2066

Throughout human history we often told stories, tales, legends about how the world would be destroyed; we deluded ourselves that the bringers of our destruction would be foreign. That they would be this distant race of Gods, who would rain fire upon us, that they would simply overpower us and it would be no fault of ours -nothing to do with us- that it was inevitable. Throughout the history of life on earth, the thing that caused any mass extinction was an asteroid or geological event of disastrous proportion; it was no fault of those who suffered it. But now, standing here, in this broken, defeated, desolate world, we can understand and know one crucial truth: 
It was our fault.
There were no aliens, no titans, no monsters. The four horsemen of the apocalypse were not Death, War, Plague and Famine; there was only one: Man. 
I'm John Babalakin and the year is… um... I’m not sure, according to the Gregorian calendar, I think it may be 2066; according to the Chinese calendar, it's 4764 and for those who observe the Human Era calendar the year is 12066. Whatever the year,  however you want to measure the time, there is one thing we can all agree on: the world is decrepit and decaying. The continent of Europe is now looking more like the Carribean did 50 years ago and the Carribean itself is more like Atlantis: a relic at the bottom of the World Ocean. Australia is now as scorched and lifeless as the planet Mars, razed by decades of furious, hellish wildfires and now sees conditions akin to those which first prevented animals from walking on land.
I live on a boat, travelling the World Ocean, trying to set up a permanent life in the few remaining big cities like London Island or the coastal cities like Denver, trying to find a home in the densely populated world of 13 billion people. I have never seen a blue sky. Green, red, orange, pink, purple but never blue. I think it has something to do with the chemicals that have been released into the atmosphere, or the giant hole in the ozone layer above Australia. The older members of society have told us stories of giant beasts that had giant horns, I think they call it a ‘rhino’ or spotted cats that could up to 104 km/h, a ‘cheetah’. They only exist in books nowadays. All the politicians, the rich and famous, scientists, all the elite left this dead world a long time ago. They all boarded a fleet of starships and left to go to a paradise planet. Of course, they never bothered to come back or to save everyone. Our leaders now are, incompetent, dictatorial and corrupt. There is a lot of talk that they will come back one day, this is nothing more than a children’s fairy tale.
-Greninja16
Category:Short Stories