When we went outside though, we found out that it wasn’t snow. It was ash. Ash was raining down from the sky. Alice’s father told us to stay inside and that he was going over to Mr. Homitzers to try and find out why. We played board games and watched the street. Nothing was going on outside. It was like some terrible snow day, one you couldn’t play in. Everyone just shut themselves indoors. Eventually, her father came back home. He told us that the wireless radio that Mr. Homitzer had was reporting that a volcano had erupted a few days ago and the ash from the ploom was just reaching us now. That was a pretty big shock. A volcano in America? It just didn’t seem real. I learned later that it wasn’t as far fetched as I thought then, that there were several volcanoes in the U.S. before the Vanishing.

Eventually, I went back to my place. I was only going for long enough to grab food, and then I planned to head back over the Alice’s. When I had just finished crossing the street, a car pulled around the corner and charged down our street. I ran and hid behind a nearby tree, which was good, because the people in the car started screaming and hollering, and then I heard the gun fire. To this day, I don’t know who shot at who first. I like to think the gangbangers shot at us first, but I’ve never been completely sure. I sunk to the ground, keeping close to the tree with my fingers in my ears and my eyes closed tight. It was over pretty fast. The gunfire didn’t last long, and the car they were in reached the end of our street and made another sharp turn.

I was on the ground and hugging the tree for a while. I finally got up and I took my fingers out of my ears. I heard talking in the street. It was some of the neighbors talking about what happened. I was expecting shock, but they sounded excited, like it had been a baseball game and not a shooting. I slunk back to my house, trying to keep out of sight so they wouldn’t question or talk to me. I just wanted to get back home. When I got back, I found that the front window had been shot out. I had no idea how to fix that, but at the time, I didn’t really care. I just crawled into my bed and laid there, letting the ash slowly drift into our living room. It got dark, and I headed back outside. I met Alice there and told her and her father what had happened. We talked some about how we could fix the window.

I tried calling my family again with no luck. Then it was on to the streets again. Alice wasn’t with the group of kids that morning. I fought back the urge to go to her house to look for her. I didn’t want her to get in trouble. I ended up hanging out with the teenage boys more than the little kids. I remember looking at the kid who had lashed out yesterday and seeing something in his eyes that I connected with. He knew they were gone too. We talked some about it. Most of the older kids were starting to wonder what was going to happen now. Jeremy, a lanky kid who read a lot of manga, talked on and on about it being the end of the world and the potential causes. One kid said that his parents thought it was the Rapture and that this was the end times. Neither of them had very good things to say about what was going to happen next. We were pretty downtrodden by the time we split up for lunch.

I went back to my house to get some food and decided that I would bring some over to Alice’s house. When I got there, Alice’s father answered the door. He said “thank you” for the food but that Alice wasn’t allowed to come out and play today. I suppose he found out about Alice sneaking out. The rest of the afternoon was soccer-filled until night time. A lot of the nights were spent outside in the streets. Everyone would start gathering around a central fire and a lot of times we would all cook stuff, BBQ for the first several days, while people used up the meat they had in their refrigerators and freezers. That trailed off eventually, but we still all gathered around the fire. I finally saw Alice then. She looked liked she had been crying a lot. Her dad had found out about her sneaking out and had forced her to stay in her room all day.

I told her I was going to stay over at her place that night if her dad would let me. She brightened up a lot after that. Her dad eventually agreed to it, especially after I got Mr. Homitzer involved. He said it was better that I stay in a house with adults for the time being. The President’s speech had taken on a new edge that night. He said that while the search to find the missing people was still important, the new priority was to rebuild the country, which was still in a state of disaster. Looking around the bonfire that night, I could see it on a lot of faces. The same look I saw on Mrs. Spooner’s face and my own face. That look that showed that we knew that the missing people weren’t coming back. Alice didn’t have that look, and I decided not to share it with her–better for her to still have hope.

The teenagers were a little bleaker about things. One of them started spouting off about how his dad being gone was a good thing and he hoped he never came back, that none of them ever came back. Some of the little kids started crying after that. We eventually got the kid to apologize, but you could tell that he had hated his father. I spent lunch over at Alice’s. Her dad was nice enough to let me share in their food. I told him I’d bring some by later to replace what he fed me. He said he appreciated it, but it wasn’t necessary. After lunch we spent the afternoon playing soccer on the streets, the teams weren’t exactly even, but we still had fun.

The night of day 7 was a little more memorable. Same speeches as always, although it was obvious that some families had formed cliches, probably due to having to carpool to work now that I think about it. After the speeches though, Mr. Homitzer came to speak to me. He said that he hadn’t realized that I was alone so he hadn’t been paying attention to the house. He asked me how much food and water I had. After that he offered to put me up in his house for the night time if I was lonely or scared. I told him that I still felt safest in the house and that besides Alice and her father had already offered. He said okay, but he would be having the neighborhood watch my house a little closer than the other houses since I was the only one there. I was very grateful, although I could only manage a small thank you.

