I Am Left

They told us that the earth was dying. Humanity had so greedily plundered mother nature of her resources that soon there would be nothing left but dust and ash. They told us though that they had a solution, a means to save the earth and its inhabitants from choking themselves to death. In our fear we listened. They called themselves the Alliance for the Preservation of Earth and Humanity. No one quite remembers from where they came but it only took them months to have the ears of every major world power around the globe. They said they had conclusive evidence that if the population growth of the world continued on its current catastrophic trajectory, the world’s resources would be 95% depleted in less than 150 years. No one thought to question them. We hung on to their every, hypnotic word like a bunch of pathetic marionettes, letting them reprogram our very thoughts as if we were mindless robots. Though in a sense most of us had become almost robotic, devoid of emotions and compassion, driven solely by an animalistic instinct for survival. To kill or to be killed.

To save humanity from resorting to such barbaric behavior as well as to restore the earth to its former glory, the Alliance proposed a resolution, cryo-freezing. According to their calculations, the earth needed at least five million years to recover from the destruction wrought on it by selfish humanity. Therefore, the Alliance proposed that a random 40% of the world’s population of men and 50% of that of women, be placed in cryo-sleep for 5 million years and so awake to a new and resource-rich world. Those who were chosen for the program would be heavily compensated and given the promise of a luxurious and abundant life as a reward for their mega-anni of sleep. Those left unchosen were to be mass sterilized and left to fend for themselves until they inevitably died.

The governments of the world applauded the Alliance for their ingenuity and immediately began implementing such protocols in their countries. The world held its breath, each one of us wondering whether we would be among the blessed or among the cursed, the saved or the damned. I remember that feeling, not knowing if I was going to be handed a loaf of bread or a poisonous scorpion. It was like watching a tornado whirl across an open field, each second the force of the wind becoming stronger and stronger, ripping the very air out of my lungs. Yet I was frozen in place, unable to move even when faced with such a terrifying spectacle. The day came though when something far worse than a tornado arrived at our house.

I was sitting at the kitchen table finishing my breakfast with my family when a loud knock shuddered through our front door. The authority behind the sound was clear. The knuckles belonged to someone who knew they had all the power. No one in my family moved. The four of us, my brother, my parents, and I exchanged looks of terror, like a litter of bunnies whose den has just been discovered by a hungry fox. There was a second knock, louder and firmer than the first. My father stood slowly, his chair scraping across the linoleum floor, letting out the scream that we all felt inside our chests. He took a step forward, his legs looking as if they were treading through water. My mother grabbed his hand as he moved past her. He gave a tight squeeze and then let his fingers slip from her grasp. We watched him walk to the door. His steps became steadier and his back straighter with each footfall so that by the time he reached the door he exuded a confidence that even a veteran of the Second Vietnam War would respect. He opened the door just as a third knock was beginning.

Three men stood directly outside, dressed in the same dark suits, and carrying the same emotionless expression. The three Fates had come. Perhaps to shower us with fortune, perhaps to sever out last threads. Their faces revealed nothing. I could almost smell their indifference, a pungent odor of disdain combined with total apathy. They were either the worst bearers of good news or the best bearers of ill. I guessed that they could both laugh and cry without moving a single, face muscle in any direction. The man who had done the knocking spoke.

“Isaiah McCullen?” He asked.

“I am.” My father replied, holding the man’s gaze.

“We are representatives of the Alliance for the Preservation of Earth and Humanity,” the man announced, taking an uninvited step into the house. My father’s back became obviously straighter, his eyes narrowing to slits, while the corners of this mouth pulled tight, but did not prevent the three men from coming through the doorway, “and we are here concerning the Global Restoration Act.” No one in my family spoke. We barely even breathed. “As you know, it has been decreed that the population of the world must take radical measures to ensure its survival. We come to share with you just what role you will play in this endeavor.”

Role? I recall thinking to myself. There are only two options, live or die, and we don’t get to choose!

The man turned to his colleague on his right, who held a datapad in his hand. He stepped forward. This second man was paler than the first as if his face had never been acquainted with the sun. He raised the datapad to his eyes and spoke those horrible, vile words which changed my life forever. They did more than change my life, they destroyed it.

