Some days I just put on my acid suit and gas mask and go out. Anywhere. Everywhere. I know this land like the inside of the room that has become like a cell. Grey and cold in the old stone building. one small steal door. one small bared window. Thank the lord I lost faith in many years ago now that it’s not a cell, that there's no lock on my door. the bars on the window have all but rusted away.

And most of all that I can see the sky in the mornings. 

The morning, That's when I go out. just as the sun rises up over the mash of grey and rusty brown that is all that's left of this once great city. I get up every morning. like clockwork. Just to see that one brief glimpse at a different side of this feral, wild mess of a world. 

No one else ever gets up until the rain has started. they don't think it even ever stops some of them,  some say I’m making things up or it all just in my head. but its not. if it was how could I have been able to navigate all these places like they were the musty maze of corridors in this place, where so many of us grew up. running along, chasing each other through them till we collapsed from exhaustion we never got lost back then and we don't now. 

There’s less of us now, more people, but less of 'US'. The first. The children of this place. Many survivors came here, traveling for weeks in search for others. But not us we stayed here just as we always had. Most of us anyway.

His bike's still down in the shed by the front door. He said he needed something, just one more thing then it was going to work like it had when grandfather had first brought it. He was the oldest. The strongest. Then there was me but I was only 12 I couldn't lead our little troupe of stragglers those who only just kept hold of their sanity, who could only just manage to live through each and every day. we begged, all of us, begged for him not to go. Not to leave us. Like 'they' had. 

The rains falling like lead balls today. not even an acid suit could save you from its burns, not when it’s like this. the sky is striped with toxic green and orange, there'll be a storm later. Someone will die tonight, I hope it's not one of the kids they don't deserve to die. Not in such a horrible way.

I never used to believe in all those story's about monsters and demons. But there not just story's, not anymore. when everyone lost their faith in 'the mother' or 'the lord' the excess belief mixed with the stories of nightmarish demons ripping the world apart and spewing fire across the land and spreading fear throughout the great cites, till each night every last man, women and child dreamed up forms and physical bodies for their fear to embody and take on in this world only adding to the decimation of order and growing terror. and now when your fear becomes too great or you mind finally cracks under the strain of staying sane in a world where any more the 2 minuets outside without a purification mask will cause you lungs to burn from the inside out filling you veins with acid and the endless rain will strip your flesh to the bone. where the only light in the day is the occasional flash as the toxic clouds become too concentrated and build up energy until they explode causing a rift in the shield of poisons bad enough even to keep the hordes of demons at bay just above the cloud bank. and then like I said someone will die. Their demons will break though the momentary rift and come, gathering in thousands ready for the chance to devour the weakening soul of their creator.

But despite the chaos the storm will bring the sky will be just that little bit clearer for it. That’s what he told me the night grandfather’s demons came. we stayed by his side as he followed them out into the storm impervious to my please for him to stop, to not go with them. To me pulling at his arms and clothes. 

He held my hand and wrapped his arms so tight round me stopping me from running out after the old man, cradled my head as I cried as hard as the acid rain was falling, pummelling the compacted dust and beating down on the old man as he embraced the demons that had come to feast. 

Tomorrow the sun will shine just that bit brighter. no one else will notice, no one else believes me when I say that the rain is going to stop for good one day. that the clouds will someday go white like they used to in the old days when grandfather was a boy. But I know that they will that it's all true because that's what he told me the day he left, just like how I know he will come home some day and he will finally mend that old bike. 

I will go out walking tomorrow, as the sun rises, before the rain begins to fall once again. Just like it always does. I will walk in my oversized acid suit and my gas mask. I will walk into the brilliant golden and crimson rays of the rising sun with my head held high, looking forward to the future. Hand in hand with the angle of hope He gave to me.