Vegetation
Incandescent rays called to the ancient stones of dirt and rock, enticing them to tremble with newfound warmth after a pitch dark night. A new moon had passed, had plunged the land into a still darkness not even animals disturbed until the sun’s reassurances of light sparked through the trees. Whispers of air drew chestnut hair across her shoulders, bleached from endless hours spent under the sun. Heat bore into every crevice of her bones.
Global warming, ancient humans had prophesied-
No, an ice age-
Disregard that, it was definitely climate change.
It was natural, the Earth was always changing-
No, it was never natural, humans were a plague-
A growl emitted from Cataleya’s stomach, a vicious fourth warning of the day, an almost perfect sequence every hour since first waking this morning. Rations were tight this month, thanks to the surge in population with all of the new births. Well, and at least her city was growing, given the news that many other cities around the continent were struggling to even survive with their current population. Cataleya swallowed a sigh, swallowed again. Her mouth was so dry, she was foolish to only take one container of water.
“What, worked shitless already?” A voice intoned to her left, teeth flashing through a tanned face and black mop of hair.
She echoed a laugh and flipped him a gesture she had become particularly fond of these past few weeks and dropped the large pump to the dirt next to her. No, it wasn’t empty, that notion would be absurd so long as creatures, human or not, walked the planet. The pumps, as almost everything in their region, were powered by waste of any kind, be it old food, scraps, even feces. It took away the need for fossil fuels, gas, anything that would harm their planet. The invention that saved humanity created by one of the last scientists of the ancient times just as humans were on the brink of extinction. Ancient humans, a people whose appetites were a black hole of desires, not thinking twice at the consequences of their expenditures. They claimed each particle of the land as theirs, devouring every spec of life until they were left with nothing but the bones of their once flourishing earth.
Humanity had abused their home planet, so the planet disowned them. Ocean life died out and next went most plants and wildlife, cutting off almost all food sources. Then the trees, mainly depleted from cutting, burning, and air pollution. No food, little fresh air, and a whole lot of desperate people. Most stories suggested that they had mostly just died out three hundred years ago; others said it was a war. She had even heard some accounts of an ancient God, and very rare few accounts mentioning more than one, that had been angered by humanity’s treatment of their planet and banished most of them to the realm of the underworld.
Cataleya snorted, had there been an upper world as well? She threw her hand up to shade her eyes that traced along the pure blue sky, it’s vibrant beauty outstanding compared to the insipid expanse of dry land that met the horizon. A land made in the sky and stars, she pondered, briefly imagining such a place so high above them, and marveled at the potential beauty it held. No wonder the ancient humans were obsessed with the universe.
The barren land stretching against her vision mocked the progress the crew had made today, yesterday, the past week. Almost ever, it felt like, at times. More and more seeds they planted every day, some taking root, some becoming waste (there was no such thing as useless waste). It was only after years of work did one see the true progress of their efforts.
She hadn’t always wanted to be a cultivator, it was hard work. In upper school, her class had taken a week to work as cultivators as they did once a month with every job. From then on she had never been able to find a better satisfaction with life than her hands in soil, water, and plants. She loved bringing life to her world, the arduous process that it was. Cataleya had only worked as a cultivator for a few months so far, as soon as winter melted under the life of spring. Though it was small, she had noticed the miles of land behind her had grown green, lush in these past few months. But it was so slow going, she could only admire in silent wonder at the sheer speed ancients had required in order to raise enough crops to feed the population all those years ago. Not to mention the technology they had used!
She was amazed at how quickly their civilization had advanced in the past thousand years and vaguely wished airplanes still existed. She wondered if humans still lived on other continents, as they had for thousands of years before humanity fell from the precipice of their empire. She hoped they were slowly working to fix their world as the people here were.
That was the price for a healthy environment; no more electric or gas based technology. If she were from the ancient civilization, she could have had a whole day’s worth of land plotted by now and, upon thought, understood why such inventions had become so widely used. Of course, none of those inventions, or even instructions on recreating them, existed anymore. Some ancient knowledge had passed down through her ancestors such as knowledge of other planets and continents beyond her own. Yet there were no longer any ways to visit other such planets; they weren’t inhabitable anyway.
She sifted through her mind, the word was there, she just had to remember. . .Space shuttle? Yeah, that sounded about right. Gargantuan creations, she had been told, that could reach the stars in a matter of minutes. Her green eyes fell to the seeds in her hand, something else she’d like to finish within a few minutes.
“Does it ever end?” She muttered more to herself than anything and a calloused hand clapped her exposed, very sunburnt, shoulder.
“It does when we reach the ocean,” Loric answered, his already slanted deep eyes mere slits as he squinted at the horizon where, beyond, the edge of their continent was supposed to lay.
Well, and that was what others always said. The surviving humans from generations before her had made it a millennium-long goal to better entwine modern humans with the natural Earth and completely got rid of anything requiring gas or oil. Cataleya winced at the raw pain in her shoulder. Ugh, even the sun was punishing them, still, hundreds of years later. They had made progress, as cultivators, she knew by the clouds that gathered, stronger every year with rain, and the songs each morning, high pitched and varying from single chirps to whole choruses of birds melodizing through symphonies. She didn’t remember birds much as a child beyond fowls or pets that her neighbors kept. As she grew, however, more seeds were planted and their lands expanded. Animals and insects of all sorts started appearing that she, and many others, hadn’t seen in years.
