The chosen freaks

I was living in a world where a minority of people was different from the rest. These people had heads that were a little bit bloated and doughy, with a smaller face and no hair. And I was one of those people. Many things happened that I don’t remember. Often there were explosions in the distance, and this was something that the government or people in power were doing. Something had happened in the past related to this.

I was in the woods close to a town or road with one other person – a normal person. Suddenly there was an extremely loud and deep explosion in the distance. We looked in that direction and saw above the horizon a mushroom cloud slowly rising. And we knew that this was the end and that everyone would die. We started running in the opposite direction, into the woods. But I knew inside that it was futile and we could never outrun it, and this feeling weakened my muscles so that I almost couldn’t run. I was terrified as the cloud was nearing quickly.

Then it caught up with us and we were inside – gray dust and particles swirling all around us. I looked at my companion, and he or she had turned into a statue of ash. But I was not dead, and I realized I was not going to die. Instead I was somehow changing. And I knew that everybody who was different – who had this strange head – was going to survive and everyone else was going to die. But now I was afraid of the changes that I felt happening throughout my body and shooting through my limbs, because I didn’t know what was happening to me.