That night as I was drifting off to sleep I heard a small knocking at my window. It was Alice. She had snuck out of her house. She said she didn’t want me to be lonely. It was very sweet of her. I let her into the house and we talked for a while before we eventually fell asleep. I remember the first couple nights in the house alone were almost unbearable due to the lack of noise. Now I could hear someone breathing next to me. It was a strange sensation, but it made getting to sleep easier.

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I woke up some time after day break. By the feel of the heat in the room, it felt like a good deal after day break. I slept in a lot that first night back in the house. I spent the morning going through the kitchen and garage and taking stock of my situation. Food for a few days, almost no meat, no car, no gas or other fuel, and only sporting goods for use as weapons if need be. It was not a good situation. It was around noon when I got the knock on my door.

It was my next door neighbor Mr. Jenkins. He didn’t look too well, bags under his eyes, cuts and bruises, about the same as I looked, I suspect. He asked me how I was, and I told him lies. I told him I was fine. He smiled a little. He told me that the rest of the neighborhood was going to have a meeting that night and that we, my parents and I, should come to it if able. I told him we would be there. I then decided to take a bath. It turned out that the water system was still working, which I was very very grateful for.

The meeting that night was in the street, in the middle of the block. It was a bonfire made from dried leaves and other debris. The power was still off everywhere in the neighborhood. A man stood up and started speaking. I’m not entirely sure who he was. I remembered him from around the neighborhood, but I don’t think we ever talked. He said something to the effect that there had been some kind of event and many people were missing. The power was out, but the water was still on–but no one knew for how long. He said he had a radio and that we should all listen to the current broadcast.

It was the President. Or the man acting as President. The real President had disappeared along with half of everyone else. That was the main focus of the broadcast. Half of everyone had disappeared, and no one knew where they had gone. The government was investigating the issue, but in the mean time, the entire country had been declared a disaster zone. The sudden disappearances had wreaked havoc on the nation’s infrastructure. Planes, trains, and cars were in ruins. Power was out across a majority of the country, although efforts were in place to bring the grid back online. All military reserves were called out, and anyone not on duty was asked to report to a number of different locations the President listed off. He said we shouldn’t be afraid and we shouldn’t panic.

After the address, the man in charge said that tomorrow we would do this again and take a head count, but that until power was restored, we should all stay indoors as much as possible after nightfall.

I woke up on day 2 feeling about as bad as I had when I went to sleep the night before. But I had a blanket on me when I woke up. I think it was actually a jacket, now that I think back on it. Either way, it was obvious to me that the three people who had been in the diner the night before had put the jacket on me. They were gone when I woke up. The sun was still rising, and I decided that I would make it home by nightfall this time. The journey wasn’t quite as bad as the day before. I was able to make it to my suburb by mid-day, and then I knew all the nicer streets I could travel on. It seemed like the craziness from the day before had finally died down, and everyone seemed to be traveling more cautiously and slowly. I got home sometime after 4 o’clock, I think. My cell phone had lost its charge, so I wasn’t sure anymore about time–but it felt like 4 o’clock.

The door was locked. I opened the house up and was hit with a wave of smells. The power was still off in the house, and it smelled like a mixture of mold and bad food. I put my face in my shirt and headed into my house. It was very still. There hadn’t been a lot of noise outside in the first place, but it was a lot quieter inside the walls of my former home. l walked from our living room into our kitchen. The smell increased, and I saw why in an instant. The fridge door had been left open. Without power, most of the food had spoiled almost overnight. I wandered then into the other parts of my house. I called out to my parents a couple of times, but the way the house seemed to eat my words and swallow them into nothingness caused me to stop. Each room yielded more disappointment. No one home, no bodies, just nothing. I was still alone.

I can’t remember when I started crying, but I remember ending up on my bed, rocking myself back and forth while holding an old stuffed bunny I still kept on my bed. It was dark before I got out of bed again. I fumbled around the house for a while before I found the flashlight in the kitchen. I grabbed some garbage bags, bagged the fridge up, and tossed everything into the garage. I opened all the windows then. Not a huge improvement, but it was better than it was. The open windows brought a new sound to my ears: a slow, mechanical hum. It took me a little while to figure out what it was, but eventually, it hit me. Generators. Those were generators. Other people had power.

I still don’t know what possessed me, but I nearly burst through my front door trying to get to the street to see who still had power. A few of the houses on our block did, and our neighbors across the street, the Shultz’s, still had power. I slowly walked over to their yard. I had gotten over my initial excitement, and my shyness had kicked in. I had met the Shultz’s before, but it had been a while. And we never knew them that well. I tiptoed through their lawn to see inside their window. They were watching the news on their tv. I was lucky enough that I found the window open.I don’t remember the news report verbatum, but I do remember the important parts. “Don’t panic… Early reports indicate nearly 30% of all people in the US missing… Power being restored slowly… Stay indoors and lock doors and windows at night…”

I took their advice and locked my doors and windows that night.

