Like most days now, the sound of the ocean haunts me.
My name is Angela. I'm a mother, doctor, soldier, and now, in the year 2017, I've become a leader of men. Thanks to the end of our world to nuclear war, I'm the Guardian of an American refugee camp named Safe Haven.
Surrounded by carefully watching guards, I sit beside the immense Pacific Ocean as my people work and play nearby, confident my Army will look after them while I tell you about the War of 2012…and how we were forced to leave our beloved Country. It was a nightmare from which we couldn't wake. Some of us still haven't, and soon, we'll be at the water's mercy again. In less than two months, we're going home.
America waits for us to reclaim and to rebuild, but mostly, simply, for us to return. Before we undertake that perilous journey, I have to get the 357 souls here ready for the trip, and I only know one way it can be done - Adrian has to come back, and lead us home, as he promised.
Adrian… That incredibly patriotic man has been exiled, even though he's the only reason that we survived. His secret was the only excuse the camp needed to turn on him, but I won't. I can't. I swore myself to him the same as the rest of his Council, and like them, I still believe.
I've gotten way ahead of myself, far beyond the beginning, when our future didn't look as good is it does now. Most people here in New America won't talk about the War or the long, ugly journey we made together. They say the memories have faded, but I know a lie when I hear one. Some horrors you never forget. Like our final battle with Cesar and his large band of ruthless Mexican guerillas.
It's been five years, but I still see the deep red streams of blood running down rain-soaked trees. I still smell men burning alive in their metal coffins. I dream of it sometimes: of the cold, wet night when I was the bait, and I'm sure Adrian does, too. It was the moment we knew our people would live - because of one man's dream and his lies.
From the very beginning, Adrian kept us alive, gave us everything he had - and he always did what was best for the camp, no matter what it cost him personally. He taught us to be stronger than we thought we could be, to look out for each other, and ourselves, and through it all… he lied by omission, knowing these scared, hurting survivors would never have trusted him, would never have given him a chance, if they had known who he really was.