Chapter II: Dead Continents

More about the world in the year 2249.

          I awoke to the morning sunlight trickling in through the window of my bedroom. Cheerful birdsong came from the branches of the trees outside. There was a moment of pure, welcome peacefulness before the memory of the previous night crashed down over me like a wave breaking on the shore. The pool again. The stars. My mother. Damn, I thought. I shoved the memory roughly from my mind, pushed off the covers, and got out of bed.

          8:00 in the morning. Aunt Mary and my cousin, Leigha, were downstairs debating over where we would go for breakfast. Not wishing to join their conversation, I moved over to the black metal desk in the corner of the room and picked up my electronic tablet. It blinked to life at my touch.

          "News, today," I murmured to it, and the screen filled with news headlines and snapshots. I focused my eyes on one that looked mildly interesting and said "open." The text of the article popped up and I began to read.

Radioactivity in Dead Continents Decreasing

 

          It has now been a century and a half since the end of the Third World War, and those continents that were made uninhabitable (North America, Europe, Asia, and parts of South America) from the radiation of nuclear warheads are finally becoming inhabitable again.

          "Some areas of these continents are now completely safe," said scientist George King. "There is no reason why people can't start moving back."

          After the war, the 800 million surviving humans fled to Africa and Australia, which remained largely undamaged by radiation. Now it looks like they can begin to disperse again, back to the "Dead" continents where many of their origins lie.

          Scientist Joel Marbunk has some food for thought regarding the issue:

          "The last major war we had, nine out of every ten people were killed, and most of those still living were forced out of their homes. So someone tell me, why are we so eager to have another one?"

          It was true: we were on the brink of a fourth World War. I didn't usually keep track of world news, but I knew that the mounting tensions were about whether it was humane to perform genetic experiments on organisms with near-human intelligence to possibly see the effects they would have on humans. Aunt Mary and Leigha were pro-natural, against the expiramentation, but most people in our African city were pro-advancement.

 

          "Off," I whispered to the tablet, and the screen wiped itself blank. I set it back in its place on my desk and went downstairs.

 

          Aunt Mary was searching for the key to her hovercar in various kitchen drawers, the curls of her flaming red hair tamed back into a ponytail, while Leigha leaned against the counter, watching her mother with an expression of moderate amusement. Apparently, someone had won the argument over where we were eating.

 

          "We're going to that new little caffie they built underground," Leigha told me. She had shoulder-length dirty blond hair, and we were the same age. "Caffie" was the popular term for café, coined because once almost all writing was done electronically, the little accent over the "e" became too hard for people to use when they typed. I wasn't that big on new slang words; I only knew about this one because it had been around since I was a little kid. I moved to lean on the counter beside Leigha to watch Aunt Mary's increasingly frantic attempts to find the key. When she moved into the living room to check under the couch cushions, Leigha turned to appraise me with her soft blue-green eyes.

 

          "Didn't you wear those some clothes yesterday?" she asked.

 

          "Um. . . ." I'd forgotten to change into pajamas when I got back last night, and this morning I'd just rolled out of bed. This, more than anything else, forced me to realize what a mess I was becoming. I ran back up to my room and threw on some fresh clothes, taking back my spot beside Leigha in less than two minutes.

 

          "Found it!" Aunt Mary announced, and we were off.

 

          The hovercar was fairly small, just large enough for all three of us to be comfortable riding in it. It was technically licensed to Aunt Mary, but none of us drove it. Very few people had manually-driven automobiles anymore. She typed the name of the caffie into the GPS and the electromagnets fired up, lifting the car about forty feet off the ground, and it proceeded to carry us smoothly through the city without guidance from any of us. If someone wanted go somewhere without the aid of computerized steering, one had to learn how to operate a jetpack. They were my preferred mode of transportation, but neither Aunt Mary nor Leigha were good at flying free.

 

          My jetpack. I wished I had it on now so I could soar high over the city as fast as I dared, no limits on what I could do except my own fears. The city was a beautiful place to fly over and just watch the buzz of activity down below. The sound of the people below filled my ears over the whir of the hovercar's engine, but I knew that the others could hear nothing of it.

 

          I sighed. Before that thought, I'd almost felt normal today. I didn't want to be so aware of everything all the time with these superior senses, and I definitely wanted to get rid of these insane nighttime urges.

 

          I looked out at the wonderful city, attempting to regain what I'd lost, but it was hopeless. I could count every individual blade of grass in the park without squinting. And now people would start moving away from my beloved city, back to their own Dead continents. This place had started out as a refuge, but over the years, it had become out home. How could anyone even dream of going back to the Dead World?

Author's Note

Did I capture the emotion right? Thanks for reading.

Reviews

[Katie de Lavani]

I agree with CholeKirk, the small details of how café became caffie. The emotion is just right, not getting too in depth or not giving us enough. Its just enough to give us the image of how us, the readers would see it if we were in the story. I'll be looking for your next chapter.

[ChloeKirk]

Very cool! First of all I like how you made it "the future" without hitting us over the head with it. It's just the time and place she lives in and you don't make a deal over it, but you do manage to provide enough exposition to let us know when and where and how and why this is going on. Second of all it's the little details that really shine through, like how people spell it Caffie cause it's hard to hit the accent key. Thirdly, you've made me curious for the next chapter :)