-------The Apocalypse of Revelation
Alyssa Harris, Grade 10
Eight-year-old Elizabeth cried out as the earth shook for the fifth time in two days.
Jessie shushed her, saying, "It's just an aftershock, Liz. It's okay."
The little girl shook her head and hid behind her older sister's legs as if she were an even smaller child, whimpering as the world finally came to a still.
The cracks in the building around them creaked, and the walls threatened to tumble down, then everything at once became quiet. There weren't any crickets or cicadas to be heard that night, having been silenced by the horrors that had just until recently wrought the city and every other town, state, country, and continent around it.
The war had united all of humankind, across oceans and deserts, forests and mountains. Everyone had banded together to protect their Earth from the Fallen Angels. Adults as young as eighteen were drafted to fight against the demonic plague that had ravaged the lands, most of them dying in battle, leaving children like Jessie and Liz behind.
They had won, right? There were no longer any bombs shaking the ground, or screams flying through the air. No one was dying anymore.
But there were. People dying, that is. Not only people, but kids, left alone to fend for themselves with no parents, no homes, and no food. The world was a wasteland, with children as its survivors.
"Come on, Liz." Jessie said, looking down with a smile as she placed a hand around her little sister's shoulder, "Are you hungry?"
The small child nodded vigorously, looking up with wide, glassy brown eyes as her tiny stomach let out a grumble as if on cue. Jessie giggled, a tired, forced sound, and took Elizabeth by the hand.
"Let's play a game," she said, "Like a scavenger-hunt. The first one to find food wins!"
"Okay."
Still holding onto each other as if afraid to be ripped away, the two sisters had to climb over a pile of rubble to make it to the sad, misshapen door frame. The door itself having been ripped off its hinges some time ago, Liz and Jessie strode cautiously through the gaping hole and into the dim sunlight, the lingering smog immediately making them cough.
"Cover your mouth." Jessie instructed, lifting her muddied shirt to veil her cracking lips. She immediately had to force a bought of bile from her throat. They hadn't seen a shower in weeks, perhaps even a month.
Little Elizabeth did as she was told, all the while clenching Jessie's fingers as they continued their haphazard path across the jagged city streets. Stumbling over rocks and jagged concrete, Jessie had to catch her sister from falling multiple times. There was no access to medical supplies, and even a tiny scrape could become dangerously infected, so she had to be especially careful.
Jessie could almost picture hundreds of brittle tumbleweeds bouncing on the wind through the abandoned city, feeling that she and Liz were the only people for miles.