Humanity
Disaster and Redemption
Commander Jared Prescott was flying the orbiter at hovering velocity and very low altitude. This mission was envisioned for years and was now a reality. Its role was to assess if earth could be restored. The global catastrophe had been a life-extinction event. It was not caused by a rogue asteroid or external attack but by human folly and ignorance. Its mind-bending scope was to restore human, animal, marine and plant life. It could take thousands of years. Considering earth’s life base was gone, this was an optimistic project.
By Leonard Hay3 years ago in Earth
The Shift into Darkness
The Shift into Darkness Later coined “The Shift,” the strange set of events that would characterize the moments when humanity “turned,” happened quite abruptly and suddenly. The majority of the people on earth were affected, leaving only a small remnant that could be recognized as the former human race. The shocking incidents began on a hot Summer evening in August 2021 with a loud, blaring buzzing noise, the location or source of which could not be pinpointed. The buzzing was simultaneously experienced throughout cities all around the world. Then news broadcasting stations announced that many, many people were dropping dead suddenly from unknown causes. There were no populated areas left untouched. And soon reports of additional sinister phenomena were widespread. Many described incidents where groups of people had begun to act strangely. They would appear confused, aimlessly stumbling around, sometimes emitting growls or other unintelligible sounds...some even attacking and biting others. Still others became unresponsive to passersby, appearing to be engaged in their own internal world where they were receiving thoughts and impulses perhaps through radio frequency waves. And finally, there was the inexplicable disappearance of a myriad number of people, and resulting chaos as planes and cars crashed.
By Roxann Drake3 years ago in Earth
The key
Captains log: Star date… I can’t remember I can’t remember the date? %^*# “We’re in trouble.” I think to myself. I maintain my composure around the crew. Smiling and greeting them as I would normally. “Pull it together Hayden, girl-wash your face!” My thoughts continue. I take long deep breathes as I walk. Centering myself.
By Dani Davis3 years ago in Earth
The Vessel
“But, why wouldn’t she know?” Seth asked curiously. “Did you know? Seriously Seth you are the epitome of a walking talking cautionary tale, and you’re the only one who doesn’t know it!” “This from a guy named Zen, who just happens to emulate the very essence of the word neurotic. Listen Zen, during my last journey, I gave her that locket, it wasn’t just a heart shaped locket…it was my heart, my actual physical heart.”
By Thomas Walker3 years ago in Earth
Terra Nova
Two hands hold a semi-broken heart shaped silver locket. To anyone else, the locket was a piece of junk but to John Wilder, it was the last remaining memento of his recently deceased wife. Alone in the darkness and illuminated by candlelight, John stares at the locket as he opens and closes it with methodical timing reminiscent of a man on the brink of losing his mind. Inside, is a scratched up photograph of his wife and son smiling and hugging. He is now a man lost to his mind, lost to his memories and lost to his hatred. He keeps replaying the events that brought them to where they were today; living in fear, living under total surveillance and complete control by an alien race that took the world by surprise.
By Michelle Tasker3 years ago in Earth
The Book of John
I hadn’t been glued to a TV like that since 9/11. How did it end so quickly? On December 3, 2027, or as we now call it, one-two-three, it showed up. Something like three skyscrapers long and four skyscrapers wide and looking like, well, about what you’d expect a spaceship to look like if you watched movies—metal and such.
By Ben Gentile3 years ago in Earth
My Brass Heart Shaped Locket on Angels Wings
The face of my brass heart shaped locket was encased in a clear glass and through it, I saw depth within the geometry, particularity and entanglement of the designs inside. There were three gunmetal pins set into the shape of a Z that met the edges of the brass to form the shape of two acute triangles inside of an upside down parallelogram for the midsection of the heart, thus dividing the brass edged heart shape into three main sections. The section below the Z formed an upside down triangle and the top section was formed into two opened half circle shapes that met to form the top of the heart. I noticed a specificity of the triangle on my left view of the Z and the triangle below the Z; in both triangle sections there was a small silver gear placed just below each end of the Z and a larger golden half circular gear mounted along the adjacent side of each of those triangles. However, the two remaining parts of the heart, the top section and the triangle to my right view of the Z, were filled with disarray of countless tiny brass and gunmetal gears. (The year 2015) As I observed these features my gaze into the heart shaped locket became so mesmerized with thought and imagination of infinite possibilities for the future of humanity and all life as we know it. I examined the configuration of the design as well as the disarray of the metal gears inside and began to imagine each piece of the design as a specific significance for something more that I needed to understand. It was like my mind was somehow being transported into an alternate universe. I could see the pieces coming together as the inside of the workings of something powerful, yet mysterious and deeply complex.
