It was about a decade ago when the decision was made. Looking back, it’s painfully obvious it was the wrong one. Logical arguments were ignored and fallacies were used to gather popular support. Everyone who seriously considered the matter was opposed to the idea, but their voices weren’t heard over the screaming crowds.

Today all we can do is see the results of that fateful decision, and mourn those who paid for it with their lives.

As I stand in the ruins of a once thriving metropoly, I can see just how much was lost due to a stupid argument over petty matters. Who would have thought that all it takes to nearly wipe out all of humanity is an offhand comment about weapons control?

Anyway, all this knowledge is pretty much useless today. As you can imagine, history - or any other science, really - became much less important after the war. Survival is paramount after all, and knowing what happened in the ancient past - the world just 20 years ago was so much different that it might as well have been a lifetime ago - doesn’t really help with it. Because of that, instead of writing about past events I’m now classifying everything new our commune comes across, and boy did those idiots want to make sure to kill every last one of us.

Just yesterday we were trying to get into a military installation that by some miracle avoided being hit by any WMDs when we saw it. To be honest we didn’t really see it, only the aftermath. We were taking our time trying to avoid the potential countermeasures and didn’t make it into the compound itself at that time, which probably saved our lives. One moment we were standing there figuring out how to safely approach the bunker and the next it just… wasn’t there anymore.

We don’t know what happened exactly, but the consensus among those who know their stuff is that some sort of kinetic weapons platform dropped a “Rod from God”, whatever that is, from orbit. They think a satellite detected movement near a potential military base and sent a welcome present to whoever wanted to get in.

It’s funny how people trusted robots, of all things, to autonomously drop mini meteorites from orbit, and yet couldn’t trust one another to stick to their end of an agreement.

Back on track though. The strike predictably took us by surprise, and the resulting shockwave and earthquake left us deaf and disoriented for minutes. Luckily it also scared off all the wildlife in the area so we were left alone to compose ourselves. It took almost an hour for the dust to settle, and when it did we saw a scene of utter destruction. Whatever the projectile was, it penetrated deep into the structure and utterly destroyed it, making half of it collapse and the other half hang on by a thread. There wasn’t much left of the other buildings in the area. The bunker itself still potentially had valuable military gear though, so after coming to a decision we drew straws to decide who goes in.

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The “lucky” pair was me and Nigel. We didn’t expect any enemies within the building itself, especially not after the strike, but it’s always safer to have another person watching your back. As we went inside, it became clear that this was no ordinary base. In hindsight we should have backed out the instant we realized this, but at the time it was an unknown, and unknowns have the nasty habit of trying to kill you when you least expect them to.

Ignorant of the danger we headed in, looking out for any sign of an immediate collapse. Surprisingly, the bunker was doing quite well despite the punishment it received. We managed to recover some rations and miscellaneous equipment from the upper level, and decided to keep going down. At this point the entire team deemed it safe enough – or at least safer than lingering long enough for the more curious animals to come back - to go inside. If the building plan was correct the bunker had 5 floors, and the lower our team went the stranger it became. There weren't as many weapons as you’d expect from a defensive position, and the building had that weird sterile feel to it, much like a hospital. Around the 3rd floor we understood that this wasn’t just some random base - it was a research lab. Nothing happened up to this point though, so we decided to go deeper, albeit more carefully.

Everything was going well right up until the 4th floor. At one point someone must have triggered some sort of mechanism, and everyone felt something. It passed just as abruptly as it came and didn’t have any visible effects, but still we decided to retreat.

Back at the camp we got to see the apparent effects of the thing – everyone who was exposed to it suffered serious nausea and various other symptoms frighteningly similar to those of radiation sickness. Out of the eight people who went inside, two didn’t make it to the next morning.

I shudder to think what would have happened if we stayed long enough to be caught in another event like that.

Fortunately the worst of the symptoms passed after the night, but some still lingered. Of particular note was a sort of new muscle, or sense. I can’t properly explain it, but it definitely is new. I’m not exactly sure what it’s supposed to do, but it most likely isn’t just some random mutation - we were in a lab after all.

If my hunch is right, whoever was experimenting there wanted to create supersoldiers - it would make sense with world war 3 raging on everywhere. All I can do now is hope that whatever it is, it won’t be fatal in the long run, though now that I think about it there is another way to go about it….

Maybe I should go to that bunker again.