I stand there, the horror in front of me being transmitted through my body… It all happened in an instant. The city turned to rubble in the distance, and sitting in the middle of it was a mushroom, not just any mushroom but a mushroom that was gray and turning into decaying orange as you got closer to the base of its stem. it happened so suddenly, from the point where it started, I remember just sitting there and scrolling through memes.

I was born on a small farm my family owns in Idaho, we had a dairy farm that was quite small compared to the others in the area. We made a little profit from the farm but we made enough to live comfortably. I live a life of going to school and working on the farm with not much time for rest. So you must be wondering why I am just sitting in my living room in a rocking chair scrolling past another meme, and you would be right thinking I am lazy but I am doing something completely worthwhile… waiting, well now that I said it also sounds like a shitty answer to my question. Alright so that now we can get past that, I was just sitting there doing nothing important in being a lazy bum but suddenly. My phone ping and it is a Gmail from a University that I have been trying to get into, the University of California. I am trying to get in from my biology studies because if I can’t get the scholarship I will not be able to go to any Universities or colleges cause my parents just can’t afford the tuition that going to one cost. When bringing my shaking finger toward the icon that represents the message that I got from the University, but before I can click the icon my mouth suddenly starts to fill with a thicker and more sticking saliva. I quickly swallow the saliva back down and bring my finger to the button. The message opens up and I see:

Dear: Jacob E. Umbra

Thank you for your application for the Scholarship. We enjoyed getting to know more about

you. We appreciate you sharing information about yourself with us.

However, determining the recipient of the Scholarship is always a difficult decision and is based on many factors. I regret to inform you that you were not selected to receive this award this year. Unfortunately, the University does not have the resources available at this time to provide a scholarship to each worthy applicant.

I wish you the best of luck in pursuing your educational goals.

Sincerely, University of California

Just like that, I have been politely told to fuck off, you are not smart enough for us to use the effort on you. My chest squeezed tighter, my breath got heavier, and it got hard to breathe. All my plans, all my desires to get past the life of just farming had been crushed, I was not sure to be depressed, sad, or angry at the university that I wanted to go to but what I do know is that I just can't deal with anything that is going on around me. I feel like I want to punch a wall with all my strength, screaming and crying with all my body can give. But even as the rational side of me tries its best to fight through the anger and sadness, I know I can’t just damage the house because my parents' budget would be cut by a lot and things would be hard for them. So before I lose control over my body I grab my shoes, and earbuds to go for a walk. As I am rushing through my routine I can somewhat take my mind off of the pain I am feeling but before I can completely leave the house I can hear my mom call out from the garden if I got the message from the University, suddenly all the pain, sadness, and anger I have been feeling comes back stronger. Losing control over myself I slam the door and run as if to run from the torment that I am feeling, the same torment that is tearing through my chest to my heart as my body is covered in searing pain and agony so much that it feels like it will become my existence.

After an unknown amount of time, I lie on the grass as if it became my stretcher carrying me to the rickety boat of a hooded skeleton fella. My vision is as if the world has become darker, my legs screaming at me for being the fool that put them through the pain that they are feeling, my breath coming in spurts. While straightening out my position before I could think about any of the pain I am feeling, I take out the earbuds and put them in my ear, and turn on the audiobook I am currently listening to.

I always loved listening to audiobooks and among all of the genres I loved fantasy, it gave you a peek of a different world full of magic and wonder. Even though some fantasy worlds were dark, filled with little magic and a terrible society, and then there were worlds where everything was right and the main character could always go through the challenges presented to them and there were worlds where everything was balanced and if it felt more like a real-world then something that was made in someone's mind. And like that he laid there staring angrily at nothing listening to worlds that could never exist in his world.

After hours of just daydreaming of a world unlike his own, trying to ignore the chewing pain that is tearing its way closer to my heart. Then suddenly a light that tears its way into his barely open eyes took over his vision, his eyes already starting to feel pain, when the light stopped he started to open his eyes he then thought he heard a sound and then rumble hits that quickly subsides he couldn't hear any sound anymore but then a sharp pain assaulted his head for a few short seconds. He finally opens his own eyes and in front of his eyes is just the mountains now with a disgusting orange color covering them feeling odd he turns around to see a mushroom, not just any mushroom but a mushroom that was gray and turning into decaying orange as you got closer to the base of its stem. Before he could comment about the odd large moving mushroom, he then saw the destruction near its base. It was the city, the city that not only taught him all he knew but the city where they would buy food to eat. The horror of what just happened hits him hard. He felt terrified for what was in front of him, all the anger and sadness he had been feeling, eaten by the monster that was now in front of him. His body just could not take the feelings he was feeling. All the emotions hit him so hard and so fast that his mind just couldn't take it, then black spots started to appear in my vision, and then those black spots ate up all of my vision then I passed out.

I woke up feeling weak and nauseated, with it being hard to focus on anything. By the time I could recognize stuff I realized that I was in a hospital. I wonder why I was here for a moment. The memories smashed themselves to the front of everything causing me to throw up nothing but some saliva. It all felt terrible, the memories of the destruction of all I knew gripping my brain. For a while, I just could not do anything because of the horror of the memories that I have just relieved. When I was able to recognize the outside world I could hear a TV with the president on it. He was saying:

“I know many of you are wondering if we were attacked by a nuke, is this the start of WW3 but I have come to say that we were hit by a nuke. But this nuke was not from another country, it was from ourselves, not due to a new civil war but a mistake. A mistake by the military who were told to be inactive during these troubling times. People you may wonder if we are in a state of panic, No, cause only slightly less than 16 hundred people died which is only .09% of the total number of people who live in Idaho if this many people died due to it hitting a less populated area what if… ”

It is as if I gritted teeth in my mind, even though almost everyone I knew died due to that bomb, all they are saying is that it is an example of why the military is an incompetent idiot. All the people who died were left as just a simple percentage, a number with none of their names to be remembered, just to treat it all as a simple mistake. Just like that the pain that was eating at me gettings a little closer to my heart but the bad news just kept coming. About a week later while I was sitting up in the bed the doctor told me that I was practically dead, already barely weak enough to sit up. I just collapsed. I felt just a shell. A shell where his emotions have been devoured like I was an empty husk. The creature that has been crawling, biting, and scratching closer to his heart has finally got his prize.

Then here we are now, just remembering what happened to me as if I was a book. I dislike that feeling so much. The feeling of the empty void, where I used to feel things is spreading closer to my head, I smile for the first time in 3 weeks cause I know all this pain that is eating me every day, will finally finish me off and make him disappear also.