xxx.

the future is just a remake of the past

It’s the year 2179, the future. 

There’s been a big war, and everything is different. North America is split up into 10 major cities, and everything else has been left wasted or growing unchecked. 

Outside of Compound 9, a district reliant on and famous for its proximity to the Capitol City, there is a dense range of forest. Mountains. 

There are old buildings which were abandoned during the second rash of bombings; a college campus, a science facility, a few cellphone towers. The native flora has subsequently invaded and overtaken these structures, covering them with lichen and vine, breaking through the once-solid foundations with sturdier roots. 

No one comes to the abandoned city in the forest. 

Almost no one. 

Crest Colton likes to venture into the deeper parts of the forest, though. He’s young and wild and extremely curious. 

He wants to see the great rusted skeletons of the morons who ran the Old Country into the ground. 

Crest brings girls to the abandoned city sometimes, ones who say they’re brave enough. What they really mean, though, is that their desire outweighs their fear. Crest doesn’t usually talk to them or offer to bring them again. 

Today, Crest has gone further in than he’s ever gone before, through what used to be a neighborhood. There are swing-sets and mailboxes, even a laundry line with one lone, tattered sheet still valiantly fluttering in the breeze. 

Crest stops inside one of the houses that’s still mostly standing and checks himself out in a dirty mirror. 

The tribal ink on his face was a good choice, he thinks again; it makes him look tough and mysterious. That is what he thinks, anyhow. 

Crest pushes his messy brown hair back from his forehead and examines the thin scratches on his cheeks, most likely from stray branches on the trip here. 

He grins cheekily at his reflection, then struts out of the abandoned house and into the woods behind it. 

The world is not so different from the way it was, not really. There are still cars and politicians and jobs and all of those things. Life is more regulated, though, and there is a long list of things which any citizen of any Compound Must Not Do. 

The Compound that Crest lives in, number 9, is like the other ones; clean and fresh and shiny, like a new toy fresh out of its blister pack. Everything is manmade, the parks and the gardens and even the changes in terrain at any given point. 

People are given what they need, and what they want. Nobody gets sick. Everyone is happy. 

Those who are not happy are dealt with quietly and swiftly. Efficiency is the religion of the day, science its master. 

Crest finds some bones in a small clearing in the woods; human, by the looks of it. He stoops down, squatting to try and get a better look. 

There is a skull, small with good teeth, and what seems to be a femur and part of a hand. 

It’s not so strange to find bones in the outlying territories, but something about these bones makes Crest think for a nanosecond about turning around and going home. Maybe playing some games with his buddies, taking a pretty girl out to the observatory. 

“Stop touching those,” comes a little voice from behind him. 

He is startled, which makes his cheeks heat with shame and anger for a moment. How did someone sneak up on him?

“I said, stop touching those!” says the voice, louder and with a distinct note of distress now coloring the timbre. Crest stands up, feels his knees pop and crackle, and turns to face the adamantly annoying stranger. 

But, oh. 

Oh. 

It’s a girl, a girl wearing a plain white frock and no shoes. She has long, long tawny hair and a spray of freckles across her nose. 

She’s short, perfectly proportioned like a fashion doll’s teenaged sister. 

She has very big, clear eyes, eyes the color of the mossy woods surrounding them both. 

When Crest recovers his tongue and his wits, the girl is smiling, but only just. 

“Who are you, anyway? You don’t look like you live in the Compound. Are you a runaway?” he asks. She doesn’t look like a runaway. Her dress is pristine and she looks freshly scrubbed. 

The girl shakes her head and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. Her toenails, Crest notices, are a very glossy crimson. 

“Are you a runaway? I don’t think I’ve seen you before, but then again, I haven’t seen much of anyone in a long time.” she sighs. The puff of air she makes causes her lips to curl in a very attractive way. 

The sun is still high, Crest can see through the lattice of tree branches above, but he feels like he wants to get out of here before dusk. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, so she fills in the silence. 

“Before you, the last person I saw was some kind of scientist, I think.” she hops up onto a fallen tree, walks the length and back like a tightrope-walker. “And before that, it was soldiers, and before that, it was more scientists. . .anyhow, like I said, it’s been ages since anyone’s been here.” 

Crest thinks he must have hit his head, that he’s dreaming this. What kind of girl is she, wandering around dangerous outlying woods with no shoes and no protection? He finds his voice  again, pleased that when he speaks it doesn’t quaver. 

“How old are you?” he asks, trying to guess mentally before she answers. 

“Hmm. Well, let’s see. . .carry the one. . .I think I’m 187? I haven’t celebrated my birthday in forever.” 

A bird darts in and out of the clearing, its wings beating furiously, chirping and chasing some insect or other. 

A breath catches in Crest’s throat, seems to echo through the forest around them. 

“Are you--? I mean, did you---” he fumbles and searches for the right words “Are you one of the people they did the Infinitum testing on?” he finishes finally. 

Infinitum was the forever-drug. It was supposed to stop physical aging completely, thus allowing the user to live as long as they wanted. 

The girl scrunches her nose, her rabbitty little nose, and shakes her head. 

“I think I know what you mean, but no, no one’s done any tests on me. I don’t think they can even see me. I’m surprised you can.”

The way she says it implies that he is less-than. He feels himself frowning at the thought.

He is young and strong, handsome and capable and clever; if anything, he is much, much more-than. 

“If you haven’t figured it out, I might as well just tell you,” she sing-songs cheerfully. “I’m not even a person anymore. I’m dead.” 

It comes out so matter-of-factly, as though she has just said “I’m having pizza for dinner,” or “I got an A on my Calculus test”. Crest is not as surprised as he thinks he maybe should be. 

Why can’t there be ghosts in this brave new world? Is there no room between all the circuits and clean white plastic for a little Old World phantasmagoria? 

After a silence that lasted perhaps a beat too long, Crest smiles and sticks out his hand to the girl. 

“I’m Crest,” he offers. 

“Emilia,” she replies, taking his hand briefly in her own small one. It feels like shaking hands with someone who’s not quite solid. Crest isn’t sure how to describe it. It’s warm and sends a strangely sweet tingle through him. 

Twin spots of color have bloomed in Emilia’s cheeks, and he realizes she is fighting the urge to smile. 

It must have been very lonely up here by herself for such a long time. 

He wonders how she died. 

He thinks of asking her, but decides against it. She’ll tell him if she wants to. 

They sit on the fallen log together and talk until the sun goes down, about everything and anything. 

When dusk has settled, he spreads the blanket from his utility pack out on the forest floor and lets her rest her insubstantial form against him. Crest drifts off feeling the pleasant almost-weight of her in his arms. 

When he wakes up, there is no one in the forest but him. 

A bird sings, way up high in the treetops. 

Crest goes home knowing he’ll be coming back to these woods again. 

Every single day until she reappears. 

He cannot shake the feeling of waking alone. 

Author's Note

r&r please, let me know if you've got any ideas for how they will reincarnate or time hop? :D

Reviews

[Mark Emerson]

*cries* omg i cant take it where do you come up with these i cant even suggest anything cuz its so good so far

[Rhiannon]

Ahh stop! thank you for such positive reviews, i appreciate them so much! You'll just have to wait and see...

[Mark Emerson]

Awww please I want to know now lol. Your a good writer keep up the good work if youwwouldnt mind I would like to add you as a friend?