The year is 1962.

You’ve just finished lunch at Betsy’s Downtown Diner—a slice of cherry pie and a cup of burnt coffee in a chipped mug.

You step outside.
Sunlight bounces off chrome bumpers and faded shop windows. Your shoes echo on the sidewalk. You head toward your car...

Then, you hear it.

Sirens.

Air raid.

Not a drill.
Not this time.

The sound shakes the ground. People scatter. A child screams. You stand frozen as the wail rises—and the world begins to fall apart.

Five Years Later

The world you knew is gone.

Cities lie in ruin. Nuclear fire didn’t just flatten the land—it twisted it. Radiation changed the dead. Or something did.

Now, they walk.
Relentless.
Decayed.
Driven by a single instinct: consume.

Your family is gone.
Linda, your wife.
Sarah, your daughter.
Lost to chaos. To sickness. To time.

You’ve survived—barely.
Wandering the wasteland with nothing but memories and the weight of what once was.

Until Today

You find yourself on Main Street.
The husk of your old town, swallowed by silence and decay.

Somehow, Betty’s Diner still stands.
Crooked. Rusted.
But still there.

Inside: broken plates, dust-thick air, shadows cast by shattered windows.

And then you see it—

Your coat.

Still hanging by the door, untouched for five years.

You reach inside the pocket.
Your fingers close around something small. Familiar.

A roll of film.

Birthday photos.
Sunday at the lake.
Linda’s laugh.

A past long buried—but suddenly real again.

A New Purpose

You scavenge what you can.
Old chemicals. Broken lab gear. Forgotten manuals.

You teach yourself to develop the film.
Burn your hands. Fail. Nearly poison yourself. But you don’t stop.

Until the images emerge.

Linda, smiling by the lake.
Sarah, reaching toward the sky.
A life frozen in silver.

You cry.
For the first time in years, you feel something beyond survival.

You gather scraps—lenses from broken projectors, pieces of an old enlarger, a shutter mechanism from a discarded Polaroid.

Piece by piece, you craft a camera of your own. Crude, yes. But it works. You cut film strips by hand. Coat them with homemade emulsion. Test. Fail. Try again.

Until it works.
You step back into the world—not just as a survivor.

But as a witness.

You document the ruins.

The haunted eyes of those who remain.

The twisted forms of the dead.
The beauty still hidden in decay.

You no longer run.
You record.
You remember.

Because someone has to document the

Nightmare on Main Street!