After Earth

The unsettled earth plumed into a sandy cloud with each footstep. The crunch of each step slicing through the silence, the silence that pierced your ears. Along the horizon transparent darkness lay, eloping the dilapidated skyline of what once was, the musty orange hue of dystopia settling all around. There was no longer night nor day here, no seasons, no human life, for no man nor woman had existed in these lands for many centuries, what once was a thriving planet full of hope and prosperity, now a forlorn landscape, abandoned. Mother Nature had raged fury on her inhabitants; Waves higher than skyscrapers crashed the shores and beyond, ferocious winds thrashed buildings leaving a trail of destruction in their paths, the very heart of this beautiful planet erupted through the crevices and cracks in its broken exterior, her heart broken. Diseases mutated and multiplied metamorphosing into super viruses immune to any antidote. Famine spread far and wide. Those that remained turned on one another, the monetary greed far superseded the wealth of bonds and benevolence, and it rotted their very beings. A fight for survival commenced to which there would be none victorious.

For centuries these lands had been barren, until now. With the next footstep, something moved in the dirt below. A skeletal hand reached out, a thick creased leather-like hide clinging onto its elongated bones, which extended into talon like fingers. It stretched out a digit and dragged a thorn-like nail across the dirt snagging something along the way! Each knuckle like a knot protruding from a warped tree trunk. It raised its hand, there swaying from its gnarly finger like a pendulum was a necklace. A long golden chain with a heart-shaped locket hanging from its bottom! A stark contrast to the surroundings from where it was discovered.

It held the locket in its palm, tracing the links of the rusty chain with a single talon, then the ornate surface of the heart, delicate wisps of gold weaving into minuscule flowers. It tapped the surface of the locket, the tinny echo bouncing off the infertile land, reverberating into the ceaseless dark beyond. A rush of wind gently caressed the black rags that swathed its tenuous body. It hooked its nail underneath a minute clasp, and paused, as if taking in the beauty of this object, intrigued! It flicked the clasp up and eased its nail under the first half of the locket, gently prising it open. The locket opening gracefully. It took a deep breath in which rattled through its chest and exhaled by forcing the air back out through its pin-like nostrils. Its stare unbroken, it's eyes like pools of oil, endless black holes. It continued tracing its talon again this time across the glass inside the locket, it tilted its head in curiosity. The glass was protecting a moment in time. Albeit a little soiled, the face of a small girl could be depicted staring back, auburn ringlets billowing across her shoulders, her face kissed by the sun with every tiny freckle, a beaming grin and piercing sapphire eyes. An injection of colour into this bleak and dismal landscape. Her background was full of colours and warmth, warmth omitting not just from her surroundings but from the emotion on her face.

In the silence it stood, analysing the find, the wind every so often rippling past. It broke its stare momentarily to observe its settings, its breaths became rapid and it dropped to its knees, hanging its head in sorrow. It pushed the locket against its chest, still silent, the already deserted land somehow seeming more sombre and forsaken than before.

In the distance the eerie silence was suddenly broken, the familiar crunching of dirt could be heard. It quickly clasped the locket shut and clutched it hidden in its fist, retracting its arm into its tattered robes. Then it turned in the opposite direction of the ever-nearing footsteps and scuttled away, the fear clearly evident in its hasty retreat, a baneful aura was beginning to set in. An unsettling feeling of doom. Planet Earth was now unrecognisable to its beginnings; it was no longer a place that generations of species were nurtured and grown, but a place of immense horrors, where the depths of hell itself seemed a more harmonious place.