Shatter-Me-PDF-Shatter-Me-Series-Shatter-Me-Shatter-Me-1-Tahereh-Mafi (1)

It’s not a car. It’s a tank.
I stare at the massive metal body and attempt to climb my
way up the side when Adam is suddenly behind me. He
hoists me up by the waist and I gasp as he settles me into
the seat.
Soon we’re driving in silence and I have no idea where
we’re headed.
I’m staring out the window at everything.
I’m eating and drinking and absorbing every infinitesimal
detail in the debris, in the skyline, in the abandoned homes
and broken pieces of metal and glass sprinkled in the
scenery. The world looks naked, stripped of vegetation and
warmth. There are no street signs, no stop signs; there is no
need for either. There is no public transportation. Everyone
knows that cars are now manufactured by only one
company and sold at a ridiculous rate.
Very few people are allowed a means of escape.
My parents The general population has been distributed
across what’s left of the country. Industrial buildings form
the spine of the landscape: tall, rectangular metal boxes
stuffed full of machinery. Machinery intended to strengthen
the army, to strengthen The Reestablishment, to destroy
mass quantities of human civilization.
Carbon/Tar/Steel
Gray/Black/Silver
Smoky colors smudged into the skyline, dripping into the
slush that used to be snow. Trash is heaped in haphazard
piles everywhere, patches of yellowed grass peeking out
from under the devastation.
Traditional homes of our old world have been abandoned,
windows shattered, roofs collapsing, red and green and blue
paint scrubbed into muted shades to better match our
bright future. Now I see the compounds carelessly
constructed on the ravaged land and I begin to remember. I
remember how these were supposed to be temporary. I
remember the few months before I was locked up when