Learn from Us

A natural disaster has dire consequences.

I was seventeen when the world started to implode.

It was slow at first; hikers were finding even the tallest of mountains to be noticeably easier to climb, and the roots of trees began to disappear under the ground as if being pulled downward by some unidentifiable force.

Soon, the news became commonplace. Hills were lower, valleys were deeper. The most intelligent of scientific minds explained it as some freak effect of the planet’s own gravity on itself, and convinced us that we shouldn't worry. We all returned to our daily lives, only skiing and mountaineering became much more popular pastimes.

Of course, there were always the crazies who openly challenged the widespread acceptance of this novel geological phenomenon. Some stood on street corners shouting about the end of time, while others worshiped the ground and treated the situation as a sort of rapture. The world was getting smaller; those who were deserving would live on the surface while the rest were pulled to the core to burn.

Of course, the majority of the population simply regarded the news as a mildly interesting happening and gave these people a wide berth. However, as the movement of the Earth started gaining momentum, we gradually became concerned.

For they were right about one thing; the world was, indeed, getting smaller.

Or rather, it was compressing itself. As it became more and more dense, its volume decreased, causing a shift in tectonic activity that wreaked havoc on its unsuspecting inhabitants.

Earthquakes and tsunamis became increasingly more frequent as the continents approached each other. As the ocean shrank, the water had nowhere to go and flooded the land. Entire coastal regions were wiped out.

Mass hysteria and evacuations reigned. As the overcrowding began, people became incredibly defensive of their property. My parents moved me to the country, where it seemed that many others were flocking as well. My father, who had been an even-tempered and calm man before the recent events, was now faced with the dilemma of how to protect his family from looters and vagrants. He soon resorted to setting booby traps around the pitifully small plot of land and guarding the front door with a shotgun, leaving the back door blockaded.

Throughout the calamity, I remained inside. Being the sheltered teenager I was, I was convinced this would all blow over. Nothing in my life had ever been a real issue; thanks to my parents’ secretive trades and hushed bribes, my actions had always lacked repercussions. I had no concept of consequences.

As I lay in my room marvelling at the news, the world fell around me. Buildings collapsed, fires spread, and the ground shook. And, most significant of all, the chasms appeared.

Great cracks opened in the Earth, splitting the ground with thunderous roars. I watched, awestruck, from my room, as millions of people fell into the dirt beneath them on my television. In only the most impoverished of countries, entire populations were consumed by the planet.

The oddest thing was that the abysses into which they fell appeared to be hollow.

This seemed impossible; surely, with the world becoming increasingly small and dense, the interior would be entirely composed of compressed matter? However, the evidence was before us; the Earth had become hollow. Defeated and desperate for survival, we stopped looking for an explanation.

Soon, all of the great chasms had closed. Life on Earth was becoming more hellish every day. My idyllic, sheltered life broke down when my house did; as I ran out in the middle of the night during an earthquake, my hopes for the future crashed around my feet along with my home and possessions.

My parents and I have been forced to live by surviving, gathering whatever food we can and looting whenever we reach civilization. The Earth seems to have stopped shrinking, but earthquakes and natural disasters still render it impossible to maintain any structure. Anarchy reigns, and I know that my violent death is imminent.

Everyone seems to have resigned themselves to the fact that humanity is doomed. But I still have hope for our species. So I am writing my story on a laptop I looted in the hopes that one day, someone will read it and correct the mistakes we made.

I know it was our fault. This isn't an accident. The poor, dying people, they weren’t eaten by the Earth; they were saved. Something in me knows that they are down there, living with the care and resources they so desperately needed and we refused to give them. It is us, the privileged, who must now suffer on the surface.

If the Earth ever returns to its original size, and life is allowed to begin again, I hope this story will still exist somewhere in the mysterious dimensions of the Internet. If future generations stumble upon this, please, please listen to me. Don’t let this happen again.

Reviews

[ZackOfBridge]

I liked the first part a lot, felt like it had a lot of promise and originality. But the story sort of tapered off at the paragraph that starts, "Throughout the calamity, I remained inside..."
I think what I liked about the first part is that it is so matter of fact and yet humorous in a way. You may not have even intended for this to be a humorous story, but the content of the story cannot really be read any other way. The first part of this story had an exquisite strangeness to it, something refreshing to see on the Cafe. I will be reading more of your work.