To Reach California
Natalie Eckerle, Louisville
Day 1: Natasha
The West Virginia summer sun glared on the highway in golden white ripples, displaying patches of light that disappeared and reappeared as a frail, stifled breeze stirred the branches of the trees lining the road. Despite sitting in the shade of a towering, mature maple tree, I shaded my eyes from the unyielding sunlight with my hand, and I cursed softly for the hundredth time that I had forgotten my sunglasses. My long, light brown hair hung in tired wisps around my face, and I wiped my hand along my forehead, feeling the sweat there.
What Happened to the Devil’s Baby
Bonnie Herrick, Prospect
The Doomsday Clock ticked off the final second. No one was left to turn the hands. Beau and I clung to a rocky ledge at the mouth of a cave. Far to the west, where a city once stood, skeletons of twisted steel loomed like doomsday sentinels above the scarlet haze. The outside world grew bleaker than our refuge—but for the white streak of a missile, the red flash of a flare.