World War Teens

Boom. An explosion rattled the building and shook me out of my sleep. I groaned and rolled over in my bed. “Five more minutes,” I muttered.

Another explosion sounded in the distance. I sat up groggily and checked my digital bedside clock. It was turned off. That’s weird, I thought. But as my eyes swept my small, dim bedroom, I quickly realized that all of my electronic devices were turned off. My clock, my alarm, even my phone, when I tried to turn it on, all had dark screens. 

A blood-chilling scream from outside shook me out of my sluggish daze. I instantly got up and threw open the window to the dark alley between my apartment and the supermarket. As soon as I did, thick, black smoke billowed into the room, filling my lungs. I coughed and slammed the window shut, gasping for clean air. 

When the smoke finally cleared, I sat back on my bed, letting myself sink into the soft mattress. It was then that I fully registered the sounds that had woken me up as those of explosions. I put my head into my hands and stayed that way for a long moment. My mind raced with possibilities. What had happened while I was sleeping? I was only out for a couple of hours... right?

Last night had been like any other night- except for the fact that I had set my alarm one hour forward to account for daylight savings. When I fell asleep, the country was at peace. Sure, there were always rumors of conflict circulating, but it's not like that missing hour was enough to set off a war overnight. And why did the city seem so… empty? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how true it was. The streets were completely silent. I lived in the heart of New York City, and “The City That Never Sleeps” was, well, asleep.

When I looked up, I saw something sitting on my desk that definitely hadn't been there before- a small, blinking device. I scooped up the object gingerly and examined it closely. It was about the size and shape of a baseball (if it had been flattened into a disk), and it was surprisingly light, despite it being made of metal. On it were two small buttons- one in the shape of a circle, and one in that of a square, with a flashing red light above it. I pressed the square.

A recording started playing, which startled me so much that I almost dropped the metal disk. “Lillian,” a woman said. Her voice seemed choked up, as if she had been crying, and her speech was hurried. “Lillian, baby, I’m sorry. They wouldn’t let us take you. You have to take shelter. Hide! They’re taking us to-” There, the recording ended abruptly, filling the silence with static. The woman didn't mention her name, but I'd recognize the voice anywhere. It was my mother’s.

My heart lodged in my throat. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the sound of my mother’s broken voice was heartbreaking. It must be connected, I realized. The explosions, the power outage, the quiet city, my mother’s urgent message. But how?

Clutching the device in my left hand, I slipped on my running shoes, tore down the stairs of my apartment complex, and burst through the revolving doors, onto the deserted street. Before running to the right, I glanced around at the ruined city block. Buildings were obliterated. Roads were littered with debris. My hometown was destroyed, reduced to rubble and ashes. For my own sake, I continued on my trek towards the supermarket, trudging through the wreckage.

The store, thankfully, was still intact. It had two glass doors, with pull handles on the outside. I tugged on one, but it wouldn't budge. Locked. “Shit,” I muttered. I looked around for something to break open the door with, and my eyes rested on an apple-sized chunk of concrete- probably remains of a nearby building. I picked it up with my free hand and threw it in the air a couple of times, testing the weight, before hurling it at the doors, effectively shattering the glass and providing me entry. 

I hopped over the broken glass and through the jagged hole into the supermarket. The smell of spoiled meat and dairy products engulfed my nostrils, but I gritted my teeth, plugged my nose, and jogged through the store.

I stopped at the checkout stations and grabbed a copy of the New York Times from one of the paper stands. I traced my index finger along the words, and held my breath in disbelief. September 21st, 2020, the date read. That would mean… I had been sleeping for six months? My mind raced as I skimmed the paper. North Korea… WWIII… evacuation… it all made no sense. Unless-

“Lillian!” a voice yelled, echoing off of the walls. Familiar, but I just couldn't place it. My head shot up as I scanned the area, looking for where the voice came from, when suddenly, someone pushed me to the ground from behind, and the back wall exploded.

* * *

When I came to, my ears were still ringing from the explosion. It was dark, with the exception of a small battery-powered lamp sitting between me and… oh my god. Of course it had to be him that I was thrown into doomsday with. This day just kept getting worse and worse. Because sitting right in front of me, mess of curly brown hair and all, was Carter Larson, notorious class clown- and the boy I’ve been in love with since kindergarten.

I must have made an involuntary sound of surprise, because the boy on the other side of the lamp looked up from his bag of roasted peanuts. “Hey,” he said, and gave me a signature goofy side smile. “You're alive. Sorry about the whole knocking you to the ground thing, by the way, but I figured I should save the damsel in distress, huh?”

“Uhhh…” Stupid, stupid, stupid, I chanted in my head. You're literally almost got blown up, and you still can’t speak in full sentences in front of your crush? “Yeah, thanks,” I managed. “Thanks for saving me from the… bomb?”

“Yep,” he confirmed. “They've been dropping down all day, but I think they've stopped for now.” His voice bounced off of the walls of the empty grocery store. We were still inside, I realized, but in a different (less blown up) section, by the cereal and snack foods. I silently thanked him for moving us away from the smell of rotten food.

“So, this isn't just an after effect of daylight savings?” I joked weakly.

Carter chuckled. “Nope. Welcome to the next World War!” He grinned and spread his arms to his sides, like a game show host. Some sick game show.

