For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position. It was hanging like a picture which hadn’t been nailed to the wall properly. I grabbed my tools and tried putting it back in place, when the screen suddenly turned on by itself. The face of a man, who I’d never seen before, appeared. Confused, I went for the remote to turn it off, but before I could reach it, the man spoke. All he said were two magic words, we were hoping to never hear in our lives. “Nuclear war”.

I stood in silence staring at the screen with eyes wide open. I looked out of the window to see a riot breaking out in the city. People were turning into wild animals – some were breaking into stores to take all the food they needed, while others were fighting to death for no apparent reason. They were all expecting the world to end soon. Worryingly, there was nowhere for me to go. I was stuck inside my flat surrounded by the rioters who were destroying everything in their sight.

I had no chance but to barricade myself and hope for the best. I locked all openings, the door and the windows, with wood and all the furniture I could find. I could hear people breaking into the neighbouring rooms. I was scared out of my mind, asking myself when this horror would end. Not long after I heard the noise of a plane flying above the city. Everything else fell into quietude. I hid under my table expecting the worst.

And then it happened. A large explosion blew off in the center of town and destroyed nearly everything in its path. The barricaded windows of my flat were demolished and from the gap in the wall I could see nothing but a large mushroom cloud engulfing the whole area. Everything was colored in ashy orange. The building I was in collapsed and I was buried under the rubble. But somehow I managed to live. The table had created a little space for me beneath all the rocks. And while that was good for the time being, I was likely to run out of oxygen eventually.

Nonetheless, I laid there for a few days, perhaps, before a team of people evacuated me. I couldn’t tell what was going on at the moment, but they did their best to bring me back to my senses. They gave me water and fed me rations, all of which felt like a miracle. Later, they gave me a suit to protect me from the radiation and introduced themselves to me. They were volunteers, helping those in need and saving the lives of people, like me, who were on the verge of losing it all. Moved by their devotion and thankful for what they had done for me, I decided to join them. In this new but unforgivable world.