13th Hour - There Will Come Soft Rains
Wait...I think I can swoows one of those together!
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There Will Come Soft Rains(War Time)
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.-Sara Teasdale
2026 Augusts 26th - There is sunshine over the city of Philadelphia for the first time since the war began. It would not end for another two months. Every so often, someone pokes their head from the rubble, suited up, listening for survivors. This was to be the last war, and all Philadelphians swore it. The state had officially abandoned thousands of people to their demise. Human spirit was working magic to bring survivors to safe harbors, but the Coast Guard would not pick up everyone who made their way south to Ocean City. Not every boat brought friendly faces, and cartels were already into the business of human trafficking up and down the coasts.
Flags and fabrics flew from posts, so if the winds blew the wrong way, people could get to cover: Peach Bottom and Limerick were still leaking, with Limerick in particular spewing steam when the sun heats the concrete during the day. Well over 4,000 volunteers recruited from across the region had died in the nuclear containment efforts, primarily older and disabled men, sometimes ex-felony convicts. Mass bird die-offs have become such a disturbingly common sight, remaining children no longer mention it with conscious recognition. The meters given out at the FEMA camps only went up to 15 röntgens.
Of the survivors in the Philadelphia Underground, many are beginning to become afflicted by cholera and trenchfoot as pumps begin letting groundwater penetrate structures. The Suburbs are now the frontlines of civil conflict: Kutztown is the base of the future Emperor of America. Checkpoints are the norm in the gov't held regions.
The Final Sarcophagus needs UN intervention, and the responses have been lackluster: The politicians in Kingston were in very real terms at one another's throats. Cuba committed to humanitarian intervention, but the US had Cuba a genocidal shower of nuclear fire, and it was genuinely up to the speaker whether it was a serious proposal or not. The North Korean Ambassador was assassinated on the street just three days before.
The ripples on the Delaware, and the end of a parabola meets the sun. Kingston is not the first nor the last city to be destroyed in a nuclear explosion, but this act of war would be the one to change the world fundamentally. Some very unhappy harbor seals, disturbed by a swallow dropped from some height, spook enough of the sailors aboard xxxxx to press the button once more. With the understanding Kingston was the last seat of American Governance, they decided the 'last thing they would do' is eliminate the country that brought the circumstances about, with no care for the lives they would take. And that's where our story begins.
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