Creative Writing: The Handmaid's Tale

Gripping the handle of the lantern between his teeth, he located a large stone sitting in the corner of the room and dragged it underneath the hole. Using it as a stepping stool, he jumped straight up into the opening and grabbed blindly for the rungs of the iron ladder he knew was bolted against the wall of the shaft. With his first attempt, he was only able to brush his fingers against the rungs before falling back down onto the rock. The second time, he was able to grasp the ladder for a split second before slipping off just as quickly. Bahauddin was old; his strength was dwindling. He only hoped that he had enough strength to finish the mission he was on. On his third try, he was able to maintain a solid grip on the rungs of the

It creaked as he pushed it open with one hand. Bahauddin crawled out of the shaft and into the new room. If he remembered correctly, he was in the panic room of the palace, underneath the dungeons. It was spacious, musty, and devoid of people. The only light source was a single oil lamp on the stone floor. It hadn’t been burning for long, judging by the length of the wick and the amount of oil left in the small bowl. Upon closer inspection of the floor, the thick layer of dust was patchy with footprints of many different shapes and sizes. There must have many people in this room until just recently; where did they all go? As far as he knew, there was no safer place in the city to hide,

Smoke obscured his vision to the point where he could barely see through the veil of black. His eyes stung, but he blinked away the tears and kept running.

The front doors of the palace had been blasted open, the walls scorched and the once gleaming tiles of the floor streaked with soot and rubble. Coughing up smoke and dust, he stumbled out the entryway and onto the streets outside.

Bahauddin stopped dead in his tracks as he took in the scenery of the city. Nearly every building was reduced to ashes. Merchants’ camels and horses lay dead on the cobblestone streets, legs either bent at unnatural angles or missing altogether. And what of the people? The entire city was eerily silent, no explosions or shouts or crying. Smoldering remains of humans were scattered across the ground, their features now unrecognizable. He counted fifty, a hundred, two hundred, more. All of them were gone. The wind whistled through his ears as if to mock him with its