By
the year 2010 of our Lord Jesus Christ, human civilization had reached its
peak. Signs of man’s majesty and power dotted the landscape, and the great
nations of the world began to expand beyond the borders of our atmosphere,
proclaiming to the cosmos that we were the new gods of the universe. But ahead
lay a violent and abrupt collapse, as the knowledge which once allowed humanity
to tame nature turned on its masters and foolishly ate from the tree of
knowledge once more. Cities burned while the complex and sophisticated
technologies of the world hurtled into the dark abyss of time, as mankind
struggled to survive through the long twilight years that lay ahead…
Sometime in the Distant Future
The plains of central Nebraska.
The
grass swayed, as the wind blew across the wide expanses of the Great Plains. Black
birds circled overhead searching out the carcass of recently dead animals to
eat. Grass grew every direction consuming all else. Not a single tree or hill in
sight, just the wide open prairies of what once was the American frontier.
Alice sat on the back of her horse, a strong wild stallion named Bren who was
given as a gift when she turned ten, and admired the simple beauty before her. She
wore a buffalo skin coat with moccasins to cover her feet and a beaver skin hat
mother made her on her thirteenth birthday. Alice loved the beauty of the
plains. The endless fields of grass that swayed like dancers in the summer’s
breeze, the cloudless skies, the lack of human devices to contrast with the
simple spender that was Mother. This was her home, the only place she ever knew,
and it was beautiful.
Alice
was seventeen, born to the Marshal tribe of the Great Plains, the oldest and
most renowned of the western tribes. She was, in many ways, the bane of the
tribe. Even at a young age she developed, much to the concern of her father, a
great desire to learn of the past, to seek out the mysteries that were the
ruins of the old world. Since she was a little girl the desire to know more
grew like a fire within her to where even the laws of her father’s people could
not dissuade her from the quest.
“Knowledge is what led our ancient fathers to
wars and destruction. They bled Mother of her gifts, violated her as a
despicable man may take a woman by force. Knowledge, and the power to turn it
into weapons of destruction, is what brought about The Fall,” Elder Franking
once told Alice’s class, “this tribe has been at peace since the last great war
because we have forsaken the old ways. The ignorance of our species is in the
best interest of all.”
Off
to the west a herd of Bison grazed peacefully, turning the green fields into a
carpet of brown. Alice heard from the tribal elders that in the days of the old
world, the old ones hunted the buffalo into near extinction. She never quite fully believed that though
she suspected it may hold a hint of truth -as all great lies do. How could
anyone destroy the bison? And with what? There were just too many. Millions of
them roamed across the grasslands searching for food and water driving all to
flee before them.
They
were the masters of the earth, not the wolf or the bear, certainly humanity.
Humans merely survived on the land, while the buffalo dominated it. It was that
way since the day Alice was born. It was that way during the time of her
father, and his father, and his father before that. She assumed that even back
in that far away time when Marshal lay the foundation for their way of life,
that it must have been the same way then too. To think otherwise was just…
well, unimaginable.
Alice
turned away from the herd. Although they were peaceful creatures, buffalo were
known to stampede when they felt threatened; she didn’t want to give them any
reason to think her a threat.
Turning
away she rode into the distance, allowing Bren to sprint as fast as his strong
legs could carry them. Miles of endless grass and flowers passed by without a
second glance as they rode onwards towards their nameless destination,
following the sun perhaps, the Father of life, to reach the place where He
lived with Mother.
Gazing
forward she saw in the distance a large pole poking through the ground like a mole
stumbling out of its hole as the winter ended. Though she could not yet make
out just what it was, its presence in these plains perplexed her. No other
tribe was supposed to be living in this land, at least not at this time of
year, and the nearest forest was many miles to the east near the old uins in
Amha.
“What
could it be?” she mumbled and asked Bren to ride towards it.
