text: My mom had been planning a family vacation for the past few weeks so my “not so much of a morning person” husband and I decided it would be best to spent the night at her house. I shut off my alarm which was set thirty minutes before my husband’s and decided to check out my childhood home. An alluring two-story Victorian home secretly housed on Main Street. It was a peaceful and quiet neighborhood with endless miles of forested trails in every direction. Walking into the living room I recall late nights watching Unsolved Mysteries with my mom followed by menacing thoughts of ghosts lurking around the corner and serial killers ready to pop out behind the many pine trees that guarded our backyard. The array of colours that filled the interior looked liked an artist’s paint palette with delicate pastels bordered boldly. The plethora of trinkets used to fascinate me, now they seem to haunt me. Each detail, watching and waiting for something inevitable. Making our way to the car, we triple checked every room to ensure we weren’t forgetting anything before our seven hour trip from Flagstaff to sunny San Diego. We headed out in the early morning to avoid traffic and to get the beach at the perfect time. This, for me, was the worst time for driving. I had an unusually debilitating fear of most things. Odd things. Driving in complete darkness, rattled by the silence and surrounded by the massive trees and ominous mountains, an obvious sign of looming death. I understand that it’s a stupid fear, but it’s a real fear nonetheless. With no one on the road ahead or behind us for miles, we decided to stop at the 24/7 gas station for a quick stretch and a heavily sugared coffee. For a service station that is open all day for 364 days a year, it was eerily dark. Not a soul in sight and a flickering light above the entrance, we had a three second window of visibility before it went dark again. The station looked abandoned, as if someone had an urgent engagement and only had time to lock the door. I tried the door handle a few more times before turning to my husband and telling him to check around the back. “There’s a car back here with the engine running. Maybe aliens abducted him,” he stated with a smirk on his face knowing that would give me the chills. “Don’t fucking say that,” I yelled as I ran up to him and slapped his arm. Up ahead in the dense forest we heard a shuffling sound that scurried away. The icing on the cake, I thought, we stumbled upon a burglary and now the guy is looking out, waiting for the right moment to kill us. “Ryan, don’t you dare go in there. Just turn around like you didn’t hear anything, walk back, act normally and get in the fucking car,” I whispered so the psychotic burglar wouldn’t hear me. “Calm the fuck down, it’s nothing. But fine, go grab your mom and get back in the car. I just want to check something out. It’ll take me five seconds,” he stated nonchalantly. My heart raced and I felt the overwhelming fear of trying to get out and knowing that something was coming after us. As I turned the corner to see where our car was parked, I couldn’t see my mom anywhere. Freaked out, I yelled “Mom, we have to go NOW.” Just like that it was silent. No crickets, no fluorescent lights buzzing, no wind howling. What the fuck is going on. I circled the service station for what seemed like an eternity screaming, “RYAN! MOM! Please just answer me. IT’S NOT FUCKING FUNNY.” Crouched behind the building on the north side where there was a deep engulfing shadow I prayed for a miracle. Terrified, I began to cry. As my eyes began to water, my eye shadow started to find it’s way inside my eyeballs. They burned and I decided to leave them shut and wait for that son of a bitch to come and kill me. At least for my last moment alive, I wouldn’t be alone. Another fucking nightmare. It felt so real. I sat up in bed and realized that I was safe. I turned to my left to give my husband a hug to ensure me that we were both okay but his side was empty. Our living quarters were all the same here. Once the Nuclear Wars of 2018 began, the United States began sending residents to space in a series of interconnected stations. The process took a total of five years to complete. Some decided to stay on Earth in their doomsday preparation shelters while others went crazy with all of the chaos. The rest simply vanished or died. For those incarcerated, the government decided that they were not worthy of taking up space up here and were let go to fend for themselves as punishment. Life was simple here in the station. Ample space allowed for the few thousand residents of their assigned station to move freely and engage in Quality of Life Projects. The goal was to assign people “projects” that would help the overall quality and quantity of life in the station. The station director and president was a frail man who would make his way through the stations with a team of Secret Service members. For the most part, no one got to see his face and he was only known as Director or Mr. President. Rumors circulated that he was a communist, a man with ulterior motives but like I said, rumors. I took a stroll around sector seven, also known as The Great Outdoors. It was fully equipped with acres of perfectly trimmed faux grass. The “sky” was as realistic as the sky on Earth. It mirrored different climates with fully automated clouds and furious thunderstorms that never reached us. The rain that showered the grass seeped through pores hidden underneath and was recycled. Residents of the stations were able to enjoy drives around The Great Outdoors in vintage 50’s cars. Those boat-like machines were solar powered, of course, and fully installed with classic music from the era in which they were born. Don’t ask me why or who chose this era theme. In fact, no one on the stations really knew why Fallout was themed throughout the stations. As I gingerly made my way through the stations looking for my husband, I passed the endless rows of military soldiers. Each fully dressed in a magnitude of black military grade gear. They reminded me of Tom Cruise’s character in the movie Edge of Tomorrow. Each soldier came equipped with a RealTV (pronounced like the former Madrid soccer team) headset. Almost like a gamer’s Virtual Reality set but unless you were military, you didn’t know what they were watching. I reached the cafeteria, or