Heather started to pack her sisters bags full of “the essentials”: canned goods, beans, rice, and iodine tablets. The last news broadcast claimed most of the radiation from the nuclear attack was traveling away from them, and if that changed most of the radioactive particles would have already dissipated, meaning that most of the the radiation that got to them would have no significant effects, but she was well informed of the permanent effects that radiation brings to the exposed, and she wanted to protect herself from it if it ever came close to poisoning her.
As she started to fill one of her canteens with water from a sleek, black metal pitcher, she saw her little sisters; Julia and Miriam were sleeping on an old wine-colored rug in the living room, as she looked down at them lying there, she wondered what their lives would be like. Julia was 13 but Miriam was only 9, and relatively small for her age. What would she remember of the world before it transformed into a heap of dust and a pile of forgotten memories? Would she even be able to survive by herself in this bare and desolate world full of starvation and agony, with raiders lurking around every corner not knowing where they will get their next meal, or even who it would be.
She heard a timid, afraid, yet peculiarly powerful voice wailing in the alley behind her parent’s home, it was the voice of a child in despair. Heather was afraid to enter the streets, what if this was some sort of trap? She removed the makeshift cover from the back window and looked down into the streets to see a sight that she would remember for the rest of her life; a little boy about 5 or 6 years old was sitting next to a woman holding a bloody gauze to her halfway severed arm. The woman was older than Heather; she looked about 30, had light olive skin, and was around medium height. Her long, dark brown hair was matted with blood that was continuously flowing from the top of her right shoulder, and dripping onto her white blouse. In this moment she was courageously resilient. Somehow, she showed no pain and was strong enough to calm down her petrified son, it wasn't safe for him to be crying loudly as he was in this sort of catastrophe.
Heather couldn’t just watch as the situation unfolded, the woman sat down, defenseless in the dangerous streets of Lowellville. She felt obligated to do something for the woman and the poor boy. She had sewn a wound shut before on multiple occasions, and was sure their odds would be better if she tried to help than if she just watched everything unfold from her apartment window. She grabbed her small brown sachet and opened the old oak door out of the apartment. When she stepped down onto the outdoor platform she was cautious to lock the door, she wanted to help this woman, but she didn’t want to put her sisters lives at stake. Being cautious to look underneath her, she crept down the metal stairs and into the alley. It was colder than the last time she was outside a few hours ago, she could feel the bite of frost starting to nip at her fingertips. Heather heard a softer cry of sadness coming from the boy, and progressed into the foggy alleyway with a needle and thread in her sachet and a knife in her right hand. Before she turned the corner, she looked both ways cautiously and she saw the woman lying on the ground to her left. “What’s your name, I came here to help you” Heather asked “Diana” the woman whispered, “Can you help? My arm...” “I know, I know. It’s ok, I’m going to try to get you to my apartment just around this corner, it will be safer there, can you stand up?” Heather asked. Diana answered her question without words, she applied even more pressure to the cotton gauze as she stood, at first leaning against the wall, then with Heather’s help as she made her way to the stairs and up into Heather’s apartment.
Surprisingly, the boy, Jude, fell asleep fast; instead of becoming worried, he had somehow become exhausted from all of the terror of the day. It was crazy to think that minutes earlier he was screaming for help in the streets. Heather started to remove all of the dirt and pebbles from the wound. It was a deep wound; she did her best to try to prevent an infection, although Heather could tell that an infection would probably develop just from looking at the dirt that had already collected on the surface of the wound. Amputation seemed inevitable for her. Diana was unflinching even as the straight-backed paring knife started to cut away portions of her flesh. "Can she even feel any pain?" Heather thought to herself as she started to stitch Diana's arm together with a silver needle and a bright red cotton thread.

Heather knew that they would have to set out the next day, and she was expecting anything.