Chernobyl

Based around a photo of a bridge that I found that was near Chernobyl. It received huge amounts of radiation and if anyone was on that bridge at the time they would likely die. Bit gloomy! Thank you!!

Chernobyl

“Grandad, why are you painting that?”

A small child in a cream coloured dress points into the distance. A train comes straight towards them before disappearing under the bridge. The girl laughs and sits down dangling her feet through the bars of the bridge.

“It’s the train that goes under the bridge, I thought your mummy might like it.”

Dina giggles and swings her feet back and forth.

“Grandad, Grandad look I’m running on thin air!”

The old man smiles and looks at her, before going back to his painting, where a train begins to take shape.

He gestures to his painting, while Dina scrambles back up, running over to take a look. She gives it an approving nod before running off again to play. The old man beamed and watched her as she bounced around flapping her arms.

“Are you pretending to be a bird again?”

“I’m not pretending I am a bird. Look I’m flying”

She bounced up and down swooping her arms, laughing as she went.

A younger man made his way onto the bridge. He was dressed in Jeans and a T-shirt with a brown leather jacket. His hands were shaking but he shoved them into his pocket. He smiled at the old man and Dina before opening his mouth to speak. He pointed over towards the reactor in the distance.

The metal building took up the skyline with its chimney, piercing up into the clouds. Its concrete clad walls encased the nuclear reactor, protecting the outside from its deadly radiation. There was no vegetation within a hundred yards putting a large focus on the building from the bridge.

The old man chatted to the man in the leather jacket, checking to see if Dina was alright he looked to see her bashing a stick along the rails of the bridge. She made her way over, stick in hand as though it was a sword and she was a soldier. She avoided eye contact with the stranger pointing her sword at him before hiding behind her grandad.

“Who are you?”

Dina asked the man cheekily pointing her stick at him ready to defend her grandad.

“My name is Artyom, what’s yours?”

“It’s a secret!”

Giggling she ran off again. The men continued their conversation looking as she ran around the bridge kicking leaves and rocks off the edge and onto the rails.

The clouds had moved away from the reactor heading towards Gomel, the Chimney was slowly giving off steam making its own cloud above the building itself.

Running back over having abandoned her wooden sword she tugged on her granddads trouser leg interrupting his conversation. She waited impatiently until he bent down so she could whisper in his ear, just loud enough so that Artyom could overhear.

 “Can I have a jacket like that?”

She stared at Artyom’s leather Jacket, hoping her grandad would say yes.

He laughed in reply to her question only to be cut off by a huge bang, the noise of an explosion. They turned towards the source of the noise.

The reactor was on fire, its multi-coloured flames danced across the sky. With the twisted metal of the building bent and distorted out of shape.

Dina buried her face into her Grandads arm in panic. He stroked her head in an attempt to calm her down.

The smoke from the fire was pouring out, but the flames reached higher than the smoke cloud itself.

The old man repositioned his easel so that it faced the burning reactor. Tearing the picture of the train away to reveal a clean canvas. He prepared his paints hurriedly spilling them slightly, while Dina just sat and stared at the reactor confused as to what had just happened.

Black smoke filled the sky above them casting a shadow over the bridge.

Artyom realised what the old man was doing and reached out his arm to stop him, barring his brush from the painting. They scowled at each other neither one breaking concentration, until the old man reached down to his paints and began to paint, ignoring Artyom. Dina sensing the tension shuffled away to find her sword again.

 “What are you doing? You have to go, it’s not safe. Do you have any idea how much radiation is leaking from that reactor right now?”

The old man continued to ignore Artyom while starting to sketch out the burning reactor onto his canvas. The smoke had reached well above their heads now and was spreading out across the sky, the wind carried the smoke over towards Western Europe.

Artyom made another attempt to get through to the old man pointing over at Dina who was stabbing at the railings with her stick. He explained what would happen to them if they didn’t leave. However the old man was unable to understand what radiation was, you can’t see it so to him there was no danger.

The Chimney had taken shape on his canvas, it was still intact after the explosion, the crimson flames climbed around it. The smoke had turned a dirty black with freckles of grey and other colours as plastic and other materials burned inside the factory joining the growing column of smoke.

Artyom ran from the bridge leaving Dina and her grandad behind, he could not persuade them to leave despite the imminent danger of the reactor’s explosion. The grandad continued to paint the burning reactor without any idea of the scale of danger he was in. They remained on the bridge.

 

4000 people died that day �" or soon afterwards. The effects of radiation are debilitating and relentless.  A total exposure of 100 roentgens causes radiation sickness. The bridge itself is located just outside the city and after Reactor 4 exploded people flocked out of the city of Pripyat to get a good view of the reactor too see what had happened. People were told that the radiation levels were minimal and that they were safe. However unbeknown to Artyom, Dina and her Grandad much of the radiation had been blown onto the bridge in a huge spike. The severity of symptoms vary however children and the elderly are often worst affected. Death and various cancers can be linked to this nuclear event and the exact amount of roentgens they were exposed to is unknown. There is no certainty to what happened to the people on the bridge.

Author's Note

It's probably riddled with problems sorry about that. If you like it let me know, if you hate it let me know! Thanks for reading its really long so I can't blame you if you get bored but It's the thought that counts! Yup I'm a weirdo!!!