A Feather of Hope

by Dustchu

Rating: teen
Tags: Science Fiction, Tragedy, Adventure, Human, Dark
Length: 1177

During World War III, a fighter chances upon something rarely seen in the irradiated battlefield... a single blue feather, but that's not all he finds...

Two years after the beginning of what would be known as the worst war in the history of mankind, a fighter walks across what remains of Missouri after several bombardments from several forces. It has become a barren wasteland, covered in small amounts of radiation, dead bodies and broken hope.

Hope is something that has been lost in the young man…

However… he comes across a rare sight in the war torn world…

A Single Blue Feather, and eventually… he finds something else… something that changes everything and restores the hope in his heart.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-11-29 01:34:21 UTC

A Shade of Cyan

Missouri, Blackwater City, Cooper County. One of the many cities strewn across the United States, and one of the many that was bombed out by enemy bombers. Suicide bombs, bomb drops, even a small nuclear missile hit several miles to the south. The city was in ruin, not a single soul was still in the city, living anyway. Anyone who was unlucky enough to be in it during the attacks, were either killed by the bombs, or the leftover radiation.

However, two years have passed since then, but the war is still going strong. Wars were being fought everywhere, the United States was merely one of the charred and destroyed battlegrounds of the world. Vehicles were sitting in the roads, doors ajar, some of them with flat wheels and others being covered in bullet holes and shattered glass. The buildings were devastated, doors were boarded up, and the windows boarded off, and the ones that weren't were either smashed open, or the buildings themselves were piles of rubble.

It was an area that no one wanted to go into, but people did anyway... like one individual standing at the train station.

By the train station, standing on the platform was a young man, dressed in a dark grey shirt that read Brony on it, a torn sleeved leather jacket with a patch on the side that was sewn on, jeans and combat boots, and a half face gas mask under a dirty orange baseball cap. A backpack hung from his shoulders, tattered and held together with duct tape. In a vest holster on the front was a firearm, a Smith & Wesson Model 19 Revolver, and in his hands he held an Ithaca 37 shotgun with a pistol grip. He eyed the train tracks, then turned his head to the right and looked at the remains of said train, the vehicle having been blown off of the tracks long ago.

He sighed heavily through his mask, sitting down on the side of the platform and setting his firearm aside. He opened his zip hoodie and reached inside before pulling out a small cell phone, he held the side button, turning it on and showing a picture of a cyan colored creature with wings.

A pony, a pegasus to be exact.

He slid the bar up, unlocking his phone and showing his wallpaper, he noted his battery was almost dead. He went down below, to his photos and clicked on it, bringing up an album. He found the one he was looking for and clicked on it, making it bigger. It was a picture of himself, standing alongside his family moments before everything changed before the war happened.

*Beep beep beep*

His phone died...

"Of course... too much to ask for, eh?" He wondered, sighing deeply as he pocketed his phone. Two years I've been wandering... and for what? He asked, he'd lost everything, the internet, his friends, his family. He didn't know if they were dead or what, all he knew was that... he lost them, no phones, no letters... finding anyway to contact loved ones was hard, especially when one has to walk from city to city, town to town, questioning hundreds, if not thousands of people about the whereabouts of friends and family.

It was harder to, when they were doing the same thing, or were lying to you to shoot you and take your things.

He had been wandering for too long, it had only been two years since his world was changed, since the town he lived in was bathed in nuclear fire when he was gone. Two years... since his entire life was destroyed, ruined, like everything around him, burned away never to be fixed. He knew that everything would never be the same again, the world was changed... no, it was still changing, parts of the world being burned away from nuclear fire, or being overrun by monsters.

One of which was nearby.

His hazel eyes turned to look at it, the thing looked like a human, dressed in torn clothing, tattered remnants of a mail carrier. The creature, with torn mottled flesh, and white eyes stumbled toards him, growling as dried blood covered his mouth, the thing's broken foot crackling as it limped towards the gun wielding man.

"Don't believe I ordered anything..." He muttered, before hopping down onto the ground. He pumped his shotgun, ejecting a long spent shell as he walked over, shotgun held in one hand and hanging by his side. The thing growled as he approached, speeding up, and was about to lunge, if the man hadn't smacked his shotgun into his head causing him to fall down onto the ground. The survivor walked over, planting his foot on the thing's chest to hold him down as he aimed at the thing's head. "Sorry about this."

*BOOM*

The shotgun barked, echoing throughout the empty area as the thing's head was blasted off in bits of gore before falling still. The survivor just stared, before ejecting the shell and pumping in a new one. He backed away with a sigh, before turning to walk towards the road which sat nearby, leading to another town he knew not the name of. But he figured that, regardless of how much he hoped...

It'd be empty.

So, he walked down the road, away from Blackwater City, as he made his way towards the next town. The skies above him were clouded over, and he could hear jets, making him look up. As he did, he heard the gunfire of heavy guns firing, the clouds lighting up as a dog fight began, he pondered who it was. Ever since the war began, it seemed the world had become a free for all, with no clear prize in mind except killing all opposition.

As he saw an explosion, along with a jet careening down somewhere only to explode soon after, he saw something floating towards him. Head tilted, he saw something... blue... bright blue, almost cyan. He reached out to it, before gripping it in his fingerless gloved hands, the soft almost silky like texture of it, the coloration and the shape of it...

It was a feather... a cyan colored feather.

A feather? He asked himself, as he ran his thumb along it, it felt so... soft, it looked like it had just been lost by some kind of bird. He wasn't sure but... looking at it, feeling of it... brought a little smile to his face. Hmph... its been awhile since I've seen any birds... I hope it survives. He told himself, as he pulled out a book from inside his jacket before openign it up, and placing the feather inside before putting it back in his jacket pocket.

With renewed vigor in his heart, he started walking again, having felt... something when he held the feather. It made him feel better then he did before, which was something he wasn't hating. Anything to take away the dispair he felt... was welcome in his book.