A Dawn of Burning Skies - A Novel (1-5)

Silence.
"Anyone?" I asked again.
I slammed my first against the side of the bus. Now what?
There wasn't anywhere we could stay, and it was getting dark. The rain was getting worse.
Then I started selling a strange smell. It was almost the kind of smell you would get when walking in a forest after a heavy rain, but only somehow more pure.
I stepped outside for a second and immediately felt a stinging on my skin. It wasn't like a burning feeling, but only a slight stinging feeling. I opened my mouth to taste it. Big mistake.
The bitterness of it absolutely seared my mouth through. Coughing like crazy, I staggered back into the bus.
"It tastes like acid!" I managed to cough out, spitting on the ground.
"Acid rain," Adrienne noted, looking out the windows. "It must be the fallout of the bomb."
Having partially recovered, I said, "We stay in the bus tonight. Tomorrow, we move on."
Little did we know, tomorrow would be much worse.

We awoke to the continuous drumming sound of rain on the metal roof of the bus. Adrienne and I got up together and stood next to a window. I could still feel the bitter taste of acid in my mouth.
"It's still raining. Look how dark it is, though the sun has probably already been up for a while. What's happening, Humph?"
I shook my head and started walking down the aisle toward the front of the bus. Then, someone held out their arm and stopped me. I saw a young girl, no older than ten or eleven.
"I must be a nuclear winter formed. My dad talked about that after we watched a TV show about the end of the world. It's where everything just goes dark because of the fallout of the bomb," she said, looking up at me with big eyes. "Now he's probably dead."
Tears formed in her eyes, and I could feel some welling up in my eyes too.
"There, there, don't worry. We'll all see our families again, promise." I rubbed her arm. "You'll see."

"Adry, I'm going to go look for help. We can't just sit here and die," I said
“I’m coming with you,” Adrienne said, grabbing my arm.
“And then who’s going to look after these kids?” I retorted. “Come on Adry, I won’t be gone for long.”
She looked as if she wanted to slap me then, but I stood firm. I knew she really wanted to just get out the bus and away from anything that reminded her about what was happening, but I couldn’t leave the other children on the bus alone.
“Fine,” she said softly and strode back to her seat. I didn’t wait for her to sit down before I was out of the bus.
The soft pitter-patter of the rain was but an illusion of what danger it really was. I noticed that my clothes had small brown spots on them where rain had fallen the previous evening and I knew that in a day or two they would form holes. Also, what affect would the acid rain have on our health? We’d all probably become sick soon. All the more reason for me to find help.

Stepping into the middle of the road, I took in the geography of the area we were in. We were in what seemed to be the foothills of the mountains. The mountains, however, couldn’t be seen because of a fog that was forming. I look north to where we had come from. The road was went back a few hundred meters and then curved around a small hill. The south side of the road was similar. Trees surrounded us pretty much all around, so it was hard to see far.

The hill to the south of me looked to be easy to climb and we should anyway be heading that way, so I decided to climb it. It was eerie to walk down a deserted road with no signs of life anywhere around you. The rain and fog made it even worse.

I stepped up the pace into a jog until I reached the base of the hill.

Chapter 1 Part 1
Chapter 1 Part 2
Chapter 1 Part 3
Chapter 1 Part 4