Tevun-Krus #31 - Dying Earth

Earth Hub - a Short Story by @RoshelleD

Lies.

That was all the few hours left of Soraya's life had come down to.

Why this whole shitstorm started.

But no longer. No more sitting back doing nothing.

She rubbed the back of her neck, her gaze bouncing between the pair of gravestones. The gravesites had been plundered like the others that had been here for more than six months, most likely for jewelry and clothing. Soraya's steps were careful as she made sure her facemask was sealed, taking care to avoid the fallen bodies, on her way to the gray slabs. Their final resting place.

The scent of plastic was better than the noxious stench of death and fetid smell of destruction. The congealed blood oozing from their eyes and mouths told her this was a direct result of the Aterrota strain —a new super virus. At least their end had been quick. Better than the slow death Soraya and anyone left here on Earth had coming.

Which was why there wasn't much time.

Soraya's stomach churned. She wrung her gloved hands as her eyes burned with unshed tears. She put down the piece of paper. One last letter to her mother and sister.

"I'm sorry." Her voice broke as a lump formed in her throat and she tried to speak past it. "I never meant for this to happen to you."

Movement out of the corner of her eye made her jump up. They were probably already here. Or maybe it was the paranoia at work. Other than Mason, it had been her closest companion these days.

Damn them all.

The governments and heads of countries with their secret plots of mass genocide to lower the numbers. Something they thought would help the planet. They thought finding a new energy source would work too. Until they birthed the still unknown phenomenon which had been attracted to the Sun—the greatest mass in the solar system.

Was it dark matter? Some sort of black hole? Whatever it was had hurtled away from Earth, ultimately reaching a stable point near the Sun which accelerated the star's loss of fuel.

Then came the planetwide warming trend. It eventually killed the bees and also brought the ecosystem on the verge of collapse. With limited food stores and a water supply that dwindled by the day, you could stick a fork in it.

The Earth was done.

And as for the Sun; it was nothing but a dying star soaking up shitloads of hydrogen until the day it collapsed on itself—and them.

Either the Sun—or being stuck here on Earth—would kill them.

These days, one month was the optimistic time frame. The Earth, the Sun. Might as well choose between getting shot in the head or the heart.

And yet her superiors didn't want to cause panic so wanted to keep silent on that day eighteen months back. Soraya had been, looking through the floor to ceiling windows and out into space at the mix of black and red spots dancing on the Sun's surface. The lies had to stop. Which was why she had to fix it.

She'd dared to defy upper management. First by telling anyone she came across about what she'd seen. Then by using her own variation of their Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), an electromagnetic thruster capable of propelling a spaceship to triple digit speeds. She hadn't given a thought to all of the possible consequences.

Rather than arrest her as she'd expected, they'd decided on a different method of punishment. Another one of their lies.

That had been almost a year ago.

Soraya had closed her door behind her , ready to sit down to dinner and tell them about the new initiative she'd proposed to conserve water. Her stomach jumped in her throat along with the bile when she saw the men in suits holding guns to Mom and Ceci's heads. Panic took over.