Chapter Text
If only we had seen the signs, none of this would happen.
No, wait.
We DID see them. We simply chose to ignore it all, to live in comfort and blissful stupidity to our bitter ending...
Contrary to popular belief, The End didn't just show up one day out of nowhere. It was a slow progression, a disease that WE allowed to spread simply because we didn't want to see it.
It started with the crops. Fewer and fewer harvests actually bore fruit as the years went on. Of a field with over a hundred seeds sown, only forty of them would survive long enough to sprout and only TWENTY of those sprouts would bear actual fruit that could be consumed. But of course, no one pointed it out. Yes, there were some complaints, but when the usual methods didn't work, we simply turned to hunting, found the easiest and most convenient solution.
The poor beasts died in groves, and with the decline of crops, they too were beginning to starve. The prey the hunters brought down were all bone thin and rarely carried enough meat to feed even two people.
Yet still, we persisted for five years more. The farmers worked harder and more people diverted to fielding, in hopes of salvaging the main food source. The hunters spread out and both professions were quickly gaining workers willing to try.
Five long, grueling years.
We very well could have made it for longer, too.
But then some idiot came up with a genius idea.
Instead of searching for a solution to the rapidly declining crop rate and the overhunting, this smart-ass decided to improve the CARS.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, was the final straw.
Flying cars. Yeah. Great idea for business, eh? Avoid the traffic, flaunt your status. Cool and efficient, like a glittering gem thrown to the otters. Beautiful, and useful for the day-to-day.
The only problem?
The amount of fossil fuels needed to run this thing were INSANE.
What could be used to power entire cities was being wasted on A SINGLE CAR!
Crazy stupid, huh? Well they didn't think so.
They pumped the fuel from the earth in eager pursuit of this new comfort. Gallon after gallon BY THE HOUR as the rich and wealthy pooled their resources and poured it all into this new fashion statement.
And that wasn't the end of it either.
Self-flying planes, houses capable of LITERALLY picking themselves off the floor and moving about. Mini-planes and cars designed for children, remote controlled by their loving parents. Technology that could act as a whole hospital for you in the comfort of your own home! For three BEAUTIFUL years, the human race was flying higher than ever before!
But as we all know-
P
W H A T G O E S U M U S T C O M E
D
O
W
N
And really, it was about time Mother Nature decided to punish her wayward children.
It began with the oceans. The poisons dumped freely into the rivers, seas and oceans had swirled into the water, turning it a violent, vibrant green. Massive waves rose up and surged forward all at once, tsunamis of a magnitude never before seen in history. Whole cities were swallowed whole and disappeared quickly under the waves. What wasn't drowned in the initial wave was swiftly eroded by the toxins. Countless lives lost in a matter of days, a body count so high no disaster could ever compare, neither in the distant past nor in the far future.
Well.
That was what we had thought at first.
Now, it was undeniable. With all that was lost, something had to be done. Suddenly all the new tech had no effect whatsoever on the public's state of mind, which left it up to the LEADERS to find a solution. And so they did. They collaborated with scientists of every degree, studied the toxicology of the Earth, the amount of it in the ocean and deduced that with THIS much, some MAJOR efforts would need to be deployed to clean it all up.
And that was WAY too much work. Too many resources required. Too much manpower. All the excuses in the book, they pulled out of their asses and pulled back from the mere idea of the project.
It really makes you wonder what could have been, if only they weren't so lazy, huh?
Whatever might have happened, it doesn't matter now. Because then came the solution to all their problems.
A new planet had been discovered. The astronaut crew that had been ejected into the depths of space years before had discovered evidence of a new planet, far off.
The most IMPORTANT part about this though, was simply the fact that said planet might have had WATER, which MEANT that potentially, it could be a brand new home.
As soon as that was known, the choice was simple. Have the crew explore this new planet, this new potential home for us. If it all went well, we might be able to Terraform it and abandon this failing rock of ours. At the very least, we'd have new resources to work with. It was a very simple plan, that very well could have worked.
Except-
The crew never came back.
All contact had cut off, and there were no new signals. Many assumed they had died, that the planet was inhospitable AFTER all, or that they had run into some trouble on the way there. Whatever happened, the fact remained-there was no way to know if the planet was safe. So it was back to the drawing board.
But THEN came trial number Two.
A plague.
No one knows where it started or how it reached us, but in the end, it was the same. A horrible, incurable disease that rotted your body from the inside out, driving you into a state of madness that caused you to lash out at even your closest family members. Suddenly, people were realising just how dangerous this was, just how much their lives were at stake. Hell, even the leaders were getting worried. They threw all they had into the funding for the cleaning project, offered workers, money, anything and everything required.
But it was too little, too LATE.
And to make matters worse, EARTHQUAKES had been added to the list of worries.
Hundreds of thousands of people were now dying on the daily, crying BEGGING to be S A V E D, but there was nothing they could do. Nothing. So they began to accept their fate.
People clung to their families. They said their final prayers. Lists were being made everyone wanted to live a fulfilled life, no matter how short. It looked like it was the end for us.
But then, SALVATION.
"Hello? Hello? Is anybody hearing this?"
A miracle. The communications were coming through. Staticky, inconsistent, but THERE.
"We found it. We found it! We're out here now. Command, can anyone hear me?!"
There wasn't even a need for a meeting. The world leaders flew into a frenzy as a new project came quickly into being;
The Fools' Journey
With the situation on earth getting worse by the day, there was no way to fix it now. They had to leave.
And so they did. Every space station was flooded to the max with engineers, scientists, workers of all sorts. Together-and with the aide of the technology that had caused all this-they built themselves a whole new ship. It was massive, curved and shaped like a bowl, made to carry as many as possible.
Astronauts took top priority. They needed them to take lead for this journey, and most refused to go without their families. The world leaders piled on next, and then came anyone and everyone who could make it. Their were five ships of this kind, and only so many who would make it on to them. There was security, but little could really be done. The masses demanded their safety, and rebelled in every way possible. But in the end, only a measly 0.01% of all humans on earth made it out of the disaster.
For a year, they wandered into the cosmos. There were no maps to guide them, no way to make it. Resources were plummeting. Some asshole had slipped into the ship, carrying the PLAGUE along with them. Of the 820, 000 that had escaped earth, only 89 remained. Crazy, I know, but them's the works.
But then, they found it.
Led by the voice of Star Commander Michelle Ormando, they finally found the planet. And it. Was. Beautiful.
Hues of swirling, cerulean blue, untouched by chemicals or toxins, made up a majority of its surface. It was like a gem, glittering in the dark under the light of its two moons. The ideal home.
No. It was more than that.
It was-
P A R A D I S E
It was an unanimous decision that everyone agreed with. To name this new planet of ours, "Nirvana".
Once they landed, the rebuilding process began. Everyone pitched in. The founding fathers would have been proud, seeing all these people of different nations coming together in unity, even under these circumstances.
And once they settled down, then came a new matter. Reproduction. Of course, the trauma they'd just suffered was a great deterrent for it, but two people decided to come together. Two scientists. Doctors Amelia and Keith Ormond decided to have their very first child.
The very first child born in this new world. A beautiful baby boy with wavy blue hair the colour of their new sky, two twinkling eyes the hues of a blue, gorgeous gem-
"OK, OK, we get it. SHEESH! Can we MOVE ON now?". A sweet, childish voice cut me off.
Slowly, I looked up, my blue eyes snapping sharply to the girl.
"Did you HAVE to interrupt me like that?"
-And that first baby, was me.