Vanished Lands: Storyteller Archive Vol. 1

This 100 page gaming supplement to the Vanished Lands role playing game contains within it a hundred pages of stories of adversities, dangers, and wonders that adventuerers of the Vanished Lands encounter with frightening regularity. Written from the perspective of the characters who live there, this supplement is a must read for players and storytellers alike, filled with ideas for your own Vanished Lands Adventure.

And the best part is, you can order it right now! It is available at several online book sellers including both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Grab one. Tell you’re friends. This isn’t a book you’ll want to skip on when completing your Vanished Lands collection!

It’s not really day1. Day 1 was a while ago. But I haven’t had time or paper handy to write anything down since day one, and I have no idea what day–or month–or even year it is anymore. Too many things don’t make sense, and I still wake up every day hoping it was all a dream. It isn’t though, and it looks like I’m gonna be where I am for a while yet.  And I want to write it all down before I forget.

Day one was a sunny day. Chance of showers was 30% in the afternoon. I remember seeing that on my phone before Mom dropped me off at school. It’s funny the things you remember. School was normal that day, and like normal, I skipped out after 3rd period to meet up with some of my friends. It was on my way to the car that I noticed something was wrong. A highway practically ran through our school’s backyard, and a tanker truck, along with a minivan and two mid-sized sedans, picked that time to leave the road and slam into the ground. The truck was, unfortunately for me, filled with gasoline, or something similar, and exploded shortly after it hit the ground. The blast knocked me back a good distance and slammed me against a wall.

I woke up (what must have been) hours later. I was still lying on the ground where I had fallen.
The fire from the truck accident was still burning. I had been passed out for a while, and while it took a minute to sink in, I remember thinking, “Where are the fire trucks and ambulances, and where are my parents?”

None of those things ever came. I waited for a little while, long enough to to determine that I didn’t have any real injuries, and then I headed for my car. My car was a wreck. Thinking back on it, it was still in a drivable condition, but at the time, I didn’t think so. Then I looked around for help. That’s when I really started to notice how bad things were. The burning tanker truck, with the twisted metal of the cars it had crushed and burned, was only one of many disastrous scenes that I could see. There were car wrecks everywhere, a few fires in the streets, and several shattered windows. I saw people running around, some looting, some just running. Some people I saw were just walking aimlessly or standing around. The background noise finally came to my attention. It was a steady drone of sirens, an occasional scream or yell, and sometimes an explosion or crash of some kind.

I was raised Christian, so my first thought when I took everything in was that the End Times had come. That the Book of Revelation was happened and that, soon, Jesus would appear and start judging us. I knelt down next to my car then and started praying. Eventually, I got up again and decided that, while it was the end times, the rapture itself might not be happening right now. I thought of my parents, and I started walking home. Home was not close to my school.

That walk was probably the most harrowing experience of my life. Even some of my days during the Hard Times don’t compare. Imagine, if you can, wandering through a city three times the size of Rivertowne. Half the city seems to be on fire, but the fire isn’t concentrated anywhere. Cars, or horseless carriages for those of you too young to remember cars, run rampant and randomly through the streets. Every person you see, you don’t know, and you don’t trust. It’s hard to explain really–it’s just the most horrible loneliness and hopeless feeling you could ever feel, and on top of that everywhere you look, some disaster has happened or atrocity is taking place.

I couldn’t reach my house by nightfall. The dark didn’t deter me, as the fires lit the city fairly well, and the lights were still on in parts of the city. But it started raining. I ended up having to take shelter in a small street corner diner. I think I had been there once in my life. It was deserted–at least it was when I went into it.

It was in the dinner that I figured out that I was hungry. The power was out so I couldn’t cook anything. They still had ice cream though, and that made me feel worlds better. I can still taste that ice cream sometimes when I think back on it. I think I started crying while I was eating the ice cream, but I was so hungry it didn’t matter. Afterwards, I really did cry.

Three people came into the dinner after me, seeking shelter from the rain. I was in the back and was able to hide before they saw me. I don’t remember the conversation exactly, but they talked about everything that had happened that day. That’s the first I heard of the Vanishing. The reports were still coming in, but the people said that almost half of everyone had disappeared into thin air. Just up and gone. There was a lady with them. She was crying too. I remember that made me feel better. Although, I can’t tell you why. She talked about how her husband was just standing next to her one minute, she blinked, and then he was gone. Completely vanished. I remember being cold, wet, and terrible feeling, but eventually I fell asleep to the sound of the three people talking.

Just a quick update. I know there may be some advertisements out there that may hint that our new book Vanished Lands: Storyteller Archive Vol. 1 is already out, but those advertisements are not correct. We tried to rein them in but they unfortunately distracted our Manager with cookies and they got out before he could stop them. That guy REALLY likes cookies. Anyways, our book is off to the presses but it won’t be out to buy yet for just a little bit.

In the mean time….You can take our new survey! And possibly win one of the new books, or a copy of the Vanished Lands book if you prefer. It’s your choice if you win. So head to the contest page here and check it out :)

- Pat