Abandon

The planet below lay barren and desolate. The pictures I had studied so well showed a planet made of endless blue oceans and lush green forests, instead there was nothing. Red desert that seemed to act as a warning to all potential visitors.

Yet still I was mesmerised. An old professor once told me that beauty and terror are so often intertwined… we fear great sights and become entranced by great terrors. His words were a whisper in my heart, feelings that rang true now more than ever as I looked at planet earth.

It was entrancing to look at. The billions that were born there and the millions that died in its last moments.

“Pinch me I’m dreaming”. Rishi Khera, our aerospace engineer and pilot muttered, mostly to himself.

Ruby Foster, the crew's biochemist and Sam King, our guard on the expedition talked excitedly amongst themselves whilst Aiya Tomimura the photographer and a longtime friend of mine was busy snapping hundreds of photos of the view before us.

No human had been to Earth in 309 years. Not since The Indo-Pacific war from 2739 - 2743 that had ended in complete annihilation on earth. By then a majority of humans had already migrated from Earth to more prosperous planets. Leaving behind a government that was left unchecked to exploit the people too disadvantaged to leave. After an attempted peace treaty failed, three of the largest remaining governments sent out missiles across the planets. Resulting in the destruction of earth on September 1st 2743.

A rover named “Joy” made an extraordinary discovery a few years ago when it found that Earth's atmosphere was no longer poisonous to biological life forms. Since that discovery there had been a race between the two most densely populated planets; my home planet Hassius and Eltanin. The latter reached Earth’s atmosphere last year and safely orbited the planet for 12 days before returning. An impressive feat that our team is about to beat.

“Marlowe, what do you think?” Ruby pulled me out of my trance

“Does it measure up to the photos from all those history tablets?”

“In a different way…” I stated solemnly

“Different in what way?” She asked

“Rationally, I expected Earth to look like this. I’ve seen the satellite photos, I even used them in my own thesis. But… when I was young I would read these old books by this organisation called NASA. They’d publish pictures of all the planets from the Old Galaxy. They’d publish pictures of a different Earth. The historian in me… the child in me, cannot help but grieve for the planet and the stories that we lost” I explained.

Ruby was silent for a moment, “I’m glad you came Marlowe. I know Hassius’ Institute of Planetary Exploration tried to dismiss you from coming. But we need someone who can tell these stories, someone who can link the past to the present so nothing like this happens again.”

“And we need someone like you to pick flowers” I tried to lighten the mood with a joke which only ended in a friendly shove.

Our team was given instructions of orbiting in Earth’s exosphere for seven Earth days to give us an opportune amount of time to observe the planet, and attempt to make contact with any potential life forms that may have persevered. Some may describe those seven days as mundane, in fact Aiya did just that, making several jokes about how she’d prefer to get lost in space without a spacesuit than be stuck another day with us in a small ship. But to me these were perhaps some of the happiest moments of my life. We spent the nights playing games and watching movies from Earth. The technology was too outdated to use with a VR, so we had to watch old movies like “Star Wars” and “Mad Max” on an old television screen that sat in the common room. Uno became a quick favourite, and monopoly almost ended in total destruction when Rishi charged Sam the hotel rates on the most expensive lot, Mayfair. An air of anticipation always sat in the room with us, we were excited and nervous for what was to come and I think that helped bring us closer.

Our final night in Earth’s atmosphere had us all discussing what we’ll say and do when we landed.

“When you get out there you have to say ‘one small step for man, one giant step for mankind’ like they did when humans first arrived on the moon in 1968” Rishi joked

“It was 1969 Rish. And no”. Aiya laughed.

“Thank god I’m going to get a break from you nerds for a couple days” Rishi huffed.

As the pilot of the ship he had been instructed to stay behind by the Institute of Planetary Exploration.

My stomach was doing somersaults when we landed the next day. Nervous for what exactly? I had no clue, I tried to fool myself into believing that it wasn't nerves, but excitement. All suited up we prepared to say goodbye at the door.

“I’m sorry you can’t come with us Rishi” I hugged him goodbye

He shrugged “Don’t worry about me man, I can leave the ship within a 2m radius. Besides, I think collecting plants and rubbish for the next few days would be pretty boring anyways” he laughed

“Artefacts not rubbish” I rolled my eyes

“You’re so easy to wind up”. He laughed

Sam stepped off the ship first, gun propped up for a fight. We knew there’d be nothing, our cameras had shown that before we even landed. The drop off location had once been a forest in the north of a nation called Australia. Images and videos showed it once had grand trees that reached as far as the eye could see and one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world. It was the home to snakes, marsupials, spiders, all kinds of animals that were now forever gone.

Now, the trees were skeletons of their former self and had mostly fallen to lie in their deathbeds. The silence was deafening. Nothing and no one was here anymore. The shiver that went down my spine almost stopped me in my tracks as we made our way through. The only noises coming from the crunch of our boots and the breathing through our helmets.

For hours we walked through the graveyard of trees. Occasionally we’d spot a skeleton from an animal left behind. Ruby would pick it up before storing it away, with plans to take it back home to learn more about the DNA sequencing. We surveyed the land for anything of interest. Particularly life forms that managed to survive. There were hopes that if the air was no longer toxic that perhaps some flora would be reborn. But our hopes got smaller and smaller with each step we took.

After 8 hours of walking we made it to the edge of a small run down town. The memoir of the abandoned civilisation felt less quiet than the old forest had, I wasn’t sure if that was more or less comforting. The small brick houses were left derelict, roofs caved in and walls fallen to rubble. Cars sat abandoned in driveways but the garbage remained untouched. Plastic cups and old grocery bags littered the streets. Dirty from 200 years of abandonment but relatively intact, at least compared to the rest of the small suburban town.

“Wow” Sam breathed

“Should we enter one of the houses? See what we can find?” Aiya asked the group momentarily, staring at the sight before her through the camera.

I nodded, making my way to the second house on the left. Its paint, once white, was peeling and grey, a dead tree had fallen against it causing a window to be smashed inwards. Yet it appeared to be the most intact of all the houses. I had no reason to be nervous but for reasons unbeknownst to me I couldn’t help the shudders that went down my spine. Looking at what was left of a once great civilisation does that to you I guess.

Sam walked ahead of us, it was just precaution at this point. Treading on the cobblestone pavement that led to the house, he stopped abruptly. Holding up a hand for us to wait.

“This could be something you’d be interested in Marlowe”

He knelt down on the ground and motioned for me to follow suit. There sitting a metre in front of the red door was a golden locket and chain. The late afternoon sunlight reflected off the small rutilant heart and I was surprised we had missed it at first. But something was wrong.

“It looks too new.” I muttered to myself

“Marlowe, Sam…” Ruby started in a tense tone

“It should be weathered with age shouldn’t it?” Sam asked me, both of us too caught up to have heard her

Somebody gripped both our shoulders hard, pulling us out of our stupor. I turned to see Aiya, face pale and eyes wide

“I don’t think we're alone” she whispered frantically, gesturing to the surrounding houses.

“I saw movement in some of the windows and door frames”. Ruby explained

I glanced around the neighbourhood and noticed it then. The overwhelming silence that greeted us in the forest wasn’t there anymore.

“Someone radio into Rishi,” Sam demanded, cocking his gun “we need to get out of here”.

Before any of us could comply, I heard the door open from behind us making us spin.

“We saw your ship.” A young, dirty looking girl greeted us, “We’ve been waiting for you”.