Into Aurora

Chapter 2

Eden. A city of peace and harmony, a city run by the people, a city built up from the ashes of conflict. Or at least, that is what they said when we first came. This is where we would grow and thrive. It was heaven on earth. It was a place where people were humans, where we restored our faith in humanity.

Except it wasn't.

But it was.

But not quite.

It was a dreamlike paradise, a place filled to the brim with light and love and everything that would have been if Pandora hadn't opened that box.

But she did. And even in the most seemingly perfect society, it was a society filled with flaws greater than we could possibly mask.

It was nice while it lasted. A nice long history of twenty-six years.

Twenty-six years where people rebuilt their lives, collecting memories in this jar we call a brain; technology had caught up to human evolution, the mechanics of human life integrated with mechanics of those made by human hands.

But we had flaws, dents in a smooth faced world, polished and sanded to impeccable standards.

But these weren't problems of world wars or terrorists, we didn't even have a crime rate – there

was nothing for us to measure.

Overpopulation.

There was no conflict here. Which meant all there was left was love, which meant babies. Lots and lots of babies. The endless production of babies that would go on and on to fuel our society.

But babies take up space, and food, and water, and oxygen. Their very existence is already a burden.

Technology caught up to human evolution, surpassed us.

Because technology doesn't reproduce.