“Mimika McCullen, you have been chosen to participate in the cryo-sleep preservation initiate.” I looked at my mother. Her lips were quivering, and her eyes were quickly filling with tears. I knew what she was thinking, and I too began to shake. If mama was scared, then I was terrified. The second man spoke again, “Devonn McCullen, you have been chosen to participate in the cryo-sleep preservation initiate.” My little brother looked at me, bewilderment in his eyes. He was too young to understand the full gravity of the situation, but it was clear that he was very troubled. Mama reached out to him and pulled him to her, holding him tight like a she-bear protecting her cub. The pale man addressed us for the third time, “Isaiah McCullen, you have been chosen to participate in the cryo-sleep preservation initiate.” Papa let out an involuntary sigh, which was then almost immediately followed by a loud gasp. His eyes shot to me. The man read his last sentencing, “Saysha McCullen, you have not been chosen to participate in the cryo-sleep preservation initiate. Instead, you have been chosen for sterilization and are given the opportunity to remain on earth.”

My world ended. My mother screamed and fell to the floor sobbing. Papa grabbed the datapad out of the hands of the man who had been reading it and threw it across the room, smashing it to pieces on the kitchen wall. Before he could make another move, however, he was a limp form on the floor. The third Alliance representative had stunned him with the stun rod he held in his hand. I did not move. I may as well have been dead, so unresponsive to the stimuli around me that if a hurricane had blown through, I would not have noticed. I was singularly transfixed on only one thing. I’m being left here… alone.

Mama was screaming my name at the top of her lungs when I came back to reality. There were half a dozen more men in the house now, pairs of which were leading my parents and brother out the door. I sprang from my chair, knocking it over as I did so, and rushed to my mother. The man who had stunned my father caught me by the right arm. I was now yelling for my mama and desperately reaching out towards her with my free, left arm. My tear-filled eyes locked with hers. Her soft brown eyes were already red-rimmed. Those loving eyes that were the last things I would see each night before I fell asleep. Those gentle eyes that would comfort me when I was sad. Those brilliant eyes that had taught me all I knew. Those eyes that I would never see again.

In one final burst of energy, mama wrestled herself away from her escorts and leaped for me. She wrapped her arms around me and whispered in my ear, “I love you my darling, always and forever.” It was only half a second, but it is the most cherished memory I have. The Alliance men were again pulling her away, but even as they did so, mama thrust something into my hand. My fingers wrapped tightly around it. I would never let it go. If someone ever tried to take it, it would have to be from my corpse.

I watched as my parents and brother were shoved callously into a dark van. The driver turned on to the road and was gone. I would never see my family again. The man who was holding my arm now jerked me back into the house and forced me to sit down again at the kitchen table. The first man who had spoken to us kneeled in front of me holding a large syringe and gave a twisted smile. At that moment I realized that these were not men, they were snakes. He injected me and I cried all the more. The snakes did nothing. They simply slithered away and were gone as suddenly as they had arrived.

That was five years ago. Somehow, I have survived. After the Alliance had made their rounds across the globe, they locked themselves with all those fortunate enough to be chosen for the cryo-sleep program into millions of impenetrable fortresses around the world. Governments shut down and the 4 billion of us who were left on the outside were given nothing but a veritable death sentence. That was the breaking point; when global chaos erupted like a volcano of unimaginable proportions, running rivers of blood rather than that of lava. For we all knew that those of us who remained were destined for only one thing, extinction. I would say that cities were reduced to mob rule, but the word “mob” still denotes the idea of people. There was no humanity left on earth, there was merely predator and prey.

A kind neighbor took me in for a time after my family was taken, but the shortage of food and ever-growing threat of attack from the bloodthirsty carnivores who prowled the city streets forced me to go alone. I spend most of the days in the sewers beneath the city and come out at night to forage for food and supplies. I have been attacked a few times, but always have escaped. I learned to be stealthy, I learned to be resourceful, I learned to survive. I survive because my papa taught me to, because my brother needs me to, and most importantly because my mama’s love strengthens me to.

I sit now in a dimly lit sewer waiting for the sun to set. As I do, I gently rub my fingers over an object in my hand. It is the same object my mother had given me right before they took her. A small, golden locket in the shape of a heart. It was her special locket. It is all I have left of her… of my family… of the innocent life I once had. I open the locket as I do a thousand times a day and stare through watery eyes at the words engraved therein. I love you, always and forever.