The Thinker
Prologue
February 1982
It was a cold winter's eve. The barren trees outside Arthur’s apartment had decayed and turned into standing corpses, enveloped by a thick coat of snow. The trees surrounded the Town of Kerak hill giving an eerie feeling of being eternally trapped. Beyond the trees were the snow-white fields that had been barren for as long as Arthur could remember, which covered the entire town like an unclimbable obstacle. He watched through his window as the chilling winds carried the everlasting snow and spread it as far as the eye could see, giving birth to the eternal winter.
The entire town was ghosted. Not even a single soul out of the thousands that once dreamt up Kerak Hill to reality had survived. The bodies of the once joyful toddlers, loving mothers and providing fathers had all but decayed. The spiritless buildings, houses, shops, hospitals were on the verge of collapse seeming as if only the frozen bricks were keeping them intact. The parks were now empty and had become a graveyard for the spirits of the young ones. The hospital was occupied in its entirety by the deceased. One body stacked on top of the other in every single ward. The Town was littered by souvenirs of the deceased. Empty trucks and cars, rusting, scattered everywhere. Every single fragment of the place was hampered with radiation. More of a everlasting "Nuclear" Winter.
The creatures that had managed to survive in the far woods had mutated into treacherous eerie creatures with murderous intent for all. All the food, the fields bearing fruits and edibles were now laden with radiation. The edibles in the shops and places where they were once located had all but rotten away. The sole way to fill the belly was to hunt down the mutated beings, detoxifying them and consuming, even then they would not be completely rid of radiation but that was the sole way to keep the soul from being devoured by this abyss.
The ground level radiation was the highest and lowered down as the atmosphere got thinner on higher ground. The ground wasn’t even walkable bare foot without catching gangrene in a couple of seconds or developing blisters or a radioactive infection. Life had lost its meaning in a true sense. It was now about survival, not living.
Arthur lived in the room of the topmost apartment of the highest building in the entire town where the chances of survival were the highest. The peak of the building stretched above the clouds that poured radioactive snow. Arthur took shelter in the most confined room of the apartment. The isolated room had a compact, four paned window. On the front wall was a stuck clock. Beside the clock were hung his hazmat suit, his gas mask and his duffel bag holding all his hunting equipment and his Geiger counter which he used to detect the intensity of radiation. A small, handcrafted fireplace was situated on the far-left corner of the room and a hole ridden rotting mattress over a long plank placed on the ground beside the right wall where Arthur laid and wondered about his existence. There was no cupboard and Arthur had no other clothes. The small cracks in the window were taped off to stop the radioactive air from entering the room and wreaking havoc. The walls had decayed, and the color had faded, giving the walls a greenish tint due to extreme levels radiation.
It was impossible to obtain sustenance from that confined space. The hideous creatures, imperative for nourishment, inhabited the barren, radioactive forest located about fifteen kilometers from the Town. The forest had the highest levels of radiation as it was situated closest to the Hadron Collider. The creatures only came out of their hideouts under the pitch-black darkness of night that lacked even a single slither of light from the moon as the tormenting clouds had now permanently covered the sky as far as the eye could see. The blizzard intensified as the sky got darker and night approached but that was the only time when it was possible to become the predator and find sustenance.
Arthur kept track of time by the glimmer of sunlight that reached the Town. The clock inside his room was stuck at 9:02, the time of the explosion. As the sky got darker, Arthur made preparations to depart into the dark to acquire rations. He put on his Hazmat suit and his gas mask, without which he would die from the never-ending radiation storm in minutes, his hunting equipment which included a blunt knife, a rope and a razor wire and his night vision goggles and managed to squeeze everything inside his military grade duffel bag and attached his Geiger counter to the strap of his hazmat suit close to his waist. Arthur removed the radiation vacuum, put on his night vision goggles, opened the door and stepped out into what seemed like a never-ending darkness.
It was a cold winter's eve. The barren trees outside Arthur’s apartment had decayed and turned into standing corpses, enveloped by a thick coat of snow. The trees surrounded the Town of Kerak hill giving an eerie feeling of being eternally trapped. Beyond the trees were the snow-white fields that had been barren for as long as Arthur could remember, which covered the entire town like an unclimbable obstacle. He watched through his window as the chilling winds carried the everlasting snow and spread it as far as the eye could see, giving birth to the eternal winter.
The entire town was ghosted. Not even a single soul out of the thousands that once dreamt up Kerak Hill to reality had survived. The bodies of the once joyful toddlers, loving mothers and providing fathers had all but decayed. The spiritless buildings, houses, shops, hospitals were on the verge of collapse seeming as if only the frozen bricks were keeping them intact. The parks were now empty and had become a graveyard for the spirits of the young ones. The hospital was occupied in its entirety by the deceased. One body stacked on top of the other in every single ward. The Town was littered by souvenirs of the deceased. Empty trucks and cars, rusting, scattered everywhere. Every single fragment of the place was hampered with radiation. More of a everlasting "Nuclear" Winter.
The creatures that had managed to survive in the far woods had mutated into treacherous eerie creatures with murderous intent for all. All the food, the fields bearing fruits and edibles were now laden with radiation. The edibles in the shops and places where they were once located had all but rotten away. The sole way to fill the belly was to hunt down the mutated beings, detoxifying them and consuming, even then they would not be completely rid of radiation but that was the sole way to keep the soul from being devoured by this abyss.
The ground level radiation was the highest and lowered down as the atmosphere got thinner on higher ground. The ground wasn’t even walkable bare foot without catching gangrene in a couple of seconds or developing blisters or a radioactive infection. Life had lost its meaning in a true sense. It was now about survival, not living.
Arthur lived in the room of the topmost apartment of the highest building in the entire town where the chances of survival were the highest. The peak of the building stretched above the clouds that poured radioactive snow. Arthur took shelter in the most confined room of the apartment. The isolated room had a compact, four paned window. On the front wall was a stuck clock. Beside the clock were hung his hazmat suit, his gas mask and his duffel bag holding all his hunting equipment and his Geiger counter which he used to detect the intensity of radiation. A small, handcrafted fireplace was situated on the far-left corner of the room and a hole ridden rotting mattress over a long plank placed on the ground beside the right wall where Arthur laid and wondered about his existence. There was no cupboard and Arthur had no other clothes. The small cracks in the window were taped off to stop the radioactive air from entering the room and wreaking havoc. The walls had decayed, and the color had faded, giving the walls a greenish tint due to extreme levels radiation.
It was impossible to obtain sustenance from that confined space. The hideous creatures, imperative for nourishment, inhabited the barren, radioactive forest located about fifteen kilometers from the Town. The forest had the highest levels of radiation as it was situated closest to the Hadron Collider. The creatures only came out of their hideouts under the pitch-black darkness of night that lacked even a single slither of light from the moon as the tormenting clouds had now permanently covered the sky as far as the eye could see. The blizzard intensified as the sky got darker and night approached but that was the only time when it was possible to become the predator and find sustenance.
Arthur kept track of time by the glimmer of sunlight that reached the Town. The clock inside his room was stuck at 9:02, the time of the explosion. As the sky got darker, Arthur made preparations to depart into the dark to acquire rations. He put on his Hazmat suit and his gas mask, without which he would die from the never-ending radiation storm in minutes, his hunting equipment which included a blunt knife, a rope and a razor wire and his night vision goggles and managed to squeeze everything inside his military grade duffel bag and attached his Geiger counter to the strap of his hazmat suit close to his waist. Arthur removed the radiation vacuum, put on his night vision goggles, opened the door and stepped out into what seemed like a never-ending darkness.