Before I begin this story, I must preface it with a short explanation. I love to write, but finding something to write about that has my heart has been a continual challenge with this blog. I realized that what I truly love is to write book-length stories, so I have decided to try to embrace that and write a longer story, chapter by chapter, on this blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am:
The earth was melting. That is not entirely accurate, but in lieu of a scientific explanation, it is the start of a description.
I was one of the lucky few to survive, but not one of the luckiest. The luckiest people were those rich enough to buy their way off earth. Yes, they escaped by spaceship. Cliche? Sure, but it did work.
I should explain that when I said the earth was melting, that what I really meant was that the surface of the earth was unstable – like quicksand – and very, very prone to sink holes.
As I alluded to already, I am not going to attempt to provide you with a proper, scientific, explanation for why this had occurred. I’m not a scientist. It is enough to know that the instability of the earth’s crust and the resulting sink holes had caused many deaths from the expected sorts of causes – falling or getting sucked into the ground, landfills, mudslides and so on.
My first encounter with the ill-effects of a soggy earth’s crust was quite literally within my own back yard. I had been cutting the lawn on a warm, sunny day when one of the tires of our riding mower got a little bit stuck in the lawn. Just about as quickly as I could jump off of the thing, a sink hole had opened up and swallowed the mower whole. I immediately ran inside to the chatter of excited family members trying to show me the news articles that were quickly accumulating in response to the appearance of a multitude of sink holes.
I will not take the time to acquaint you with my family. You would only get attached, and they are all dead now. Do not mistake me as a very cold person – I cherish my memories of them, but I have both accepted and grieved their deaths and there is no need for you to do the same when you did not even known them.
I should take the time to tell you my name. I am Katherine, and my story really begins about eleven months after the day our lawn mower got eaten by our lawn. By then, our world had collapsed. Not a government system was left standing, billions of people had died, and the “important” and “rich” people had launched off in space ships with the promise that they would fix the situation or help save us, if only given a little time. Needless to say, those promises proved to be completely empty.
My situation was at that point, quite grim. Not because I was in desperate need of supplies, in fact, for those eleven months, I had been able to find plenty of supplies. No, my situation was grim, because for about eight of those eleven months, I had barely seen a single person. The first month had just been a blur of people in panic, the second month had been eerily quiet. To say that the two encounters I had with people by the third month were unpleasant, would be an understatement. In the first week of the month, I was robbed while on a supply run, and in the fourth week of the month, some guy actually tried to push me into a sinkhole! I won’t go into detail, but there was a lot of screaming and yelling involved. After that, I avoided any person I saw, as I did not trust them. I wished that I could, as I very much missed human company, but people were too desperate, and I was too wary.
I had stayed nearby the area where my family and I had lived – as close as I could to supplies without staying on obviously unstable ground. Those who survived, quickly discovered that your chances of being sucked into a sink hole was far less likely if you hang around rocky areas instead of on soggy sod. Accordingly, I was living in a little cave at the bottom of an insignificant foot hill. One still had to be aware of mud slides and landslides and such, but it was an improvement from town.
Exactly eleven months after the sinkhole incidents had begun, was the day that changed my monotonous routine, which had consisted of daily body weight exercises, preparing meals, and a monthly trip to my old hometown for supplies. I had done my best to keep quite healthy and fit and thankfully had access to our local library to keep my mind occupied. In addition to my daily routine of exercise, I made it a point to read about a book a week, depending on its size, and had also whittled seven little statues, mostly of animals, and one of a tree – they were not good. This was really all I had done in these eleven months, and yet, I felt that I had achieved some real self-improvement.
At eleven months, on a sunny and remarkably warm morning in October, I set out on my monthly trip to town to retrieve supplies and exchange books. Yes, I brought books back to the library, mainly to keep them safe, but I also supposed that perhaps someone else would like to read them. To be clear, there was no one at the library to check my books in and out, I just took books from the library and then brought them back when I was finished with them.
I grabbed my knife, and packed my backpack with the regular water, granola bar, and first aid supplies. After eating breakfast, I took my usually path to town. There did not seem to be much rhyme or reason as to where sink holes appeared, but you could tell if one was more likely to appear if the ground fell particularly unstable or like quick sand. Besides, most people knew that one did not walk near the edge of a sink hole, unless you wanted to make it bigger by crumbling the ground beside it and falling in.
I exchanged my books without difficulty and headed over to the grocery store. I surveyed the now dark and messy building, hoping for more canned beans, tuna, and vegetables. A pang of anxiety shot through my chest. I had been lucky so far, but supplies would not last forever. Trying to keep from thinking morbid thoughts about running out of food, I rummaged through the cans of baked and green beans in aisle two. As I placed the last of the cans that I wanted into my backpack, I heard a crashing sound from across the store. I stiffened, listening very carefully. I had barely seen anyone for eight months and with food sources and medicine ever diminishing, I feared a violent interaction was overdue.
Heart pounding, I turned to leave, but before I had made it ten steps, I heard a pitiful, crying sound. I paused, frightened. This could easy be a trap, and although it was against my better judgement, I decided to investigate. I could not keep my humanity by just abandoning another person who might need help.
Walking carefully towards the sound, I skirted around the end of a shelf and into the next aisle. The sound became louder, but abruptly stopped the moment I took a step down the aisle towards it. I paused. Looking around, I decided to search the towels which were messily lying on the bottom of the left-hand shelf. The navy blue towel which had been strewn across some cream-coloured towels, shifted ever so slightly. Did it just fall a little, or was something causing it to fall? I carefully lifted the blue towel. Something – someone – jerked back. Someone small was hiding underneath the towels. I yanked them off, revealing a little girl who seemed to be about five years old, although I am pretty terrible at guessing ages, whether child or adult. It does not help that a there are far less people now to guess the ages of in my day to day life.
The little girl whimpered a little, pulling back. I looked around, panicked. Where was this kid’s parents? Was she alone? My chest ached. I could not just leave her hear without making sure she was safe, but I also could not stay here long, and neither could she – it was too dangerous.
“Hi” I whispered, feeling at somewhat of a loss. It had been a while since I had talked with a kid, or just anyone in general, for that matter.
“Are you alone? Or is there maybe someone nearby, waiting for you?” The girl looked scared at that, shaking her head. I frowned, “You don’t have anyone here with you?” She shifted, clearly uncomfortable with her position, lying in the shelf, and with my question.
“Here,” I beckoned to her, “Sit on the floor with me.” I offered, helping her out of the shelf.
Just then, I heard another banging sound. I stiffened, we still were not alone. The little girl looked frightened. I considered that there might be a parent or relative of hers nearby, but she had indicated there was no one. I paled. It was also quite possible that she was hiding from someone. In that moment, I made a decision. Grabbing her hand, I whispered “We need to leave!”
Can’t wait to read more!