This morning, my algae soup tasted even blander than usual. Lifeless. Flavourless. Purposeless.
“Seems familiar,” I mused, granting myself a rare indulgence – not washing the bowl. Why bother? It joined the stack of unwashed dishes, each marking days of the same hollow thought.
Outside my house, I stood before the only soul who would have cared. She would have made me wash up; she made me a better man. Kneeling, I placed a small metal flower upon her makeshift grave. Its subtle blue hue was a stark contrast to this monochrome underground world of dirt and metal.
As I made my way through the ghostly rows of empty homes, I confronted a long-avoided truth. “There’s nothing left for me here now,” I declared into the void. It did not reply. It was then I decided that today would be the day. I would venture towards the ‘outside,’ a realm feared since our ancestors fled the surface for this mechanical underworld.
As I packed only the essentials, my attention was drawn to the painting on the wall, a portrayal of verdant fields, snow-capped mountains, and a deep blue lake. Legends told that the outside, a once beautiful wonderland, had been turned to a sun-scorched wasteland by pollution and climate change. Of that desolation, there were no photos. It was a chapter of our history that humanity chose to forget, a painful reminder of the paradise we had lost.
My wife had cherished this painting, I thought, as my fingers traced the ridges of paint that made up the majestic mountain. “One day, mankind will see such beauty again,” I had assured her, a promise more hopeful than certain.
Traversing the metal tunnels laid by the original settlers, each step felt heavy with the weight of history. The labyrinth network, once bustling with life, now lay silent, a metallic skeleton of a bygone era. Days blurred as I journeyed, the constant echo of my footsteps clanging against metal the only proof of time passing.
At the journey’s end stood a colossal door. Its surface, a complex mesh of pipes and cogs, seemed almost alive. Hesitating, I pressed the button to awaken it. The door groaned, a symphony of creaking metal and whirling gears, as it reluctantly yielded to the light. Sunlight burst through the widening crack, a cascade of brilliance challenging my underground-adapted eyes.
As the door fully opened, I was greeted not by desolation, but by an endless expanse of white. Towering trees, draped in snow, reached skyward, their branches heavy with winter’s embrace. Vast expanses of white flowers carpeted the floor, their beautiful blooms defiant against the cold. Snowflakes danced, alighting my skin with a chilling thrill.
It was a scene of surreal beauty that contradicted every story I’d ever heard. Stepping forward, leaving behind the remnants of humanity’s underground chapter, I realised that our continued exile had been in vain. Earth had not just survived; she’d flourished, restoring herself to a state of wild, untamed grace in our absence.