Upon
reaching it Alice dismounted and examined the pole. It wasn’t anything special,
just an old piece of rotting wood sticking through the ground, though how it
managed to get there was the real mystery. Even if another tribe passed through
this area, they would never leave a sign of their passing. To stain Mother in
such a way was blasphemies. Alice knew none of those small minded tribal
leaders would ever tolerate such a thing. So how did it get there? Alice removed
her knife from its sheath and cut away the grass surrounding the pole. As she
did she noticed many smaller poles sticking through the earth, their tops
covered by the tall grass. Excitement impulsively rushed through her brain. She
knew what this was. These were the remains of an ancient home buried underneath
the surface and thus unseen by the Burners. She drove the knife into the ground
and dug, trying desperately to find some relic from the ancient world.
Suddenly
the ground beneath her gave way and she fell into the darkness below. Too
surprised to scream, she grabbed desperately at whatever she could find only to
have them too fall away into the pit. A moment later she struck the ground,
covering her face for protection against the debris that fell upon her.
“Ahh,”
she winced in pain as a log fell on her left arm. Though it hurt, Alice knew
she hadn’t suffered any serious injury. A blessing, considering no one knew
where she was.
She
rose to examine her injuries. Though her ankle hurt and she had some trouble
breathing, she knew she’d be all right. The hole wasn’t very deep, maybe the
height of two men standing on one another’s shoulders, though looking around
she could see that it was much wider than she thought. To her right she could
see the crumbling remains of a flight of stairs leading further into the
ground.
“Bren,”
she called as he peered curiously into the hole, “can you stay there for me?
I’ll be right up, I promise.”
He
snorted to show his acknowledgement. Alice tore a piece of her shirt and
wrapped it around a dry piece of wood she found on the floor, lighting it after
a few minutes with her flint. Shadows stalked her as she navigated her way past
fallen beams and broken steps down the long passageway into the earth.
The
passageway opened fifty steps down into a large room. The floor slanted towards
a large metal podium that stood facing several rusted chairs strewn across the
ground haphazardly as if shaken by an earthquake. Most of the roof was still
intact except for the far corner where the ceiling was partly collapsed. A
small sliver of day light reached into the hidden tomb. On the wall behind the
podium a large disc hung with a picture of an eagle engraved inside it, a
quiver of arrows and olive branch grasped within its talons, the words “Seal of
the President of the United States” written around its edges.
“Whow,”
she whistled and gave a huge grin, “this place is amazing.”
Allowing
her childish curiosity -as the Elders might say- to overtake her sensible
caution, Alice made her way down the slanted floor and up the concrete steps
onto the stage. Wooden floorboards creaked underneath her weight like neglected
children wanting their mother’s attention as she gingerly tiptoed over
discarded shoes and fallen beams towards the monolithic stand. Roaches scurried
around her feet as she proceeded.
Something
atop the lectern caught her attention. A large metal box covered with rust and
dirt. Carefully she ran her fingers around its cold edges. The box was sealed.
Writing chiseled on its outside was broken and hard to read at first in the dim
light. Alice traced the words with her long fingers and read through touch its
message.
“To
whom it may concern,” it read crudely, as if whoever held the foresight to
create this message lacked the equally important foresight to be sure his
handwriting was legible, “within this crate lies the only text of our species
history as it was after The Flash. The combination for the lock is 6687520.”
Alice
found the locking mechanism intact and rotated the numbers to their correct
positions. A hiss emitted from the container as the vacuum seal which protected
the priceless treasure inside broke and the lid popped off. Inside was a white
bag, also sealed, through which she could see the outline of a very large book.
Excitement cursed through her veins. Such gifts were rarely seen in the prairie
these days as the Burners, at the behest of the tribes, long ago scorched the
earth of any remnant that could lead their world back into an age of
enlightenment. Even the very roads which once connected the now gone cities of
the plains to the forbidden cities to the east and the west were pulled from
the ground and buried. So thorough was their obliteration that even the sight
of a lone post in the middle of an open field, such as the one that led her to
this place, was extremely rare. Before today as far as she was concerned there
were only three other books in existence. Now there were four.