as I call it, Heaven. An assembly of popular food joints was spread throughout the five levels. Level three was my favorite and housed the Pizza Hut, Cinnabon and Starbucks. It reminded me of my trips back on Earth to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Sure enough there was my husband. “Hey hun, I was looking for you,” I sighed with relief as I sat down in the park-like bench next to him. “Sorry, I was hungry and my shift starts early today because we have a meeting,” he sprayed between his chewing breaks. “Well, I’ll go back to the room, I’m off today and I wanted to get some reading done.” I explained as I stole a sip of his coffee. “Have fun at work, I’ll see you tonight. Oh, I had a terrible nightmare but I don’t really remember it now. Oh well.” I kissed his cheek and made my way back to room 1039. Passing the rows of soldiers I slowed down to carefully look at their robotic bodies. Standing perfectly still and lifeless, I couldn’t tell if they were occupied. For a moment the fear paralyzed me as I realized that I had never in five years seen a single person enter or exit the suits. Why didn’t any of the station residents see these military personnel or know anyone in the military. The thought boggled my mind and left the powerful fear in my body as I tried to logically reason. Maybe they were part of a secluded sector within the station that worked odd hours when everyone was asleep. Yeah, that sounded good. A cold shiver passed through my body as I remembered the trinkets at my mother’s house, the hundreds or ornaments that seemed to house ghostly spirits of unspeakable terrors. I hastily sprinted to my room looking back every so often to ensure that none of the possessed robots were behind me. I couldn’t open the door fast enough and as soon as I entered I locked both locks. Safe and secure, the only other people who could enter my room now was my husband and Station Police with the proper warrant. My heart wouldn’t stop racing as I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting. All I had to do was keep myself busy until 6:00 when my husband returned and I would be okay. I spent the day reading my book, The Stand by Stephen King, when I felt a tremor. This wasn’t unusual because space was filled with unavoidable debris. The shaking continued at a steady methodical rhythm when at last, it ceased. As I turned my head to look at the time, a strong shake knocked me out of bed. The lights began to flicker above as my nightstand lamp was knocked over and shattered into hundreds of sharp puzzle pieces. Screams could be heard throughout as smoked filled the rooms. I started to feel weak and unable to open my eyes. Unable to raise my arms, I slowly drifted to a silent sleep trying my hardest to fight back. “Wake up,” I heard as the first streaks of light began to seep between my eyelashes. “You were having another nightmare dear,” Nurse Jones whispered as she stroked my hair. She stood up and shook her head and she looked at my tray from last night. “You know what happens when you forget to take your nightly medication. Those odd dreams keep coming back and you get those night terrors. We trust that our patients will do what they need to do so when they are released, there won’t be any relapses.” “My head is a complete mess. What day is it Mrs. Jones?” I asked as I scratched my head trying to clear the thoughts in my head. “It’s Tuesday, January 17th honey.” I stood up to look out of the window. The orange curtains were thick with smoke and the whiff of cigarette alarmed my nose. I sneezed only to catch a glimpse of myself in the tiny tray-like mirror hanging above the wardrobe. A ghostly reflection gazed back as I inched closer. The white dress that caressed my body had a tiny emblem above my left breast. The closer I got I realized that it was a number. 21034 it read. Unable to comprehend, I grabbed my hair, my head and my face trying to make sense of my surroundings. It was me but at the same time it wasn’t me. I looked old fashioned, the same age but nothing looked familiar. I tried to scream but nothing came out. “What...year....am I in?” I asked as I stood there in horrified silence. No response came. I slowly turned my head waiting to see the nurse stare at me with shame and despair but she had vanished. I ran into the hallway hoping to find a doctor or someone with a cellphone to reassure me that I was in 2016 but the more I ran towards the Psychiatric Wards exit, the further the hall seemed to stretch. Room after room, loneliness began to creep in. Flickering lights and no working landlines. Unable to think of a plan, I ran toward the nurse’s station in the center of the rooms. I picked up the phones with ease. They were pieces of cardboard with stickers in the shapes of a numbered wheel. I shuffled through the patient’s medical records only to find that they were completely blank. Thousands of pages, empty. The frames that used to house Norman Rockwell paintings were gone. Only the frames remained. I remembered the window outside of my room. I could climb out and find someone who could help me. The sounds of children playing and giggling remained fresh in my ringing ears and I started to feel a sense of relief. I found my way back to my room and opened the window. “What the fuck is going on,” I yelled. The once bright sunlit curtains covered nothing more that glass over a bright white wall. I crawled into bed unable to breath. Between sobs I noticed a small transparent cup with two pills inside. I hope to fucking God that this kills me, I thought. I laid in bed waiting for them to kick in. Staring at the white walls, the old ceiling and the flickering lights down the hall I patiently awaited death to take my hand and away from this Hell. The tears streamed down my face as I squeezed my eyes shut. As night began to crawl in, I shivered. The room was icy cold and I still hadn’t felt any effects from the pills I had taken ages ago. In the distance I began to hear a faint beeping noise. As the sound grew stronger, it felt as if the bed was slowing sucking me in, slowly drowning in quicksand. I reached for the nightstand and felt around for my phone. Without looking at it, I silenced my alarm. It was the first day of my Summer vacation with my husband and mom. Seven hours from now, we’d be eating lunch next to beach in beautiful California.