122,004 people died in 2035, but history won't remember a single one. And I'm one of the ones to blame.
It began when the country started to overpopulate. Supplies storages shrank at an alarming rate and children were born ten times the previous international rate causing a phenomenon known as the Second Baby Boom. Because there was simply not enough food or medical care to go around, the government took to silently killing people few by few. Of course, they did not kill proper citizens at first, rather, they picked off the illegal immigrants and criminals taking up space in holding facilities. But as time went on, there was little else they could do but let go of regular citizens as well. They were careful to choose the old and the sick so there would be no suspicion. Their cover story? Suicide and SADS.
The government felt as if there was no other option. They had witnessed the devastating effects of population laws on other countries and knew that there would be no way that America could still maintain its status and power if its own people were in fear of their families being killed or the problems this new law could bring. However, people started to soon realize the government's flaws. They saw through the cover story, and soon enough, a rebellion started. Little by little, it grew, until a war roared up. By then, America's economy had crashed, leaving much of the world in economic ruin and any political power it had was gone. So, the richer people, looking for an escape from the slowly dying world, took to radiation testing to see how it would affect human bodies. They wanted to go to space.
It took only a couple of years before half the population was gone from America. Only the poor stayed behind, while the rich moved to a planet called Cremosia. The president and his wife disappeared from the face of the Earth as well, and old wive's tale hinted that they had gone to live on one of Cremosia's outermost rings. I should know because I'm the president's son. And in half a year, we are moving back to Earth. We are scared to move back to Earth. We do not know what state it will be in, if it has any remaining human life, resources, or if it is even survivable, especially after the Accident.
The nuclear power plant where we used to silently release people into the great unknown, as well as prep military weapons is gone, shattered into a hundred million little pieces across the globe. It took up an entire half of Alaska, not far from the location of the new White House and once rumors started that we were murdering our citizens, of course, the power plant seemed pretty suspicious. So one night, silently, a group of rebels blew up the entire building. Nuclear fumes spread throughout the globe, immediately killing off any thought of survival in the U. S. As it is, not many other people survived if any. However, most of us had already fled by then, leaving a small few people left to starve. God knows where they are now. Life on Uranus has been very routinely. This is to say, it has been boring. You'd expect to live in space to be exciting, but it is not. Everything feels artificial. We all live inside domes scattered along different parts of the planet to protect us from any of the harmful effects of living on our own planet. Each dome is specifically designed to cater to each planet. I happen to live on Uranus. Our domes include farms, schoolhouses, apartments (to fit as many people as possible), and food production plants, where the few remaining animals saved before the Accident are bred and slaughtered for meat. The rumor we had been living on one of Cremosia's rings was not entirely wrong; we only moved to Uranus after one too many search parties came out to kill us. Uranus is perfect for us because not many people know it still exists. Everyone thinks that the nuclear radiation from the Accident spread far into space and made life on the other planets nearest to us in the solar system impossible.
We had no plans to return to Earth, but everything changed about a year ago.
My parents, who at the time of the Final Accident (as it is now known) were Presidents of the U.S., of course, did not leave Earth unprepared. We took with us several servants of the Whitehouse and a couple of NASA's top aerospace engineers. Over the first few years in space, they began the process of setting up their new semi-permanent laboratory and monitoring the fumes radiating from the Earth. And for those first few years, the fumes drifted completely across the globe, blanketing it, and showing signs that there would be no hope in returning for another thousand years.
But then something happened that not even they could explain- the previously damaged ozone layer began to heal, and in the process was absorbing an incredible amount of toxic gasses. As time passed, things seemed to be miraculously improving. Despite how damaged the planet had been, time seemed to heal its wounds. After the toxic clouds that had once covered the entire planet started to disappear, my parents began speaking quietly of a return to Earth.
I knew it was necessary. We couldn't live here forever. And yet I still felt the guilt and shame of taking part in something that had led to the worsening (or in this case the ending) of the lives of others. It was overwhelming really, the feeling that I got when returning to Earth. And I guess I should probably explain something before I tell you why-- I played no direct part in the government's actions leading up to the Final Accident. But I was the one who inspired it.