Though
she could barely control her excitement she dared not take her rare gem from
its protective box within the confines of this dark and foreboding place.
Obviously the person who left it here, sealed against the elements and
protected from Burners and Elders inside this room, thought it important. She
stared once again at the pair of old discarded shoes lying without an owner on
the ground at her feet. Did they belong to the person who left the box? Was
locking this book away the last act of a dying man desperate to preserve what
he thought most dear? Perhaps it was, and if so she would not desecrate that
act of bravery by removing his work from its protection anywhere but in
Father’s light.
She
made her way down the concrete steps and past the fallen chairs into the
stairwell that led her back to the sunlight outside. Though the hole was deep
the walls were pocketed with holes with which she found she could easily scale
it and climb out. Bren waited for her as she ascended to the surface, metal box
carried securely under her arm.
“Hey
boy.” She patted his nose gently when he nuzzled against her arms. “Thanks’ for
waiting; I wasn’t too long was I?”
He
snorted and shook his head, not at all.
“Want
to see what I found?” she placed the box on the ground and quickly entered the
code into the combination lock.
Good
thing the elders don’t hate numbers as much as they hate words, she thought
cynically. Those idiots had no idea she knew how to read, much less recognize a
combination lock or a book when she saw one. The lid popped open again and she
removed the bag from its case. To her surprise there were actually two books
contained within the clear bag, one large hard bound book and a much smaller
one on top which said “personal notebook” on its cover. A name, Dustin Enters,
was written on the front. Alice broke the seal and lifted the contents into
Father’s light. A note fell to her feet as she drew the books into her hands.
“Look Bren,” she said, “he left us
something.”
Hello.
Though
I do not know your name, my deepest thanks go out to you. Inside this box are
the only two written histories known to be in existence of the time between the
Flash and the current state of affairs as of the year 57. Hopefully you are not
a burner, though if you were undoubtedly these words would never be read.
Inside
are two books. One is the Journal of a boy who survived The Flash only to die
several months later during the sickness that proceeded it. His name was Dustin
Enters of Papillion Nebraska who’s story, I believe, deserves to be read and
remembered by you the reader and those to whom you tell it.
The
other, longer book, I wrote. I was born shortly after The Flash and so did not
witness that tragic event, and so my story cannot adequately capture the
mindset of those who survived it. I survived the plague that followed, however,
and the years of chaos that led to the last great war and the decay of human
intellect which followed it. I’ve done all I can to save the species and the
legacy of our forefathers for future generations, though these efforts have been
met with failure. I wrote my book not so that the history of our modern would
will not be lost but also so that someday future generations may be inspired by
the ideals and accomplishments of the old world. I hope to bring to light the
lie that it was their knowledge and wisdom which caused the downfall of our
species and the decay of our planet. I have no way of knowing how long it’s
been from the time of this writing to when you found this box, but if present
circumstances persist I can only assume you know little to nothing about The
Flash, have been fed lies about the plague that followed, and brainwashed
through years of conditioning into accepting a false reality as to the nature
of the last great war. It is a wonder you are able to read this at all, if
indeed you can.
My
name is Samuel Whitecoff and I would like to tell you the true story of our
past. Thank you for reading.
Alice
held the note in her hand, savoring the feeling of real paper against her skin
and read the words over and over as to not miss any detail. The larger book,
the title on its face simply reading “Our History,” was far thicker, and its
words far smaller, than the smaller journal. Very little was passed from one
generation to the next except for the practical arts of tent building, basic
farming, hunting, taming horses, and other such activities. No information
existed of the tribes history passed its founding, non except for the old could
recall the names of past elders, even the passage of time was left unmarked by
those desperate to erase mankind’s past from the minds of its youth. It drove
her crazy not knowing how long ago The Fall took place, if it were a millennium
ago or only a couple generations. The passage of years was tracked so parents
could know the ages of their children and note their ascendance into adulthood,
but an overall record of the years was not only neglected but forbidden.
She
lifted the small notebook from the bag and opened its front pages.
