Daydreams

We Are Humanity.

Entry for the Science Fiction contest; A Planet For Two. (Story word count: 494)

Going from "Humanity's last hope" to "Humanity's last piece of evidence" was... pretty depressing, I would say.

Had Project Noah been successful, I would not be the only lab rat doomed to walk the Earth forever; she would have been here with me, ninety-eight other people would have been here with us.

Well... Project Noah was a success after all. It was meant to prolong the life of a few selected humans, stricken barren as the aftermath of the Global Nuclear War, hoping to find a way to repopulate Earth within that time.

Yeah... we messed up. We messed up big time. And mother nature... she just looked away.

The way I see it, out of the fifty heterosexual couples that volunteered for this, Hope and I had the biggest chance. She was one of the researchers at the GRC and a pioneer of the Project Noah. She thought we could even be immortal.

Let me be honest. I had no intention on living forever. I did not want to say yes to the project. But she was very much in love with life and I was very much in love with her, so I had to.

I woke up in my cryotube, my last memory being Hope standing next to me saying the process was a success and I would immediately be put into cryosleep, which was a necessity to give the body enough time to adjust to the modifications.

But when I woke up, I found all the stasis chambers empty. The last recorded message of the system said that there was a massive power failure and there was only enough power here to operate my cryotube. It also said that there would be one other cryotube, a continent away.

That message brought me here. And here I am, half asleep, with an old comic book in my hand, and an open cyrotube next to me.

I have forever.

But there is no time for tears.

If Hope had lived through the cyrosleep period, she would have notified me, so that I could meet her.

I'll be right behind you, she had said, her two different colored eyes glistening down at me.

Just as I get up to find something to eat, I see a head peeking from the doorway.

A child. A girl of about seven years.

I stand up from where I sat, expecting her to run away. But she doesn't. Her eyes, partially covered by her disheveled hair, never leave mine.

I approach her, slowly.

"Hello," I greet her.

She nods, a little scowl wrinkling her adorable features.

"What is your name?"

"Evie," she says and points to me "Theo. Father."

I crouch down to her level. She stares at me with two different colored eyes.

I hold her in my arms and cry for a long time.

Mother Nature did not look away after all.

As I hold our precious little gem, I realize something.

We are humanity.