I cringed as he said it. I was hoping that the newspaper was wrong, or lying, but when he said it, it felt so much more... real. This was what World War Three looked like, and we were right in the middle of it.

“I'm guessing you woke up from a coma this morning, too?” Carter asked.

I nodded and hesitated before continuing on.“When I woke up, this was sitting on my nightstand.” I showed him the recording device I was still miraculously holding in my left hand. “It has a message from my mother on it. She must've recorded it just before they left, because her message was cut off. Here, listen.” I hit the square button again, and it replayed the audio. It wasn't any better hearing it the second time.

When the recording ended and I looked back up at Carter, I could practically see the gears turning in his head. Carter was always such a comedian, it was easy for me to forget that he could be really smart and serious at times. “As far as I can tell, we’ve been sleeping for about a year. That paper you were reading,” he said as he gestured to the crumpled newspaper I realized I was still clutching in my fist, “was written six months ago, right before the government called for an emergency evacuation to New Mexico.”

“What makes you think it's been another six months since then?” I asked. He must have found something that told him that. After all, outside was a complete wasteland; he wouldn't have been able to tell the time of year from the weather.

“Just a hunch? I don't know; it just feels like March, you know? Like I've had a nice, year-long nap.” He grinned at me like he had just cracked a joke that had gotten him detention for a week, a smile that would usually make my heart melt, but I quickly noticed that he was rubbing the small birthmark on the palm of his left hand- the way he did when he was uneasy about something. Or when he was lying.

“Carter,” I said, my voice small. An idea had been forming in my head, one that both reassured me and scared me out of my wits. “Do you think there are other people here, in the city, with us? When I woke up, I heard a scream somewhere outside my apartment. But if everyone’s evacuated…”

He shook his head slowly. “I don't know, Lilli. If I'm being honest… well, I've heard some weird noises, too. But I'm sure it's just some small animals, or something. I mean, the chances that there are others around here? Impossible.” I would have been reassured by this, but he was still stroking his birthmark. Definitely lying.

Nonetheless, I smiled at him, as if I was unbothered by all of this. It was nice having him with me- someone who could crack jokes and make the mood lighter. I pulled myself to my feet. “So, what now?” I asked, trying to sound brave. It, of course, didn’t help that I was actually terrified; both of dying, and looking like a complete idiot in front of him.

“Well,” he said, “if I'm being honest, I really have to take a leak. Be right back?”

“Oh,” I said, blushing furiously. “Yeah, go ahead.” Perfect- somehow, I had already managed to look like a complete idiot in front of him. Nice.

Carter gave me one last goofy grin, like he knew he was embarrassing me and was getting a kick out of it, and then pulled himself up and headed in the direction of the bathrooms. When he got up, though, my eyes rested on something set on the cereal shelves, hidden behind a box of Cheerios- a recording device that looked exactly like mine. A pang of shock hit me as I realized that Carter was hiding it from me. 

Now, I’m usually not a snoopy person, but I was a little miffed at the way Carter smirked at me when he walked away, and the fact that even though it wasn’t easy for me to reveal my message from my mom to him, he still didn't bother to even mention his. In fact, he even tried to hide it. I didn't stop to think that there could be a good reason for his hiding it before I walked over and picked it up off of the shelf. Same buttons; circle and square. I hit the square.

A man’s voice started playing. Carter’s dad, maybe? I had never met him, but I knew that Carter was adopted when he was little. “Carter,” the man said in a deep, solemn voice. “You might not understand this yet, but you will. When you wake up, the date will be March 19th, 2021. There will be war. Bombings. New York City as you know it will be destroyed.

“The United States government has gotten restless. They know there will be war soon. And this time, they know they cannot win. As a last line of defense, they have selected twelve teenagers to turn into human superweapons. They have been put into a medically-induced coma, have been experimented upon, and are set to wake up in a year’s time. America knows that by then, they will have failed to preserve their precious country. You are one of these teenagers. But what the government doesn't know is that you belong to me. To the forces of North Korea.

“Your job is to learn your powers before the others do. All of America’s guinea pigs have different ones. Learn them, and take out the others. Eliminate them before they realize what they can do; before they get too powerful for us to stop. If you don't- well, let's just say that I know what makes you tick.

“You were always a sweet boy, Carter. I regret that. I wish they had selected your brother instead. But in spite of this, I have faith in you. You're our inside man. Get the job done.”

Just as the recording ended, I heard footsteps behind me. My heart was beating out of my chest as I turned to look at Carter, fresh from the bathroom. His brown eyes were cold; they didn't hold any of the warmth that the Carter I knew did. He looked at the device in my hand and then back at me. “So, you heard.”

Fear seized my heart. If I had understood the message correctly, I knew what was coming next. “Carter, don't do this. You don't have to do this.”

His eyes misted over. “Didn't you hear?” he hissed. “I have to. It's my job. If I don't…” he shook his head. “Bad things will happen.”

I stared into his eyes, and I wasn't surprised to see an overwhelming fear behind them. He didn't want to do this as much as I didn’t want him to. “We can fight this,” I pleaded with him. “Please, let me help you. We- we can find the others. Remember what he said? ‘Before they get too powerful to stop.’ They're scared of us. We can do this.”

A tear slid down my cheek as I held his gaze. One, two, three. Finally, Carter pulled his eyes away from mine. “Fine,” he muttered. “Follow me. I already know where the rest are.”