A Peace of Our Heart.

She couldn't believe she was this close to finding it, as she dug through the thick layer of grime and ash. After all this time, it had been hiding in the midwest of all places. In a small crumbling farmhouse, deep in the now toxic cornfields of what used to be called Iowa. It had taken her years to trace it back here. After the Burning, and through the terror of the famine wars, it's a miracle it had survived at all. She sat back a moment and recalled the long journey it had taken to find it. She had first learned of its existence reading through the early scientific reports of the first outbreak. They thought it was a disease at first, and of course it was, but not like anything humanity had ever faced. The first reports were from small farming villages in Eastern Europe. People and animals getting sick, many dying. Those who survived left deeply changed and scarred for life. They didn't know, couldn't know what had happened to them. Soon, it was happening everywhere. Almost every form of plant was now deeply toxic, unable to be consumed without horrible sickness. Early research soon theorized that a parasitic fungus was invading nearly all plant life, hijacking the plant's natural ability to create pollen and co-opting it to spread its own spores instead. Some thought it was our punishment, that we had pushed the Earth too far in our greed, and this was our justice. Others tried everything they could to fight it. Even though they were warned that we didn't know enough about the fungus to take any definitive actions. World governments quickly and unanimously agreed to a "burn first" policy in an attempt to contain the fungus. Whole crops and forests were destroyed in an attempt to contain the "Grey Spore" as they called it. But in their haste, they only made it worse. The spore itself, it turned out, was extremely heat resistant and the warm air from the fires spread the spore farther and faster than they could've ever imagined. It was only then, as it became an uncontainable disaster that we realized the true horror of the Spore. It started with strange animal attacks. A missing dog or cat, a herd of cattle slaughtered and eaten as if by a pack of wolves. Normally docile, even herbaceous animals began killing and eating each other, and any humans they came across. Early tests looked for brain damage from the Spore, or some type of rampant form of Rabies, but the tests always showed negative on victim and predator alike. The answer turned out to be much simpler and much more destructive. The animals and people were all now showing early signs of starvation. Any animal or person that had ingested a plant infected by the Spore and survived, could no longer eat or digest anything but meat, becoming violently ill again should they try. Her body begins to shake as her memories of that dark time threaten to overwhelm her.The last group of scientists, working inside of sealed greenhouses had found the answer, but too late. The carnivores came for them, driven mad by their starvation as the world ran out of any meat but the human kind. But the answer survived. The lead scientist had left a video behind, in the hopes that someone would find his work, but he died before he could tell his daughter how important his gift had been. So it travelled with her, a hidden secret, as she fled from the wars as humanity fell upon itself. Thousands of miles the secret travelled in the hands of a little girl, not knowing what she had, until when she was fifteen, she had been forced to leave it behind or die. Years and miles had carried her far away to the ocean and to the islands where the few remaining unafflicted humans had found their shelter at last, living off the vegetation they could grow in sealed greenhouses, the community of only a few thousand survived. After a time, it became clear that the carnivores had either starved to death or killed each other off. The community began sending out small teams who would travel to the burned lands, looking for survivors, and even more importantly, looking for any clues of how to combat the Spore. Eventually one of these teams found the video the lead scientist had made, and it was only upon viewing this video, she realized what her father had given her all those years ago. She saw the tattered threads that were all that remained of the stuffed bear he had given her that day. Seeing the shimmer of silver, she knew she was close. Reaching down into the grime she grasped the chain that had adorned the bear's neck and pulled the heart shaped locket it carried from the grime. Wiping it down she found the small, barely perceptible notch her father had shown in the video and the locket popped open as if it had just been closed yesterday and carefully empired its contents into her hand. There it was, the thing she and her friends had hunted and sacrificed for. The thing that had nearly driven her mad when she had learned that she had carried it, unknowingly for years. At long last, the Apex Seed. Genetically created by her father and his team, and infused into the unassuming seed of an apple tree, was the last salvation for humanity and life on earth. The seed, when planted, would grow the first tree completely immune to the effects of the Gray Spore, and the pollen from that tree would be universal and would breed true, allowing for new generations of nearly every plant that would share the immunity.

Her journey had been hard, and her sacrifices many, but she knew now that it had been worth it. Placing the seed back into the heart shaped locket, she read the small inscription. “May Hope Grow with you!” and smiled. She placed the chain around her neck and stopped a moment, feeling the movement in her belly as her baby kicked for the first time.

Placing her hand on her belly to feel the movement, she feels a tear in the corner of her eye and says, “Don’t worry, when this tree is grown, and we’ve gathered enough seeds from it’s fruit. You will get your chance to save the world. Won’t you Johnny Appleseed?”