\



I lay in silence as the heavy cloud of dust settled around me. It had been over 5 minutes since I had last seen any sign of my friends, and I was starting to worry. We knew there was going to be a bomb test today, but something must have gone wrong. Its been three years since Khamid Dinali, the leader of a new wave of terrorist groups, was killed. Since then, President Frankson has made national security our country's main concern. Tests like the bomb test are mandatory, one to two times a month, and almost everybody's used to them.

As soon as I could see clearly, I started to search. We learned not to go screaming like a child after a disaster. “Any attention is bad attention,” my disaster awareness teacher always told us. As much as I hated his class, it sounded like heaven compared to the situation I faced. I was on the third floor of the building when it collapsed, and I seemed to now be about ground level. The Swat-Bots were already on the scene, loading bodies into A group of unmanned ambulances. How long had I lay there unconscious?

“Aaron, are you okay?” I heard from behind me. Relief flooded over me. My friends were safe.

By the time I arrived at the entrance of my home complex, I had found out what had happened. Only three people had perished in the incident, two teachers and one student. I felt selfish, but I was glad the kid didn't really mean much to me. My friends are really all I have now, with all the safety rules. We can’t really do anything fun anymore, with the government finding most activities “unsafe”. Most sports have been declared unsafe, because they potentially could render someone unable to join the forces. But I guess its for the best. So many lives were lost due to lack of security. The terrorists had practically walked into the army base. No one expected that a group of soldiers would be working for Denali's terrorist group. They got control of the Army's newest WMD (Weapon of Mass destruction), nicknamed “The Shaker”. It was almost impossible to test it, due to the vast area that even a minor test would affect. Most of the information about it was classified, but after the terrorist group used it on us, the government leaked some. Basically, it causes a devastating man-made earthquake that can be controlled with deadly accuracy.

The shaker was fortunately not the weapon of choice of the terrorists this time. Rumors are one of the teachers at my learning facility was secretly working with the army, and the terrorists wanted to take him out, any means necessary. Other rumors said that the man had escaped the blast and had fled the scene. I don't blame him.

During the bomb test, more of Denali's men had hijacked the aircrafts that were “dropping” their extremely explosive cargo and actually released the bombs on our school.

The bad thing about our Nation of “safety and security” is that as our technology is advancing, the terrorist’s technology is advancing just as fast. We let down our guard for a blink of an eye, and boom, were being attacked. After the US killed the terrorist groups original leader, Osama bin laden, most of the terrorist countries around the world decided to gang up on us. Before that, we believed most of the terrorism in the world was coming from a few countries in the Middle East. Boy, we were wrong...

Countries spanned out over five continents were all secretly against us, all without us having a single clue. Germany, Colombia, Turkey, and many others all joined forces under one leader: Dinali.

For a while people called it World War Three, but it soon lost its popularity. Even with almost every eligible man or woman ready for combat, there was no way we could successfully take down the forces of all our enemies. We stopped thinking of it as a war, and began thinking of it as a reality. If we could protect our nation from harm by focusing all our efforts on actually protecting our country, maybe the other countries would eventually give up. We believe they're not going to keep wasting there money and resources on attacking us, and will eventually give up.

Of course trade with other countries is almost impossible, with all the hate towards the US. Of course, this has caused the price of almost everything to skyrocket. A Lot of people think it is stupid, think we should try to use words, be peaceful. I agree with some of their beliefs, but we can't just try to talk to them. They don't work like that. We would be basically surrendering, and were not ready to do that.

At least not yet. Sometimes I think it would just be easier to give up.

When I got to my building, my mom was waiting for me.

“O my God you are okay, thank the Lord”, my mother screams running up to me. I was hoping she had not heard the news, but I knew that chance was slim to none. I hate to see my mom worried. A few hours later we sat down to eat, in silence as usual.

I got into bed, thinking about the events of that day. I finally closed my eyes, wondering if I would survive the next day.

I woke up late the afternoon, glad I didn't have to attend classes. I would be out out of school for almost a month, 26 days, due to yesterday’s explosion. There was no “FBI involvement”, or “CSI” because we all knew that it had to do with the terrorists. There was no questioning that.

I got up, and the house was empty. I turned on the TV, and turned it to the news. “President Frankson’s live speech starts momentarily” Thats where my mom must be. That speech seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, but the news it had told chilled my spine. He had chosen to surrender. He went on to say that he had received very upsetting news. Over 1/3 of our country had already been secretly working with the terrorists, supposedly because they were threatened with certain death if they chose not to cooperate. Dinali’s men had been secretly invading America over the last few months, gaining allies. Also, Dinali had personally video-chatted the president via overrun whitehouse computers. He had warned of an attack and that surrendering would be the only way. He then continued to show our president frightening footage. Millions of Soldiers, thousands of boats, an entire army waiting to attack the US. He had made the choice that would protect us from the most harm.

An hour or so later, the entire US coast had been stormed from soldiers of Dinalis army.I looked out my window, and saw a squadron of armored vehicles moving there way down the road. On the side Dinalis logo was printed in white. As scared as I was, I am glad that I can its all over. No more worrying, praying there will not be another attack. I feel like I am finally at peace.