Empty. The cities were all empty. The team had arrived too late.
Five thousand years ago, the last survivors of the climate wars had abandoned Earth, traveling in cold sleep to the hope of survival on a distant world. When they had awakened on their new home, they had sworn that they would never allow such a thing to happen again.
They would create a new society. A just society. One that would focus on the well-being and survival of not only humans but would also of the worlds on which they lived. And so it had been for millennia.
Until the Conglomerate. They had abandoned the principles of the Just, exploiting the world on which they lived until it had had enough. Boralis had struck back, not slowly as Earth had done. No. Its vengeance had been swift and cataclysmic. The Conglomerate had no time to rue their choices. They had sent a plea for rescue and had not been heard from since.
Rodrigues and her team had come as fast as space travel allowed. But in the weeks it had taken to arrive, Boralis had completed its revenge on the invaders who had so wantonly abused it.
As Rodrigues wandered through the receding flood of yet another ruin of a city, she found no bodies, no suggestion that humans had ever lived on this world. The only proof they had existed were the remains of the sky-scraping buildings, already beginning to crumble as sentient vines wrapped them in their killing embrace.
Rodrigues signaled for her crew to return to the shuttle. There was nothing they could do here. Boralis would never again welcome humans. She would submit the video they had taken of the planet’s active expulsion of their kind from its surface. Hopefully it would serve as the last warning humans would need. One way or another, whatever planet they inhabited would always take its revenge for their greed.
I created the image for this story as part of a series I did on Midjourney. In the group this image came from, I asked it to create concept art with no further direction. The results were quite disparate.
This particular image suggested a cataclysmic event to me. I had no idea what shape that would take until I began to write. It’s not hard to guess that climate change is very much on my mind these days!
Do you believe that as a species we can learn a lesson for good? Or are we destined to endlessly forget our past and repeat the same mistakes over and over, no matter how deadly their consequence?
I’m re-reading a book, “Antarctica” by Gabrielle Walker (now head climatologist in UK) and at that hostile continent they are learning a lot about our previous atmospheres , through very deep ice cores. But also about Mars. And its potential livability. I recommend the book to my geologist friends. The author also has TED talks about climate change. I wish this was on the minds in certain groups of industries.
That opening paragraph is an excellent hook! Great story, Dascha!