Harrison woke up to his alarm sounding, glanced at the clock, and leapt out of bed, startling his pet iguana Larry. The reptile glared at him and shuffled off the end of the bed onto the floor.

It took half an hour for Harrison to get ready, which was slow for him. He thought the blame should fall on Larry, who purposefully got in his way at every instance possible.
“I guess there are some drawbacks to having a pet iguana as your best and only friend,” Harrison thought out loud with a bitter smile. He had never really gone to the trouble of making friends. No one really got him. Harrison was a genius, but he went to an academy for the academically challenged because he didn’t try at school.
Harrison had to leave at 7:00 to get to school on time, so he got ready, called goodbye to his foster parents and left. The walk to school took about 20 minutes, so he liked to leave early if possible. Entering the school building, Harrison noticed the hallway walls were plastered with a fresh set of How to Survive a Nuclear Attack pamphlets. No matter how ‘challenged’ they were, all the students knew that if a nuke was dropped anywhere near, they would all be wiped out. The war had been going on for a while at that point, almost 3 years. This time, Russia had allied itself with the US to fight off the bigger threats that were China and, surprisingly, Australia. The biggest scare was when a nuke hit Canada, near Maine. The government had seen it coming, however, and were able to evacuate most of the people.

Harrison, still deep in thought, did not notice the light outside getting brighter, the lack of people at school, and failed to hear the ominous humming noise. When he snapped out of it and looked around, it was already too late.
He ran outside and couldn’t believe what he saw:
Falling from the sky were four sleek black rockets. One of them was headed directly for him.

Harrison screamed and watched helplessly as the first rocket struck, probably hundreds of miles away. He started back the long road home, sprinting this time. The second rocket struck, shaking the ground. Huge mushroom clouds billowed into the sky. Dirt, smoke, and radioactive gasses washed over the city. The third rocket struck. Buildings collapsed. People ran screaming for cover. Harrison reached the house just in time for the fourth rocket to strike. He dove for the button by the door, knowing that it was his only hope. Just as his finger was nearing the force field’s trigger button, everything went black.

When he woke, he couldn’t move. Everything hurt. Harrison realized that he was holding his breath, and gasped for air. The problem was, the air was no longer able to provide the oxygen he needed without certain side effects. Harrison retched, his throat burning and eyes watering. But after coughing, he needed more air, so the vicious cycle continued. Harrison wrapped his torn shirt over his mouth to use as a crude filter and struggled to his knees. Everything around him was dark. There were no buildings, no survivors, no sunlight. He felt like he was trapped in hell, slowly dying. Harrison pushed himself up into a standing position and looked around. There was nothing but corpses. He spotted charred remains of a human there, a dead body here. Harrison could feel, they could not. Harrison could think, they could not. Harrison was alive, they were dead. Alive, in a field of corpses.