Judgement Day

A Story by Sean Zabihi

In a post-apocalyptic world, superpowers wouldn’t be the worst thing to have huh? Well Tak knows from experience. It was a time in somewhat of a dystopian society and all of mankind was almost extinct. Japan dropped a nuclear bomb on us in the middle of our country making an army of unstoppable bio-mechanical soldiers called the flood. The nuclear attack was bestowed upon us after years of war, hate and violence. Without all of the radiation and nuclear toxins, the soldiers would have come out correctly. Instead, the radiation and pollution mutated them and they destroyed and enslaved most of mankind.

Tak was 18 years old. He lived alone after the flood captured his parents. Tak’s eyes and hair were brown but after contact with the radiation, his hair turned white and his eyes glowed purple like two shiny marbles. He wore a black trench coat and black combat boots. Every morning he wakes up to gunshots, screams, helicopters, or explosions. The streets were dirty, street signs were knocked down or upside down, traffic lights were on the ground, stores were broken into, windows were busted. That’s what he was use to.

Tak had this ability that no other human being possessed. Anytime he would draw something, he had the power to make his drawing come to life. He was such a detailed artist, that he could draw something and then shade it in with colors and make it look 100 percent real. He first discovered his ability when he was 9 years old. He was just acting as a normal child drawing with chalk on the sidewalk, and then, they came to life. He drew pictures of himself, cars, airplanes, and anything he could think of. He saw an exact clone of him walking around but as if it were made of chalk. The planes took off from the ground zooming past his face and the cars started driving around him in circles. As he grew older he learned how to control his powers and only bring his creations to life if he wanted them to be real.

After running out of supplies for his creations, he took his hover craft to the store downtown. With his sword drawn from his sheath, he kicks open the front door. “Hey, get out of…” the soldier couldn’t even finish his sentence before Tak sliced him like a piece of fruit. “I need supplies and money to get out of this town, I can’t live here anymore” he said. As he rummages through the store, he cannot find anything to be of his assistance. Then, he hears something, like an airplane or a chopper closing in on him. He looks up and it appears to be his parents with General Stadenko, the leader and creator of the flood. “Tak, save us!”, his mother cried. “You can do it son, find us and make the general pay for what he’s done to this world! “, his father screams. “I’LL DO ANYTHING TO GET YOU GUYS BACK! I PROMISE!’’, exclaimed Tak. I can’t leave now I just can’t. I need to get my parents back.

Tak draws a tank, suits up his armor and packs his weapons. He’s on his way to RoboCorp, which is the corporation that continued to create the soldiers even after the machines were corrupted. Barreling through the streets in his tank, he is running through everything and anything in his way. All of a sudden, the tires on the tank give way and collapse. The tank is sitting on its frame and it is overheating and Tak doesn’t have any drawing utensils because the store was wiped out. He looks and looks and he finds a rock on the ground. He tries to draw with it but it doesn’t work. Then, out of the corner of his eye he sees three patrol cars coming towards him. He’s trying to run but something is holding him down. It’s his boots! They melted to the frame of the tank that overheated! The sound of marching fills the streets. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Then, he realizes that he had a pencil in his pocket, but it isn’t sharpened. The most he could do is just scrape it on the asphalt until a point is showing. At last, his pencil is sharpened and he draws another tank, another set of boots and he’s ready to go.

He finally arrives at RoboCorp. BOOM, he kicks open the door and starts to chop away at all of the soldiers in his way. He makes his way to the master control room. All out of ideas, he draws up another sword. He busts in the door and starts slicing, and slashing his sword around but no response. He is a little shocked and surprised that nobody was in there. “Tak, help!” screamed a voice down the hall. “I’m coming!”, he yelled. He follows the voice and finds a door. He opened it and to his amazement, the parents he saw in the chopper were holograms created by General Stadenko. He wanted to get him to come to RoboCorp to extract his powers and use them for evil. Tak wasn’t going to go without a fight. After hours of worthless and time consuming bloodshed, Tak defeats General Stadenko. Riding away in the sunset, after years of keeping his emotions bottled up, Tak has an epiphany of everything that just happened and it just hit him. He is alone. Forever. He breaks down in tears kneeling in the middle of the highway. As the sun starts to set, these creatures that he has never seen before approach him slowly from the shadows. All he could do is kneel there, hopeless, confused, not knowing what to do. As these creatures got closer and closer, the sun goes down. And in complete and udder darkness, all which is heard for miles is Tak’s petrified screams of horror and despair.