Never Twice ( by Juan José González Muñiz)

The sun was nearly set. Judging by the piles of ruins which could be seen, in former times, there surely existed huge buildings in that place, buildings which were the pride of the people who lived there. Nowadays, only the ruins remained; the bushes and the trees grew among them and were slowly hiding their old splendour.
Park, a boy about fifteen years old, walked with difficulty along the old streets full of stones, bricks, wood, plastic, rubble…
He was coming back home after spending a day searching for food. He lived with a small group of people. They were survivors of the disaster that had destroyed humanity. The governments of big and small countries alike had paid attention to the development of atomic weapons.
Powerful countries did so to defend themselves against other powerful ones. The small countries did the same to defend themselves against the small ones. All the countries, big or small, followed the same policy, which they called “Secure Mutual Destruction”. They thought that it was the best policy to ensure security and peace in the world.
Everything started with a minor problem of borders between two small countries, which didn’t hesitate to use small tactic missiles with a small nuclear head. The situation got worse with the intervention of their protectors. The flaws in their self defence and communication systems lead to a massive use of nuclear weapons in order to ensure each country’s security. So, thousands of missiles flew in all directions destroying major towns and storage silos.
Human and animal life was destroyed. Only a few groups survived isolated, without contact.
Park came into the shelter, he left the roots that he had picked up and went to meet Anuk. Anuk was in his eighties and lived apart in a small hut. Park had always liked him. He usually spent a long time sitting in a corner listening to old stories about life before the disaster and Anuk would explain how things worked. The rest of the group thought he was to blame for the disaster because he had been working in a nuclear investigation centre.
That day, Park couldn’t find him. He went back to the shelter and asked where he was. He froze at the answer. Anuk had been executed because they found out he had built a wheel to carry wood to his hut.
The group had decided on his execution because they thought that could be the start of a new scientific development, and they couldn’t allow it because it might lead to another disaster. So, they didn’t hesitate and killed him.