Our Importance
A short apocalyptic eco-thriller exploring the world we will leave behind and nature’s indifference. Read the story below or listen to the audio version with YouTube.
The world was once a vibrant place, a land of warmth, musical sounds and brilliant colours. Forests filled the land and creatures filled the forests. They were green paradises filled with reds, yellows, blues and browns. It was impossible to take a step without hearing the singing of a bird, the call of an ape or the sound of a predator stalking through the underbrush. That was before mankind came.
When human beings first arrived, they seemed like any other animal. They weren’t. They were smarter than anything else, but so short sighted. So greedy. In what amounted to the blink of an eye, they progressed from struggling to survive with flaming torches and stone spearheads to being masters of the planet. They built towering structures and lived in enormous cities, they colonised every part of the globe. They did amazing things, but their miracles took a toll on the Earth. All that colour slowly began to slip away, replaced by a grey that crept across the landscape like a cancer. Just as quickly as they had appeared, humanity had all but destroyed their home.
Where there once was forests and rivers, there was now vast empty expanses of dirt. Nature's music had ceased to play, its chorus now only heard in a few hard to reach places. The sky was covered in a thick dark smog that all but obscured the light and warmth of the sun, leaving the land cold and dry. No colour, no sound and no warmth. The world had become nothing but an empty monochrome expanse, a husk of its former self. Even humanity’s vast cities now crumbled.
It was through this frozen hell that he walked: an ordinary man. One of the last human beings. He was a lonely wanderer, searching for more survivors. Every step he took however, sapped a fraction more of the little drive he had left. His clothing was torn to rags, wrapped many layers thick in an effort to keep him warm. It was enough to keep him alive but he didn’t stop shivering. His skin was unhealthily pallid, rough and covered in scratches and bruises. His hair was long, wild and shaggy and his eyes were dull and sunken. He was a man who had returned to the wild, but this wasn’t the wild of years prior but the void his own kind had created.
He’d been walking for many weeks, yet to see another soul. Every movement he made caused him agony. His body was growing weak from a hunger that he couldn’t satiate and parched throat he was unable to whet. Yet he still stumbled forward. He wanted to give up, to lay down and die but he couldn’t bring himself to surrender. He didn’t want to end his life alone, standing in the middle of the vast ruins his ancestors had left behind for him. So he kept walking even though every step took a little more of himself away.
The days continued to pass him by, not that this mattered to him. The days had long since blended together for him. The sad grey emptiness around him was unchanging. It was as though time had ceased to exist for everything except for him. It was truly a miserable existence. If ever a life was meaningless, it was his.
Eventually, he couldn’t go on any longer. He collapsed to his hands and knees, his breath ragged and his body too devoid of liquid to even shed tears. He’d finally drank up the last of his motivation and much like the Earth around him, his body was now a colourless shell, barely recognisable as who had been in the past. It was then, at his lowest point, that he realised that the ground he could feel beneath his open palms was changing.
The man looked down in shock, barely able to comprehend what he was seeing. Before his very eyes, thin shoots of green were pushing their way out of the Earth. All around him, grass was rapidly sprouting from the dirt. Around him, bushes began to expand and saplings started to take root. It was as though he was watching a replay of how the world had developed before his kind had laid waste to the planet.
From ahead, a blinding light appeared over the crest of the hill: a humanoid figure. Its shape was that of a person, but it lacked any distinguishing features. It had no marks upon its form, no hair and no face. It appeared to be comprised solely of a vivid, yellow-white light. Heat radiated out from its body, warming the land and pushing the stiffening cold from the man’s limbs. All around the being, life returned to the Earth. The closer to it, the faster the growth. A forest was springing to life in its presence, trees rising from the dirt in mere moments and bright, brilliantly coloured flowers opening for the first time in many years. A stream began to flow somewhere nearby, its trickle like a beautiful symphony to the man. It was as though the being in front of him was the living embodiment of hopes he had long since given up. For the first time in a long time, he thought that it wasn’t the end.
The entity walked towards the man as he crawled towards its brilliant form, feeling the warmth it exuded prickling his skin. He wanted to touch this being with his own hands, to embrace it and thank it for returning to the world to the way it should be. The being though paid him no mind. It walked straight past the man, never so much as turning its head to look at him. To this creature, the man may not have existed at all.
The man struggled to his feet, his body trembling from the effort, and tried to turn and follow. He wanted to be in the presence of that being until his last breath. He couldn’t move his legs however, the entity moving further and further away. The man looked down and froze in shock. The grass below him had changed, growing thick and strong and wrapping around his feet and legs like tendrils. He tried to pull himself free, but his bindings were too strong and he succeeded only in making himself fall forwards again, more vines springing from the soil and binding his hands the minute they touched the ground.
He felt his heart leap into his throat as he struggled against nature, unable to break free of his restraint as they continued to creep up his body. He was bound progressively tighter, being pulled firmly against the earth beneath him. More plants begun to grow around and over him until his vision was obscured and he could see nothing but shades of green. Whatever hope the man had allowed to form, was shattered in those moments as the vines begun to slowly pull him into the loam. He tried to scream, but his mouth was quickly filled with dirt.
He tried not to, but couldn’t stop himself from swallowing down soil and seeds. He gagged, but opening his mouth just lead to it being filled once again. A violent pain erupted over his body, as the seeds he had ingested germinated and grew within him, pushing against his body from the inside until they burst forth through his skin and further fertilised the light being’s hellish Eden with his blood. He tried to breath, but he found no more oxygen reaching his lungs. Everything went dark as the ground consumed him, his body now too weak to struggle and his mind a haze. Eventually, he perished, his suffering finally coming to an end and his corpse now serving as nutrients for the forest that had risen in his place.
The world was reclaimed.
