The Last Branch on the Apple Tree

The year is 2634. The world has ended. The days of lounging around on the beach, drinking coolers on the back end of trucks is over. 30 years of nuclear war and unimaginable destruction has put the world in total and utter chaos. No more green, no more clean water. Those days are far behind humanity, or what’s left of it.

After the War of Endings, humanities population dropped to 10%. Most continents fell to ash and broken desserts and radiated soils. What was left of humanity colonized into small underground homes to try and get away from the radioactive fields of purple and grey skies.

Johnathon Myers is one of the last known foragers of fresh food and water. Able to track down the freshest of sustainable nutrients, many people believe him as being a supernatural being sent down from the heavens above. Many believe him to be a robot or some kind of extra-terrestrial being toying with them.

Johnathon is in fact known as a Hybrid Human; a mixture of human blood mixed with Radioactive cells. A test from scientists long ago, his long life and ageless body proves useful in these horrible times. His radioactive side gives him the ability to almost sense or feel out food and water.

Johnathon has grey hair mixed with a dash of purple from the radiation. Tall and broad shoulders. He towers above any other human standing 8 feet tall. Muscular and very athletic, he is a man who doesn’t speak but speaks in motions and drawings. An artistic capability of a high school student, he may not be a Picasso, but he gets his point across clearly.

One day on his average routine scouting missions which normally last 3 months he was investigating an abandoned mill deep in the heart of a nuclear bomb. The crater spanning around 100 miles in every direction, the radiation is thick like a fog, but Johnathon is unaffected.

While searching through the wastes he came across a small journal. The paper somehow intact he flipped through the pages and discovered a short diary. A young girl aged 9, dating back 200 years. Curious he inspected the journal more, learning and trying to understand how the paper was still intact. After ripping a sheet and fine tuning his sight he discovered a thin invisible layer which once he removed the layer the paper crumpled and disappeared instantly.

He looked through the diary. And sat on an old nuclear bomb shell which had not detonated yet, oblivious to its dangerous nature, he sat flipping though page after page reading this young girls diary.

He got to the last page and found that a silver heart shaped locked was wrapped in plastic and behind it on paper one last entry was written.

June 6th, 2401. Its my birthday today, I just turned 9. I can’t wait to see what papa and momma planned for me. I hope they didn’t spend a lot of money. We don’t have a lot of money and I know it worries Papa a lot. I met a boy today at school. His name was Jacob. He has really nice brown hair.

June 6th, 2401 (later at night) Momma and Papa planned the best birthday party ever! They gave me this beautiful locket which they told me has the last apple seed in the world. I couldn’t believe it but I should keep It safe here in my journal and I promise I will never let it go.

Johnathon took out the locket carefully and expected it to crumple away like the pages, but nothing happened. He held it in his giant hand. The size of a silver dollar and the chain only 8 inches long. The locket is heart shaped and perfectly sealed. On the outside of it a beautiful etch of a small apple tree with a little girl swinging on a branch. Johnathon looked to the sides and could see that the little girl had used a knife to try and get into it, but she only made scratches and dents to the side.

A small rustle of fencing alerts Johnathon right away and with pure instinct his rifle is raised and fires a round into the lunging beast which rockets back against the wall pinned by the large rail piton imbedded into its neck.

Johnathon scans around and sees more creatures rushing in on his position. He darts quickly and fires another nail into a beast which tried to bite at his leg. He rushes off at an unnatural speed and looks behind quickly to see half a dozen dog and tiger like animals chasing after him.

He quickly puts the locket in his zippered pocket and pulls out a toy car, He winds the gear on the bottom of it until he hears a click and quickly spins football throwing it at the closest creature. The creature can’t dodge it and it impacts right in between the eyes. Seconds layers a mass of barbed wire bursts out like a piñata and spreads a couple meters in every direction. The wire catches three of the dogs but the tiger jump over it and descend on Johnathon.

He pulls out his two daggers and cuts down the first tiger but the other latches its rotten jaw onto his arm, but he does not cry in pain just stabs from the top down into the tigers skull. Once free he looks to the third, but it tackles him to the ground, snapping and clawing at his chest. He holds it back feeling the claws dig deep into his chest but after getting his feet in position he punches the tiger in the face and pushes out with both his legs.

The tiger goes flying back and falls prone and just as it gets up, Johnathon unloads three pitons into its chest and one in its left eye.

Johnathon takes a few minutes to look at the other dogs but two have fled and the third dead from the wire. He quickly takes out the needle and inserts it into his wounds. Lots of blood has left his body but the needle soon heals his wounds, and he can feel the rush of new blood cells pouring back into his veins.

He unzips his pocket and holds the locket in his hand again. Something draws him to open it but reason bars those thoughts and barriers them deep. He proceeds the trek, continuing to hold the locket in his hand and finally makes it to his destination.

A large glass dome stands alone in a pile of rock, both natural and formed. He walks over to the large dome, the size of a two-story house and rests one hand on the thick cold glass. The shards begin to move, and he makes his way inside. Inside the small corridor, a de-tox process begins killing all radiation and diseases lurking and imbedded into his body.

After that is complete, he walks into the dome. A breath of clean air releases all stress from his mind. He looks around the dome and sees the green freshly cut grass. The plants forming along the walls and the harvest getting bountiful on the other side.

In the centre of it all a large tree stands with glorious green leaves of maple and birch resemblance. Johnathon walks over to the tree and rests his hand onto it. Feeling everything the roots, the nutrients, the air, he smiles and holds the locket out infront of him.

The girls hand reaches out and gently takes the locket from his large hands and she slowly looks upon it with sincere eyes.

“Thank you” She climbs down from the tree and walks over to the freshly stained picnic table and Johnathon follows after. The girl lays the locket onto the table and from her neck she pulls a small key, the size of a needle and gently pushes the needle through the centre of the etched tree on the locket. The needle goes through a few milometers, and you hear a slow hiss, and the locket opens up like a book.

“Did we find it?” Johnathon asks with his hands in a series of motions.

She reaches in the locket and pulls out three small brown seeds and rests them in her hand. She shows Johnathon and she smiles wide looking up to him and around the garden.

“Yes Johnathon. We found it”.