A bell, airy and muted so far out from the walls of their city, chimed sounding noon and Cataleya let out a groan of relief. She could finally eat. She didn’t bother moving the pump from its place in the dirt, she’d only bring it back into town just to have to lug it back out here. She enjoyed her new duties as cultivator, she was literally planting their futures out here. But even in the middle of Spring the sun’s heat was relentless. Whoever thought the Earth was cooling off must have lived in quite the dream world.
“Keep glaring like that and you might scare the chefs enough to give us an extra bit of food,” Loric winked as he strolled up beside her, taking a silent count of their companions as they, too, wandered back to the main road.
She noted his fingers tapping lightly against his thigh and jested, “You still don’t have enough fingers to count us all.”
Another flash of perfect teeth, “Isn’t that an opportune change?”
Green eyes rolled as her response to him. He was right, though. With the luxuries of jobs under a roof, the use of their new technologies doing most of the work for them, few wanted the job of working in the sun all day. Especially since their only tools were a plow, the pump to provide freshly composted soil, and their hands. At least they never needed to worry about watering the plants; the city council had installed wind-powered water pumps that sprayed every day at noon. Cataleya tried to hide her sneer as the group of a dozen cultivators congregated together. The smell was definitely the worst of it. She looked down to her dirt-caked hands and attempted a pitiful wipe across her pants. Good thing they were already brown.
Loric was first to lead the group through the entrance back into the city, a flirtatious nod to one of the guards acting as his only indication of breaking off as he sauntered over. Cataleya sent a knowing glance to the Captain, Felix, as he watched with ripe aggravation and chained his temper. One guard all work, the other all play.
“Can’t he go one day without flirting with one of the recruits?” He drawled and Cataleya merely shrugged, Loric’s antics long ago having lost their effect with her.
“Jealous?” She snickered and continued through the marble archway with a wave, its milky color shimmering in the sunlight, and made a point not to look back to her flirtatious friend.
No, keep walking. She had been down that road with him once before, a dead end that had severed their bond. Only after becoming cultivators and forced to work long hours together did the ice finally start to melt, the word ‘friend’ becoming a little less foreign every time they spoke. A little less painful.
Π^Π^Π
Built with organic materials, the buildings had far outlasted any weather in their little Washington city, despite not one ounce of harmful materials infused with the structures. In an effort to keep the country “whole” the government had passed a law that there be at least three cities per state. This had proven difficult the first hundred years as there were hardly enough humans left to populate a city in even forty of the states. So the law was mended to one until, a couple hundred years later, the human population had grown enough again that there were almost three cities in each state. Except for Texas, of course, which had somehow been able to remain stable enough through the chaos of humanity’s downfall to keep almost a dozen cities populated.
A roar bellowed from Cataleya’s stomach that sent a wave of thunder against her skull. Great, her head had allied with her stomach now. “Almost there,” she muttered to her tratorious abdomen as she rounded the corner, suddenly glad no one was around to hear, and stopped dead.
Actually, stopping dead would be the worst word choice as she stared at the bodies littered across the smooth stoned streets. Her world stopped, brought back only by the wall of acrid odor that slammed into her. She swerved around and vomited.
Loric, the leader he was, stopped inches from her stomach contents and threw up a hand to tell the others behind him to wait, his nose scrunching at her until-
“What is that smell?”
“Don’t-” was all she could get out as she sagged over and spilled out the last of water left in her stomach. Tears burned at the sight, the smell.
Deep brown eyes bore into her and Loric looked passed her, his shoulders falling as he moved to gaze at the scene behind. A slur of curses ran through him cut off by a scream as the group gathered around them and saw. One of her peers, Mereda, flew past in a blur of blonde hair and black outfit and fell to her knees in front of one of the bodies. The eleven of them watched in muted horror as she turned the body over and revealed a chalk white face. Blood and vomit covered his mouth, seeping his clothes. Something inside her burned with fear of the unknown; unknown deaths, unknown reasons, possibly an unknown enemy. Her city had never had an issue with violence, with such mass deaths. Crimes still existed, had existed through the beginning of time and would through the end but- but this!
Clammy hands were pulling her up, back. “Don’t look,” Loric hissed.
Mereda was still sobbing, choking and spitting at the liquids running from her face and rocking with each breath she took as she held her lover to her breast. Cataleya was guiltily relieved she was too far away to console her peer, too far away to see her face. But then the choking continued, grew wet and thick, and her body was convulsing. Someone behind Cataleya gasped and she vaguely made out shuffling as others held the person in place. All she could focus on, all she really heard was that horrible sound that tore from Mereda before her body went limp and crumbled to the dirt. All of those terrible noises and the only thing the Earth offered her was an achingly soft thud that marked her- her. . . she forced herself to acknowledge the word: death.
Her arm felt numb as Loric’s fingers dug into it and slowly pulled her back, “We need to leave.”
So, taking strenuous care to ensure no one touched anything, they ran. Cataleya cursed herself for not noticing the signs earlier, the emptiness of the streets, the horrid smell she had originally thought had been her group of cultivators, the silence. The utter silence.
Π^Π^Π
