The Third Omen

PART ONE: THE VIRUS

My father once told me us humans have a natural instinct inside, one that truly cannot be hidden and restrained when needed or forced out. It simply lays there for a while, patient—almost dormant, yet still working—planting thoughts of recklessness combined with self-destruction into our weak, susceptible brains. Inconspicuous, impossible to detect, and, of course, we're also extremely stubborn to realize what's going on until it is way too late to fix the damage caused. 

Ironically enough, that's exactly what happened with all of humanity. All at once.

We messed and corrupted everything we ever worked hard for, everything that coexisted with us. Taking it all to its breaking point, we pushed, and pushed, and kept pushing as if the world belonged to us. As if nothing—or no one—would ever punish our foolish, childish actions.

I'd like to imagine that that nothing or no one tried helping the situation before, enlightening some of us, guiding them through good paths in order to save Earth, but now...now I knew for a fact it was a lost cause. We were doomed to fall, be our own destructors. Every try to help us ended up wasted, ignored.

Warnings? We got them.

Were they taken seriously? Like we ever took something seriously.

And so it all began.

Nature fell first. Rivers started drying out, slowly but surely. Forests lost their green, becoming a dull grey, and then ending up as worthless, rotten, black twigs that snapped under careless feet. Animals were suddenly vanishing. Like they simply became dust and got blown away by the wind.

Then the waves of extreme heat came. They rampaged through every single millimeter of earth that stood on their way, scorching our cities and what was left of nature itself.  People—initially, when it still seemed manageable—blamed it on made up theories such as the climax of global warming or a big downhill moment for the human race. The situation was truly disastrous, yet everyone believed it could be fixed eventually.

I cannot help but feel utterly disappointed at our own stupidity.

How is it that you were able to shove so much ignorance...into the most insignificant living creature roaming Earth? It made no sense whatsoever, and that was precisely the problem. Everyone, when trying to figure out useless solutions, looked for logical answers.

We're made to seek perfection at everything we do. That once seemed to be our best quality...until we exploited it, like everything else that came to us, turning it then into destruction.

They called it the Natural Mishap. Typical. Give it some fancy name and make everyone believe that nature would find its course, restore the balance it once had. It didn't.

That was the first omen we got of our final extinction.

Immediately, the second wave of catastrophe followed. The Isolation. By now, greater powers started getting heavily involved. Strong—yet ironically clueless—countries were baffled at the sight of every single thing they once knew and built crumbling down like it was nothing but a handful of sand in a windy, vast desert. We reached a point where insignificant misunderstandings led to bigger quarrels between people, and hence, wars sprouted.

Fighting was understandable, though. With the only scarce resources we had left, the only ones we were able to store, it seemed impossible not to have massive huffs between us. The tables turned. It was do or die. Ethics got lost in the turmoil, replaced instead by a much stronger greed than the one inside of us before. Ravenous desires made people go mad—delirious. And eventually, everything—absolutely everything—collapsed.