By Julia Hampton3 years ago in Earth
Fiskars Project Orange Thumb: Investing in the Future of Community Gardens and Urban Farms. Top Story - June 2021. Created with: Fiskars.
I’ve never been food insecure. Every day of my life I have had access to nutritious meals three times a day (if not more) and there was always food somewhere in my house. The act of eating became a leisurely activity; something I looked forward to for my own adventurous culinary pursuits and social outings with friends. I never viewed it as a means of survival because I simply didn’t have to, but as I’ve learned to grow my own food and immersed myself in our food system, I’ve discovered just how privileged I was and still am.
By Farmer Nick3 years ago in Earth
Madeline
I remember…. I remember everything. The salty breeze that used to waft across my face, the soft prickles of sand that would scatter across my skin as the wind would carry the oceans mist. The beauty and simplicity of life’s little loves from not so long ago, that was now an acrid shallow image of its former glory. The water was gone and soon so too would I. Tipping my board forward I slid down the bank of sand that used to form the water’s edge. Letting my momentum take me as far as is it could. Closing my eyes, I could almost imagine I was surfing, and that the world was not a sun scarred and mostly uninhabitable during the day. Things had gotten so bad after the war between humanity and my people. After discovering our existence, they chose genocide over coexistence. Their own superiority complex and need to dominate and control everything had led to their downfall and the destruction of their homes. These thoughts alone sent white hot flashes of anger and sadness across my body like roaring waves in the ocean. Looking out at the dry cracked water starved earth I clenched my fist and let these emotions go. They would not help me on this journey, only hinder it. I promised to fix this and give hope to these shallow un-evolved excuses for warm flesh for exactly one reason and one reason only. I could still feel her hand in mine, it moving my hair as it caressed the side of my face and sighed. Placing my hands on my chest I could still feel the necklace there and smell the small hint of lavender and rosemary. It was her favorite scent, and I can still see her smile as bright as the sun anytime I found any that had survived the harsh heat. Slowly I made my way to the tiny hut that now presided at the edge of what was formerly known as the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. When I was younger, I had always been fascinated by this as it was backed up against the Mississippi River and never seemed to mix. Swimming between the two had always been a magical event, for those were strong enough obviously, as others dared not to mix waters, an almost sacred taboo of my kind. Looking back on all these memories I could see the sadness coating my mother and father’s eyes, I had just never quite understood why, until I met the others. Anger again boiled swift and quick inside of me before giving way to intense sadness. Hadn’t we been through enough? Although they were happy with the life we cultivated here they were often reminded of their banishment everyday by just looking out at the waters we lived on top of. My mother being of the gulf side of the water and my father being of the Mississippi side they were forbidden to be together. And when they were caught, both were respectively banished to the edge of their territories only being allowed inland during certain times. We lived here in pseudo happiness for some time until our kind was discovered and then hunted like petty sport, and as each one of us died so too did a portion of the water the earth held. Tears freely fell from down my cheeks, wiping my face I looked at the tears I had thought were long gone and resolved myself for the task ahead. Over the next few days this cycle continued, small melancholic moments that made me think of home or of Madeline. From the dried-up husks of crustaceans, long lost shipwrecks and debris to the cracked earth and fissures that coated the sun-bleached land. Everything made me think of her, that is how much I would like to think, that she made my life better, she made me better. I could almost enjoy living again, getting to wake up and see her face made all this bearable. There is something about walking through abandoned streets and lands that seemed magical so long as she was there. I would like to say you get a unique view of life when you can only go outside during the nighttime. But in truth it was solely Madeline’s perspective of getting to survive that changed how I viewed life around me. Those who had survived knew to leave me be and scavenge at a radius, but she fundamentally disregarded that and chiseled at my walls like they were made of soapstone. After walking for about a week I could see the place I once called home. Walking up I let my hands graze along the surface of the weather rotted wood letting memories assault me like the scalding hot sun had these past few days. It has been so long since water has graced this land, hate was truly a blight that consumed all of humanity. And for a while I had let it consume me and wanted nothing more than to watch it all burn away. They did not deserve the peace and comfort my kind afforded them. I had the power to change it but none of that mattered as I indulged in their suffering and watched their petty world collapse. Once beautiful water ways were now dried husks and dirty reminders of their lackadaisical treatment of the land. It took less than 5 years for the civilization to collapse without water. As the last of it evaporated old shipwrecks and years of built-up pollution became barren landscapes that filled your