The key they'd given me still fit the lock, but the house was no longer there. My front door was lying flat on the ground, half submerged in mud. The mud was up to my calf as I walked back to my car on the cleared street. But I couldn't leave, could I? This was my new normal. Homelessness. Starvation. Freezing.

I had to lift my legs with my hands, or the boots would come off. The stench was unforgiving. Dead things, everywhere. Wildlife. Pets. People. They were in the trees, the bushes, the roads, the river banks, the houses, the rubble, the mud.

It was inescapable.

My house was flattened. Everything was gone. There was a new river where the shed had been. Sediment and river rock where the garden was. The ground sparkled from minerals. In other circumstances, I would have called it pretty; the ground had diamonds in it. Nothing looked the same.

I had worked so hard to get everything I had. And now it was gone. Leveled in less than a day. I waited for the tears to come, the anger. But it didn't. I was in shock.

The tears wouldn't come until days later when I realized this was real. That it wasn't going away. That my new normal was this apocalyptic world I now lived in.

The anger came when the help didn't. And now I'm ready to go to war for my people. You claim to love serve and protect then send the protectors to destroy our resources. For what? Money. More of your useless metals to build your empire at the sake of your own country. The love of money; the root of all evil. Greed. Destruction. You've brought it upon yourself and now everyone who would've stood behind you has abandoned your agenda. Isn't that a familiar feeling? Lost. Abandoned. Helpless. You lay in the grave you dig, and yours is deep.

But we are not helpless. And we refuse to be your stepping stones.

(A/N slight variation but I needed to write something :)