C15 Home

The father and son duo were the last residents of Sunshine Estates. Over the course of a month, he had scoured every house in the community, including over a dozen that were locked, uncovering dozens of bodies.

There were those who had succumbed to illness, starvation, and even suicide.

The most tragic was a family whose two children had turned into nuclear zombies. In their despair, the parents killed their own children before hanging themselves.

That horrifying sight haunted the then five-year-old son with nightmares for a month.

Horace disposed of all the bodies in the Great Clear Stream to feed the fish, since neither the nuclear zombies nor the giant rats would consume them; otherwise, he would have simply left the bodies by the roadside.

The yield from that month allowed him to trade for many vital survival supplies, such as handguns and gasoline.

His cherished Buick was parked just inside the neighborhood's gate, its front half jutting into a mound of trash, and its rear half covered in debris, resembling an abandoned wreck.

Horace made sure to start it regularly, keeping it ready to drive at a moment’s notice.

He concealed the bicycle in the weeds next to the entrance, shouldered his backpack, and, carrying two buckets of water, he and his son entered the building.

Frank was adept and cautious. He checked the tripwires his father had set up – thin lines stretched across the stairway. Finding them intact, he signaled 'OK' to his father and carefully stepped over them.

Horace had strung these tripwires with small bells from the ground floor all the way up to the seventh, serving a dual purpose. They would alert the father and son to any intruders upon their return, and when they were home, the bells would warn them of any outsiders attempting to enter.

Standing at their front door, they unlocked three locks and opened two doors, finally stepping back into their humble abode.

Horace set down the water buckets and secured the door behind them. The first thing he did was connect the electrodes to the battery by the door; a spark flew, and the energy-saving light overhead flickered on, brightening the once gloomy interior.

"We're home," Frank exclaimed, joyfully removing the headgear he'd worn for far too long and tossing it into the large trash bin by the door.

His face, innocent and endearing, was topped not with the soft, black hair typical of a child, but with concentric rings of hair clumps, resembling a globe. In between, patches of bare, white scalp were exposed.

It was like a perfect painting marred by a careless splash of ink, ruining the entire aesthetic and wrenching the hearts of onlookers.

Horace turned a blind eye, understanding all too well why his son never removed his headgear in public. His son was a mild victim of nuclear contamination, a situation Horace had inadvertently caused. Years ago, she had been exposed to the black rain while cleaning up in the car, and her son, who was seated in the back, had been heavily contaminated.

When Horace noticed his son's hair beginning to fall out, he was nearly devastated. He couldn't endure the pain of losing another loved one. Thankfully, the medication distributed by the military prevented any further deterioration, but his son's patchy baldness persisted. Even a shaved head couldn't hide the marks, and to the other survivors, he appeared almost monstrous.

Horace knew that if the Salvation Shelter ever discovered his son's condition, they might take him away for research. This fear was precisely why Horace chose not to reside in the black market, all to protect his son.

At times, he would gaze at his son's handsome features, then at the patchy hair, and his heart would ache. He made a silent vow to find a cure for his son's baldness if the opportunity ever arose.

After removing his mask and setting down his backpack, Horace leaned against the door and took a deep breath, savoring the long-missed air of his own home.

Father and son discarded their dust-laden coats into the trash bin. They had several boxes of disposable work clothes at home. Before the nuclear blast, Horace had run an online clothing store, so he knew exactly where to find the necessary attire.

They wiped their hands with homemade disposable wipes, slipped into their slippers, and donned clean coats, feeling a profound sense of relaxation that only comes from being at home.

Frank, clutching his plush penguin toy, entertained himself.

Horace did a walkthrough of the house, checking the balcony and windows, and drew up all the curtains in preparation for the evening.

He meticulously organized the survival supplies from his backpack, reminding his son to drink water and take iodine tablets. He grabbed an unopened compressed biscuit for himself – that would be their dinner.

Finally, Horace collapsed on the living room sofa and powered on the laptop sitting on the coffee table. As he entered his password and waited for the system to boot up, he took a few sips of water and finished the half-eaten compressed biscuit from the day before. With that, dinner was, in a manner of speaking, served.

After booting up the computer, Horace immediately launched the surveillance system. Utilizing the fading evening light, he scanned the area in front of their house, beneath the balcony at Sunshine Estates, and the street visible from their window. Cameras covered all three vantage points.

Once he verified that everything was normal, he opened a folder brimming with video files that filled the entire screen.

Thankfully, before the nuclear blast, Horace had saved thousands of movies and TV shows on his hard drive. These now served as the sole source of relaxation and entertainment for him and his son.

He had removed all the games from the computer, partly because he feared losing his drive to them and partly to prevent his son, Frank, from becoming addicted and potentially damaging his eyesight. In this nuclear world, becoming nearsighted would only add to their hardships.

Frank, clutching his plush penguin, joined his father without being asked. "Dad, I want to watch 'Starfall'," he said.

"Alright, let's watch it." Horace was already weary of the American series, but it was his son's favorite, so he obliged.

Before starting the show, Horace switched off the energy-saving lights to conserve electricity. Survivors living outside the black market, like them, were rare, and most depended on batteries for light and power for their electronics.

With careful usage, a set of batteries could last up to a fortnight, though recharging was a hassle. Those with cars could use their vehicle's battery, while others had no choice but to pay for a recharge at the black market.

Horace resumed the series where they had left off—at the ninth episode of the tenth season. The show depicted humanity's struggle against alien invaders, featuring a father and his son as central characters, which struck a chord with Frank.

It was a quintessential human narrative, filled with patriotism, familial love, romance, bravery, and sacrifice. Despite Horace's efforts to educate his son about humanity's darker aspects, he didn't shield him from these more uplifting themes.

He wanted Frank to develop his own insights and convictions, to make his own judgments and choices, and to gradually build his own worldview.

Such is the paradox of fatherhood in the Doomsday World. To survive in this cursed reality, Horace didn't want his son to be too good, yet he didn't wish for him to turn bad either.

The father and son reclined comfortably on the sofa, enveloped in a cozy cashmere blanket. Snuggled up together, they shared a moment of warmth that intertwined with the father-son bond portrayed in the movie.

The only slight disruption to the scene was that, while the son was engrossed in the film, Horace had unwittingly drifted off to sleep.