Property
of Dustin Enters, 518 Juniper Drive, Papillion Nebraska. If this gets lost
don’t bother giving it back, I don’t want it.
Alice
stifled a laugh and turned the page, ready to read whatever this Dustin Enters
wrote.
October 22 2009.
Dear Journal.
Today my parents bought us a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog, but my
dad never let us have one. He says he doesn’t think we’ll take care of it or
take it on walks or clean its poop, but Aunty Lulu told him we would. We wanted
a big dog like a Golden Retriever or a Pitt Bull or a Bulldog, but dad says
their poop is too big and he doesn’t want to clean it up. So dad got a Sheltie.
She’s kinda like a Collie but smaller. She’s really cute, I wanted to call her
Faith but dad named her Lady instead. I like Faith better, but Lady isn’t a bad
name. Dad says he picked her because she was the strongest out of all the
puppies there, and that no other puppy could survive me and my brothers.
Anyway, Lady is really cute and I can’t wait to play with her.
She’s getting her shots right now but when she’s done she’ll be coming home to
live. Me and dad made her a doggy door so she can go outside and use the
bathroom whenever she wants.
I’ll talk to you later journal. Bye.
The
passage ended there. There was a lot
left in the little book but Alice didn’t have any time to read through it just
yet. She had to pitch camp and get ready for a night underneath the stars. She
tucked the journal into her pocket and went to work.
***
Kent
gazed at the grass lands before him. Father descended across the horizon,
sending rays of light reflecting off the grass and casting the world into the
darkness of night. Still his daughter did not return.
“Where
could she be?” he paced nervously back and forth outside his families tent.
“Calm
down Kent” Julia spoke calmly through the open flap. She sat on the floor atop
a deer skin mat mending her husband’s clothing, “she knows what she’s doing,
you taught her well.”
“Ha!
Taught her well. How can you say that with the way she rides off like this for
days on end? Doesn’t say when she’ll be back, doesn’t take anyone with her,
just rides off all alone without letting her parents know where she’s going.”
Julia
rose and held her husband by his shoulders, smiling softly into his enormous
blue eyes. He was a strong and handsome man with a thick black beard that
covered most of his face. His role as Head Enforcer often gave him a sour
reputation for being a cold and callous man. They didn’t know Kent the person though, just the stoic mask of a
man dedicated to his work and indifferent to the trouble caused to those who
broke the law. Julia knew that he had
a soft spot for his only daughter. When Julia was pregnant with Alice, nobody
in the village expected her to give birth. She’d had three miscarriages in four
years and it seemed unlikely that she would ever have a child. Julia remembered
those days, when the thought of losing another child was enough to bring her to
tears. But Kent was always there to help her through the months that lay ahead.
Once Alice was born he immediately fell in love with her. He spent hours
rocking his tiny baby, little bigger than one of his hands, until she was fast
asleep. When she grew older he taught her to ride. One time she fell off the
horse and he carried her home, cradled as if she were still a baby in his
enormous arms, soothing her with sweet words of affection.
Julia
knew that he would do anything for her . . . well, almost anything. There was
one thing that Julia knew he would not do for anyone, not Alice, not Julia, not
anyone. He would never allow them to get away with breaking a tribal law. If Alice or Julia were ever discovered
willingly disobeying the laws of the tribe, he would punish them as if they
were total strangers. He wouldn’t enjoy doing it, no, but it was his duty to
the people. Julia didn’t worry about any of that. She hadn’t broken any of the
laws, and she was sure that Alice hadn’t either. Kent sighed.
“What
if she fell off her horse?”
“Kent,
she’s been riding since she was six years old. Stop worrying.”
He
sighed once more.
“If
she isn’t home by dinner she’ll have to fend for herself.”
“She
took some supplies with her before she left. She’ll be okay for a couple more days without
hunting anything.”
Kent
snorted in response. Julia knew that look in his eyes. It was the look he
always wore when he knew she was right, but didn’t want to admit it. He was
worried about Alice, but he knew that she, as Julia said, was more than capable
of taking care of herself. What was one night out on the prairie?
