Dimensions

Chapter 1: A grieving girl alone

Written by FuturePresentPast

Humans always believed that there was nothing before the Big Bang. They were wrong. Before, there were two races living in harmony. The humans, and the red skinned, humanoid aliens that were the Deviann.

But then they disappeared. A massive explosion, a blinding light. They were separated into two separate dimensions. And each forgot the other existed.

Until now.

The human race, which now lays before me in utter disarray, is dying. We started dying before the ash came, and like it, we continue to fall.

It's like the eruption of a volcano- first comes the white hot terror, burning its way all throughout your body, then comes the ash, falling hot and grey like snow. Then comes the darkness.

I hold in my hand the only thing that has kept me sane these past few years. A plant- a delicate rose in a tiny clay pot. The only plant left in existence. I stole it, weeks ago, from my father's lab. A genetic modification experiment left abandoned to die along with its predecessors. It wasn't natural, but it was something.

I stand alone on the balcony of a great white house, once my father's, now mine. Hundreds of people stand below me, their hair whitened by the falling ash.

I am the queen. I am their queen.

I feel so alone, though guards stand on either side of their pale queen, and the entire population of Earth has come today to listen to me speak.

"My people," I pause, "I have not gathered you before me today to tell you everything is going to be fine, because its not. We are all doomed. Earth is dying, the human race facing extinction. We can do nothing now but wait for the end, hold each other's hands and keep them close," I pause again, looking down upon my citizens, "As you all know, many years ago the Big Bang Created our race. But I have heard rumours, just as many of you have, of red-devil creatures living alongside us. Did we hate them? Battle with them? Or did we live with them in peace and harmony? We don't, and will never know, but I am sure without this primitive race, if it ever did exist, we would never have had the chance to do this to our planet. To improve, to invent, to do what we have done now to our beautiful Earth."

I look around nervously at my people. I have made very few speeches since my coronation just over three months ago now, and before now, someone has always told me exactly what to say, when to pause, when to smile. Now I'm all alone. "What we have done here is unforgiveable. We have stripped our planet of plants, trees, animals. All these amazing things that will now be mere fairy tales to our children. We have broken everything that ever protected us, everything natural that kept us alive, and just built new ones. We have watched through the smoke as whole species die out, and replaced them with machines. We were down the ozone layer until it shattered completely, and replaced it with a manmade shield, just as effective but indestructible. We ran out of plants, of trees- we cut them all down. Every single one, so we built machines that made oxygen for us. Now that may seem good- we have outwitted nature, made something of our own that is a hundred times better. But it isn't. All those thing we made were what killed us. What killed the fish, birds, every animal out there except us."

I take a deep breath, and hold up the rose for everyone to see. I hear gasps and shouts from below. For many children it is the first time they have ever seen a plant apart from in pictures at school.

"This," I raise my voice, "Is a flower- a rose. I found it in a Genetic Modification lab. It was part of an experiment my late father started many years ago to bring plants back to our world. It is the last plant in existence. But, without other plants and without bees, it cannot be pollinated, and therefore it will soon die. This, my people, is the only living thing on earth except ourselves, and that is your fault. Every human in the world is to blame for this. Me, you, our ancestors. Every invention, every factory, every experiment, was the cause of this. Everything we have done since the birth of our race has lead up to this. We have been destroying ourselves since the very beginning."

I hesitate, about to turn around and walk inside, but continue, "Spend these last months well. No one will go to school or work. Spend as much time as you want with your family and friends, because this is your last chance, ever."

----

Earth has been ruled for centuries by a cruel government. They knew this- all that is around me now- would happen. They wanted it, welcomed the chaos. For in chaos, the people turn to their leaders, and the leaders manipulate them with lies and fake facts and the people hang onto their every word.

They promised us a better world. They said without the Big Bang millions of years ago, there would have been nothing on Earth, despite rumours of red skinned devil creatures, evil killing machines. They built factories and started the Ozone Project. They built artificial, oxygen-making trees. They destroyed countless lives- children's lives. The lives of people who hadn't even been born yet. That was what they promised. To kill us all.

My father fought long and hard to take the throne. Earth had been ruled by the government for as long as anyone could remember, and the mere idea of a monarchy was deemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, my father won his battle, and ruled strong for ten years. And in those ten years, he tried in every possible way to save the human race. He made Genetically Modified plants- a whole greenhouse of them in fact. They were to be slowly distributed throughout the world at the beginning of this year, but my father was assassinated as he slept, just the day before the first plants were released. The greenhouse was burnt to the ground, and only one feeble rose survived.

My rose.

I came to the throne, as I said before, just over three months ago, only seventeen years of age.

Clara Fitzgerald, 17 years old, Queen of Earth.

My full title includes things like 'Preserver of the Human Race' and about a hundred others, but I like to think of myself as Clara Fitzgerald, A grieving girl alone. Grieving for my lost father and my poor mother, who died during the birth of her second child. Grieving for the sister I never knew- who died in my mother's arms, not minutes after her birth. My father never talked about her, and she was never named, but I like to think if her as Jenny. I try to imagine what she would have looked like now, fourteen years old. I think of her as someone who didn't care about her status- her royalty. I imagine her playing in the street with all the other children, her dress torn and muddied, and her hair white with ash. She has long brown hair, braided simply all the way down her back- the ends just skinning the top of her legs. She has bright blue eyes, and red lips, which always seem to be smiling. That is how I imagine my sister- not that wailing red bundle, but as a real person. Still living and breathing and keeping me company, busy being the heir to the throne.

I'm alone alright.

A grieving girl can be very dangerous. She can spend all her spare time plotting revenge on whoever tore her life apart. A grieving Queen is even more dangerous- especially one as young as I am- she has more power than she could ever have dreamed of, and she can use it in whatever way she wants.

Now, imagine all that danger and power and revenge and grief, and think about it for a minute. A person who could destroy an entire planet just by lifting a finger.

But a grieving girl would have friends, family, at least someone they could talk to.

I don't. I have no one to talk to, to confide in. No one to hear of my plans and stop me. I am alone, and that makes me a hundred times more dangerous. I can do anything I want.

Because I am a grieving girl alone.