I always knew I lived next to something dangerous. A weapon of large scale destruction. But as far as I knew, it seemed harmless. Nevertheless, the local leaders restricted us from going into the woods or stream. They feared there may be radioactive materials floating around somewhere. But even then, the kids didn't heed their warnings. After school, some of us would sneak out a play in the woods. Exploring, taking in the sites of the trees and leaves. It was great. On occasion, we would hear an adult in the distance and run back.
One day, a few official government vehicles began pouring into our tiny town, specifically to the site where the warhead was kept. This didn't get much attention and life went on. We later found out they were inspectors from various agencies, they were making sure the warhead was safe and wouldn't spontaneously explode. They deemed it safe.
Word of the inspection got around pretty quick. During lunch period one afternoon, one of my schoolmates told us that he would pay anyone $20 if they went to the warhead and snapped a photo of them standing next to it. My group of friends and I accepted this challenge. It seemed pretty easy.
That evening we headed to the site. It was still fairly lit outside. We got ready to scale the fence surrounding the site. One by one, we each jumped down to the other side. After a 15 minute search, we reached the warhead.
Everyone high fived each other. One of my friends decided to sit on it and pull out his lighter to have a smoke. While reaching into his pocket, his pocket knife fell out. He lit his cigarette.
We took the picture and left.
The next morning, the network news had coverage on an apparent contamination of the stream water which had killed hundreds of people and mutated thousands of others. I went to my room and looked back at the picture we had took yesterday, I realized that when my friend's knife fell out of his pocket, it made a huge gash in the warhead. The warhead then leaked out radioactive substances which reached the stream.
We were responsible this.