“Come
inside Kent. Dinners getting cold.”
Kent
took one last long look over the Great Plains, saw nothing, and turned to
follow his wife into the small tent they shared with one another.
***
Alice
didn’t want to go back into the village that night, not with her new found
wealth. Such an immense treasure was far too valuable to risk entering the
village and being found out. They wouldn’t understand, they’d only take it,
shame her father, and discipline her. The law required that any adult found with a
relic be banished, and sent to live in the ruins of the east. But her father
was an enforcer, and she his only daughter. He wouldn’t give her the full
punishment.
Besides, she liked sleeping under the stars.
There was something magical about lying amongst the tender softness of wild
grass, staring into the dark night sky with its billions of stars all hanging
from invisible strings like dolls from a puppet master. Such a beautiful sight
never failed to remind her just how insignificant she was in the face of her
Mother and Father. The bison were the masters of the land, the eagle master of
the sky, the mole master of the earth. Humanity was master of nothing, a mere
observer and borrower scavenging off the scraps Mother and her favored children
allowed for them. Alice seethed in frustration, knowing full well it didn’t
always used to be like this. Though they tried to keep the secret from the
younger generation she knew quite well humanity once dominated the earth in
such a way that Mother bent to its will, not them to Hers. She saw it in her
travels outside of the tribal zones, saw what few ruins the Burners left behind
in their zealotry. Humanity was once a great species, whereas today they seemed
hell bent on mediocrity.
Man
wasn’t master of anything, except death. No other creature that lived in the
grass lands needed to kill to survive, or at least that’s what the elders
taught, but Alice knew better. She’d seen animals kill one another for food,
and she’d seen them kill for no reason at all. She never understood why it was
so many believed what the elders said when they could clearly see for
themselves that they were wrong. Such an infuriating notion that people would bask
in the wisdom of the elders, “the great and noble elders,” instead of
opening their own eyes to see the truth for what it was.
Alice
laughed when she thought of the elders and all their so-called “wisdom”. They thought they knew
everything about old times, but in reality she probably knew more about it than
any of them. She, after all, could read their language. She, after all, had
seen their ruins. The elders knew only what they wanted to know and discarded
evidence to the contrary. But she had the writings of a boy who actually lived
in the ancient past. Alice lit a candle, opened the journal, and read happily.
December 11 2009.
Dear Journal, my brother turns nine today.
We got him an ice cream cake even though it’s snowing outside and bought him a
new DS game. Mom let me help pick out the game, so I picked the new Pokémon
game, I know he’s going to live it. We got balloons, streamers, a piñata, all
sorts of neat things.
Alice decided to skip a few pages.
Though it was interesting to view the thoughts of an old one such trivial
matters neither concerned nor interested her. Balloons, streamers, ice cream,
these words held little meaning to her, and such perplexity led her to search
out something she would understand. She read on.
July 5th 2010.
Dear Journal, Wormwoods almost here. Dad hasn’t been home in a
while, he works at the Air Force base and says they’re working him really hard
because of Wormwood. He might even miss my birthday if they don’t let him come
back tomorrow. I won’t like that, but I know dad has an important job to do. He
says Wormwood could be a threat and we need to be ready for when it gets here.
Some people on the news say it might be an alien space ship. Isn’t that cool?
Aliens! How neat. I hope they’re more like the Vulcan aliens in Star Trek and
not like the ones in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The last thing I want to
do is fight off an army of mindless alien zombies. If its Vulcan aliens maybe
they’ll let us fly in their space ship and go to the moon. Maybe I’ll get to go
to their home planet when I grow up. I’ll be the first to visit the Vulcan planet.
We had a great 4th of July yesterday. Bruce came over
with his parents and we shot some fireworks. I hit Emma in the arm with a
sparkler. We chased her around the house for a little while until mom told us
to stop. After the fireworks we went inside and played Left for Dead on my
Xbox. Bruce isn’t the best player in the world so we died a few times, but
that’s okay. He beasts me at Call of Duty and Halo, and I get him at Left for
Dead and Madden.
