Earthfall
Earthfall
Chapter 1: The Awakening
Dear Son,
By the time you read this, I will be gone. The Earth has changed. The rock that once nurtured you and cared for you is now an Earth- sized machine. But let’s go back a little bit. The Earth’s economy fell, so did it’s government, then we fell into Anarchy. The cryo-farm that you were housed in shut down. They said they couldn’t open your cryo-tubes without killing you all. So you’ll be waking up around the year of 2189. Listen very carefully. Our world is a wasteland, and it’s survival of the fittest. Some areas are nuclear wasteland, others swarming with rebels and bandits. So son, I hope this is closure enough, Mom and I love you very much. You know I was never very good at goodbyes.
Love,
Dad
I read this after 15 minutes of waking up from my cryo-tube, trust me, it hurts. You get a massive headache, your muscles are sore, and you’re really, really dizzy.
At least I was emotionally prepared for the letter. Before I got in, I reluctantly said my goodbyes as I headed off to the farm.
I looked around the room that looked surprisingly like a barn. After rotating a little around the room I saw three people staring at me like they’d seen a ghost.
“Uh, hi, I’m Jack.” I said
“You… how?” said a man with blonde hair who looked absolutely dumbfounded
“Umm how what?” I responded
“How are you alive!” he excaimed.
“what was I dead or something?” I asked jokingly.
“Sort of, we found the lot of you over at the farm, it looked like your tubes weren’t working. So once again, how are you alive?” responded a brunette girl.
“Oh, I honestly don’t know,” I said
“Well anyway, you’re probably hungry after 164 years in a metal tube,” said the blonde guy.
“Well yeah, that long huh?”
“Yep, come on, the kitchen’s in here, we have a lot to talk about.”
“Hi, I’m Adrian” said the other guy as he lead me around. He had brown hair and tan skin. He walked around in a weird way, but it was the future, what did I expect.
“Hi, you could probably read my name on the tube right?” I asked.
“Yeah, hey you know what happened 164 years ago right? You can still remember that?” asked Adrian
“Uh, yeah, yeah, TenStar introduced cryotube technology and people went to sleep… just for a very long time,” I responded
“Yeah, and from what I understand, that’s what you did, and so here we are in 2189.”
There was a long pause.
“I think you need to see what happened to the Earth,” he said in an emotionless monotone voice, as if he had just remembered a reason to be sad.
We opened the big double door at the end of the barn, what I saw is unbelievable. Desert, dune, destruction, and I feel despair.
“Our humble home, St. Louis,” said Adrian.
“My home town,” I responded.
I couldn’t help thinking about my parents, they raised me here. My heart sank a little bit more every second I looked at the ash and dust covered arch. The dark ebony of it’s metal reminded me of my mood.
The city was destroyed. Husks of buildings stood tall and empty.
“We call it the hollow city now,” Adrian said to break the silence
“It fits,” I said.
Earthfall middle
Chapter 7: Times of Old
We went out on the humvee that Friday to find what the last video my father left me was talking about. There it was, the hole in the sand, promised to me by hints, clues and deceptive speaking in video logs left in discrete locations. Anything could be down there, that’s why we packed plenty of firepower.
As we grappled down the hole, the sand started turning to hieroglyphics, by the time we reached the end of the hole, we’d reached a temple of some sort, “alright, look around, we’ve got to find out what’s going on here,” said John.
I went over my father’s words in my head “and in a place of peace, on one bird, and only one, will you find the spirit of evil,” I looked around the seemingly ancient temple for a few minutes to find a bird painted red, while all others were painted black. Like so many other things, it reminded of my dad, he was so different from the others, he went his own way, as my mood turned to sad once again, I remembered where I was and what I was doing. His death would not be in vain. I feel the bird for a few moments before deciding to push it in.
The wall begins to move back as dust and sand fall down from lofts and crevices
“Guys, you might want to see this,” I said “what is it?” asked Jenn
“I don’t know, but it’s not good,” I replied
All of the search party rushed over, we walked in the dark room, when suddenly, brightness fills our eyes, lights, modern lights, and on the wall is a TenStar logo.
Earthfall Ending
Chapter 24: A New Eden
Did he see me, I don’t think so. I have to know what my dad meant.
This is what I was thinking while trudging on through the Ten-Star bases underbelly. As I passed through the hallways I couldn’t believe my eyes, some of the rooms held things beyond belief, tests, experiments, more like torture. Were they trying to rebuild the world, or turn the few embers we had left into ashes?
Finally I reached the end of the hall, where I could hear the conversation of two guards to my left. They were talking about the old days, days I wasn’t there for, but it only made me more mad.
I whistled something to attract one of the guards over, he wasn’t expecting the quick elbow to the face that quickly knocked him out. I took the stun gun from his belt and put my elbow around his neck to use it as a human shield and turned the corner where the other guard was to quickly stun him.
Soon the only noise to be heard was the quiet humming of the base. I crept along the dim hallway, pressed the card onto the scanner and opened the door. I saw the arch-reactor and knew what I had to do.
I crawled into the service vent that lead to the center of the reactor. I saw the center motherboard, above it read осторожность, не прикасайтесь, which meant “caution, do not touch.” I was never one for rules. I unscrewed the plate and saw it. the motherboard that ran it all. In the keypad below the motherboard, I typed “EARTHFALL.” The whirring stopped. The infernal machine that Earth had become finally stopped. I knew what came next. The emergency lights came on, so did a robotic female voice that said “Caution, prepare for Earthfall,” the next thing I see, the last thing I see on this “Earth” was a bright, bright explosion.
I wake up on a surgery table, animatronic machines and arms drilling into my limbs. Only I don’t feel it, why don’t I feel it? We ran out of anesthesia a long time ago. I started to look down for my legs, but I’m interrupted by a voice over intercom, “I wouldn’t do that If I were you,” it said.
“why is that?” I asked
“You’ll go into shock, or at least what’s left of you will go into shock,” the lady responded
When I looked down, I knew what she meant. I knew why I couldn’t feel my legs. It was because my legs were gone, and had been replaced with robotic replacements.
The voice over the intercom spoke one last time before I blacked out
“You will be the hero for our word, our world rebuilt,” she concluded.