vision until it was all the eyes could see. It hurt my soul to see something so disgraceful, which only fueled my fire more. I hated them for what they took from me with every fiber of my being until her soothing hand found me. Her touch diluted the hard water of my heart that I had let become putrid and stagnant with a purity I had thought died with the last of my people. Her presence healed deep seated bitterness I held against humanity, and it was for her sake and hers alone that I even dared to stand in the middle of this room. Its cracked old floors, and weathered walls and chipped paint broke the dam of emotions that I pushed down for so long. It was so easy to feel as if I were drowning when I thought of them, when I thought of losing them. As if I was drawn to it my feet took me to the hole in the floor that we had in our home. Its broken cracked edges marker our old watering hole. We would fish from here for dinner more times than I could remember. Crouching by it my hands traced its edges as the memory of my father pushing me into it resurfaced. They had stormed our house and killed mom in seconds, but dad never stopped fighting, until they targeted me. And in a last attempt to save me he shoved me into the water but was shot and killed as he did so, saving me but dying in the process. Selfishly Id wished he had not, maybe then I would finally be at peace with them. This was where it all started and where it would all end. I pulled the locket from underneath my shirt and clutched it in my hand, Madeline’s final gift to me before the heat stole her beauty and essence from the world…. from me, because of my selfishness. My grip tightened around the heart shaped locket that held a part of her ashes. Standing up I took my final last longing look at the trinkets that filled this tiny hut, and all the memories that were robust reminders of a happier time, then turned and left. I walked back down the stairs and towards the dividing line that used to be where the Mississippi River and gulf met and sank to my knees. I let the energy that Id suppressed for so long, overflow and poured the entirety of my essence into the locket. And as it flowed out it charged it with a blue like aura, the last of my kinds magic and essence. I would die here but the beauty of our power is that our energy could never completely be destroyed, only changed. With the last vestiges of my strength, I plunged it perfectly in between the earth that had laid barren for and Innumerable amount of time and collapsed, and finally closed my eyes. The locket being filled with the promise id made began to spread its energy into the land and with a blinding pulse of light started to slowly trickle water that started to pool around me. Hate had killed the last of our kind, my father sacrificed his life to ensure his little girl had a chance at survival, but the love of Madeline’s touch saved it, and soon I would see her again. As the water flowed, the promise I had made to her started to manifest, and I began feeling my body turn back into energy and fade back into the aether from whence it came. As the final flecks of me disappeared I could smell the scent of rosemary and lavender wrap around me as if she were holding me one final time. I smiled and took my final breath and with it the water erupted into a deluge that would restore balance back to this barren world.
By London Davier Hill3 years ago in Earth
The Heat Wave
Yeah, yeah, we're wimps about the heat. So say the good folks from Arizona. Or Florida. Or Wherever. Sort of like we're wimps about snow, according to the good folks from Massachusetts or Colorado. But we are the least air-conditioned metro area in the United States. Our usual temperature range in late June goes to about the mid-80s (Fahrenheit) at the highest, not 108. Portland OR is even worse right now.
By Jenn Kirkland3 years ago in Earth
Sky Spy
I remember feeling a sense of dread as I looked up at the multiple shades of grey above me before quickly removing the heart-shaped locket from in front of my eye. The locket had been customized exactly to my liking, as any of us could do if we wanted to pay a little extra. It was a glittery, almost ethereal rose gold with pearls etched along the outline of the small, delicate heart-shaped diamond. These were our lifelines--we could not lose them (we’ll get into what happened if we did lose them later). The lockets kept us connected with each other and with what was happening around us. The weather seemed to be getting worse, and it was probably a good idea to head inside. The last thing I had wanted was to be carried away in a large gust of wind right before my high school senior prom. Before I have to go...up there. It was my only chance to experience something normal; something that people in the past used to be able to enjoy--something we haven’t enjoyed here on Earth in a long time. Priorities were different in 2410 and the community of Edenview definitely was eventful, but not in a good way. For a while, things had been normal. Chaotic, but structured. Safe, but boring. I remember sitting at my desk in my room with a pen, doing my daily journal entry. I felt so stuck and I didn’t understand the point of life. I still do and I still don’t. We’ve had a routine, but we’ve never relaxed or took the time to have fun. It was all about working. We all had our own roles to play. Once you turned eighteen, you were instructed to be a fly-er, meaning you had to partake in daily tasks 15,000 at the minimum in the air (more experienced fly-ers go as high as 45,000 feet--we’ll get to how later). You would think that in the future, the population would be less--however, it had actually increased overtime and it was majorly overpopulated. Life was more...intense.
By Lena Crowe3 years ago in Earth