I’ll write back later journal. Bye.
“Hmmm,
interesting,” Alice said as she placed the journal back into its plastic bag.
She looked into the sky once more and smiled with deep content. The full moon
was almost right above her head, shining down on her and sending sparkles of
light dancing across the grass. She knew that Mother was at work moving the moon
to where it needed to be. It was a good night to be alive.
***
July 25th 2010.
Their gone Journal. Everyone’s gone. I’ve been wandering around
town for two days looking for someone but no one seems to be here. I don’t know
what’s going on. There’s nothing on TV, nothing on the radio, the internet’s
still working but nobody’s on it. Yesterday I saw a deer walk down main street
and nobody shooed it away. I thought they were playing a joke on me at first
but it’s been two days. I built a
fort in the basement with blankets and pillows and when I came out the house is
empty, a car ran into the neighbor’s house, everything’s a mess downtown. I was
only down there for a minute so they couldn’t have climbed into the car and
left me, and that wouldn’t explain why the TV and radio don’t work.
I’m going to try and find someone tomorrow. I’m going to take
dad’s car and drive around honking the horn, hopefully someone will hear it and
come out. Never drove before, this is going to be fun. Hopefully the rest of
town doesn’t look like downtown does. If it does I might have to use a bicycle
instead. That won’t be any fun at all.
***
Alice
woke up the next morning to the sound of buffalo moving off in search of better
pastures further to the south. It was early morning and Fathers light sparkled
magnificently off the tiny droplets of dew that saturated the grass. Alice rose
from her sleep, yawning and stretching her arms. Bren stood a little to her
left, grazing on the nice dewy grass. Alice stood up and looked around her. To
her left the herd of buffalo hurried off into the distance sending a trail of
dust into the air, just far enough as to not pose an immediate threat to her. She
took a small chunk of smoked buffalo meat from her pocket and took a bite. She
drank a little water from her water pouch to wash it down and stretched again. Breakfast
finished, she turned and softly called Bren and smiled affectionately as he
came trotting towards her.
“Thank
you Bren thank you for allowing me to ride you,” she said when he reached her.
“What do you say we go back home, ha? How would you like that?” Bren neighed
softly and nuzzled against her arm. Alice laughed and through her hands around his
thick neck.
“Well,
let’s go than”
Bren
lowered himself to the ground and Alice got onto his back. She tucked the books
into a secret pocket on the inside of her coat.
“All
right Bren lets go. Yeah!”
Bren
sprang forward, his huge strides carrying him and his rider over the endless
prairies.
***
August
8th 2010.
Dear
Journal, things are looking better now. Sorry I haven’t written in you for a
while. I’ve been living in a UN aid camp in Omaha for the last two weeks. I saw
them flying around in their helicopters and they were yelling in their loud
speakers telling people that they had a camp in Omaha where they were giving
people food, shelter, running water, all sorts of things. Nobody seems to know
what happened exactly but everyone here says they were inside when “it”
happened. A British soldier here told me that Wormwood was an alien space ship
after all and that the aliens abducted everyone and flew off. A preacher we
call Prophet says it was the rapture, and the fact that it only happened in the
America’s is a sign that the rest of the world is too full of sin. Another
nurse told me Wormwood blew up and then everyone disappeared. Prophet says we
need to give our lives to the lord or else God’ll open some seals and kill us
all. Not a very fun guy to be around. I like hanging out with the soldiers
instead. They talk funny and have fun stories to tell. One used to be in Iraq.
Some
of the nurses and doctors have been acting pretty strange lately though. There
was a man dying in the hospital tent and they flipped out. Nobodies been allowed
in the tent since. Nurse Joy says it’s contaminated with something but not to
worry about it.
Any
way things are getting better here. There’s plenty to eat, hot showers, I have
a bed of my own. I’ll write back in you later Journal. Bye.
