout would be the perfect cataclysm to change human way of thought and life while also keeping some aspects from the 1950's like the implementation of Nuclear families and the like. If you need any more information on nuclear families I did include a link and a picture to explain. The evil spirits were a perfect machine to deliver fear to my heroine and are actually in fact radiation clouds in my mind. All of these elements made this piece a blast to write. I hope you enjoy it!

She should have obeyed the laws of the tribe. For thousands of years her people had hidden from the horrors of the surface world. In a small shack in the wood is where her ancestors had made their home tunneling deep into the earth after they had reached the end of tunnels already built to mine the precious jewels that the ancient peoples valued. Never did they go to the surface. The surface meant death to all things and had been sealed off since the beginning. A fireball heated their life from within the earth. Glowing crystals and glow worms littered the walls keeping them from infinite darkness. This was her home. This was her ancestors home.

                She had left the tunnels by accident at first finding the first home. It was a tiny room made of wood and stone. Everything was filmed with dust and covered in cobwebs. It was awe inspiring. This was her beginning. This was where her people had come from. This small room with no glow worms or crystals to light it. This was hers to share or hers to keep all for herself and so she did. She kept the room to herself visiting often and tracing the strange markings on the wall. Tracing long forgotten words of the ancients. She tried sounding them out at times but mostly traced them learning their curves better than she knew the tunnels. Spending hours she would feel them in the darkness.

N U C L E A R F A L L O U T S H E L T E R\

One day she was laying in her hideaway and she heard a noise. She went to the wall and pressed her ear against it. She heard something clawing at the outside. It startled her making her crawl back huddling against the wall and before she could stop herself she ran back into the tunnels and all the way to her assigned hole. Her birth giver was there and noticed that her progeny was distressed. In a language much altered from modern day English they spoke.

“What is wrong? Was there a tunnel collapse?” Her birth giver placed her hands on the girl’s cheeks and looked into her eyes questioningly. The girl thought for a moment licking her dried lips. She wasn’t ready to give up her secret place to the others of the tribe.

“Nothing birth giver. I was scared of something in the darkness.” She smiled reassuringly and patted her birth givers hand. In the tribe there were rules to how many could occupy the hole. One male birth giver and one female birth giver who in turn would produce one male and one female progeny. Any other offspring were distributed to those who could not or were not allowed to reproduce due to mutations from being under the earth. These were rules set by the ancients and kept sacred by her people.  

                “You are too old to still fear the darkness. Go and pray to the ancients to give you courage. This is our life until our Holiday is ended by the ancients return or the dying of the heat core.” Her birth giver was impatient with her as she approached the time in which she would have her own hole and assigned a male birth giver to spawn with. With that in mind she decided to figure out what had made that noise. She had courage. She did not want to settle into her hole and her future without knowing what had made that noise. She would venture outside the stone and wood walls and see for herself.

                The next day she went back to her hideaway. There was a panel in the shape of her hand next to cut out in the wall she pressed her hand to it and instantly jerked it away. Blood ran from her finger and a soft beep sounded from the panel and the door opened. She stepped through and was blinded by the sun. She quickly put her arms over her eyes but it would not stop the light. It went through her pale skin and burned her eyes blinding her. She fell backwards into the room and the door hissed closed and she cried softly. Now she was afraid. Her world was dark permanently the light had blinded her. In her eternal darkness her hand felt around and felt the curved lines and was comforted. She would never leave the tunnels and would warn her children of the danger. The evil spirits that float through the air in dark green clouds that her birth giver had told her about had taught her a lesson by blinding her. If they had found her outside the tunnels on the surface they would have crawled into her lungs and killed her. She left the small room and never went back but never forgot the lesson taught to her.

(Nuclear Family)

Nuclear Family Info

(Glow Worms in a cave)

Glow Worms

Bibliography:

This story is based on the map by Tom Gauld titled "Map of the Area Surrounding our Holiday Home."