Original Work: Natural Takeover
Dec. 28th, 2004 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarisiaTitle: Natural Takeover
Rating: PG
Summary: The earth has gone through some changes. A man that's been roused from a cryogenic sleep must learn to accept the differences.
"Earth is different now."
The woman looked up from her basket and stared at him for a moment. Clay wasn't surprised; they were his first words since he'd woken. His voice was raspy from disuse, something else that didn't surprise him, as he'd been put into a cryogenic chamber fifty years ago.
The woman, Leslie, hadn't been the first person to see him when he woke, but she took care of him now... taught him things, but she was a very quiet person. Often, he wanted to choke her for being so mysterious. Now, she nodded at him, agreeing with what he said.
"Yes, she is. Very different."
There were plants everywhere, growing on everything. When had everything gone into such disarray? When had humans let the planet overrun itself? There used to be an order to everything.
"I remember buildings and cars," Clay went on. "There were people everywhere. This place wasn't so wild."
Leslie heard the distaste in his voice and motioned for him to sit. "Be happy that you're still alive. You're lucky that the chamber worked at all after the storm." At his puzzled glanced, she made a little 'ah' sound and went on. "That's right. You'd already been frozen before it happened."
"What did happen?" His voice grated harshly and he winced. She handed him a flask and he drank the warm honey-water inside. "I've heard the old men talking."
"Oh, they're always talking, talking, talking," Leslie chided with a laugh and brushed her silvered hair from her eyes. "They never learned anything from what happened and they never will. But you..." She smiled at him warmly. "You were given new life in this world. Don't defile your new chance by worrying about what happened."
Leslie shooed him back to town and he didn't see her again until the next day. She came into the hospital - a short string of rooms in what he thought might have been a library - and she was humming as she started to make a meal for him. She did not strike up a conversation.
"Are you ever going to tell me anything?" he demanded.
"About what, dear?" she asked calmly.
"About what happened. When I woke, I was told that you would tell me what I needed to know. I was told that you would teach me." He ignored the bowl of food that she held out for him.
"I've done what's required of me, Clay. I've told you the rules that apply to the world now. We take care of the earth. We do not litter or use the land excessively. We do not build technology that will pollute or damage the earth in any way. Ask of Her first and we receive; steal and we are punished." She set the food aside and the wooden bowl hit the table with a sharp clatter. "It's all you need to know to survive. Follow all those rules and you will stay alive."
She started to walk out of the room and he yelled out to her. "But I don't know what the rules mean!"
Clay's voice cracked at the very end and he fell back into the bed with his hand at his throat. The burn was excruciating. What he would give for some Tylenol! A warm compress pressed against his throat and warm-honey water dripped into his mouth. He swallowed obediently.
"You're a very stubborn young man. You must have been born in the city," Leslie said.
He nodded. "New York."
She shushed him. "You mustn't use your voice. You've been straining it enough as it is, chatting up the young lady that visits you every morning." She sighed. "I'm getting very old and it seems that I'm the only one that remembers what happened for what it really was. Come now. I must tell you a story and this is no place to tell it. Just follow me and don't speak."
Leslie led him away from the town toward a loose gathering of trees. Sunlight streamed through the leaves so that the clearing glowed with a strange yellow-green light. Vines crawled up the bark of trees and the metal of lamp posts alike. She made him sit on a small bench and drink more honey-water before settling herself down for a good story.
"Before..." She paused, smiled... "Before you went into cryostasis, the world was large. Vast. The population of people was somewhere around six billion... something like that. Technology was advancing further and further. We were exploring nearby worlds and trying to discover ways to stretch our lifespans. I was barely an adult then, but I remember that the environment, while being a concern of many, was simply not in the forefront of our minds.
"There were recycling plants and communities that took it upon themselves to plant so many trees each year, of course, but the battle against pollution and the harvesting of forests was hardly a battle at all. It was a pebble against Godzilla." She mused for a moment and wistfully mentioned that Godzilla had been a good movie.
"We definitely should have paid more attention to the Earth and her needs. It was a given that, soon, everything would come back and bite us in the ass. Soon, raw materials would run out; oil would become more precious and trees would become hard to find. Soon would never be now. No, no. The threat was always there, approaching, but it would never arrive. We weren't afraid of any repurcussions just yet, but we should have been.
"It started off small. Changes in temperature. Summers would get hotter and hotter where winters would pass without snow for years. Then, the oceans changed. Hurricanes. Nations would spend billions on helping others after each natural disaster when we really should have been preparing for the next one to strike.
"It all started coming at us, too fast for us to really react. People started dying in the thousands... millions... It was as if it kept building momentum, kept getting stronger with every day that passed. All around the world people were calling it Judgement Day. There were just as many who, like me, saw it as something else.
"Earth was reclaiming itself.
"Like out of a movie or a book, Mother Nature rose up, angry with how we'd used and abused every part of her we could get our hands on, and crashed upon us. Many survived her assault. Some I really think shouldn't have been allowed to live. The rules that I told you earlier were learned after the storm.
"Despite the damage that she had inflicted upon us, it was only to wipe the slate clean. She was awake now and was keeping a careful eye on us. Those that watched like she did soon saw that those that littered weren't in their beds the next morning or the morning after that. Those that cut down trees and rooted up grass without reason vanished. Those that killed others were chased away by animals and eaten.
"Once, a young lady and a mother of two children found a working truck and suggested that it might be used to carry us in search of other people. The truck took us to the next grouping of people, but refused to start the next day even though a mechanic told us it was in perfectly good working condition.
"Then we started to learn our lessons. We tried very hard not to hurt the earth in anyway. We discovered that we were allowed to grow and harvest foods from an elderly man, whose home and garden had remained perfectly intact throughout the series of storms. Now, we live like this."
Leslie gestured to the area around them. "Mother Nature has reclaimed the land and there is a sort of harmony now. With each month that passes, we are given gifts. Food, animals, technology... and people." She patted his leg. "I think that there is a gravity to the life we live now. Thought must be given to every action that we do. Unlike our previous lifestyle, we can't do what we want and take what we want. Do you understand?"
Clay nodded. "I understand. I understand that you people have wasted your lives in fear."
"What?"
"How can you live like this?" he asked. "Nature is a force of this world, yes, but it has no mind. It does not attack people or make them vanish simply because they tossed something onto the ground. Everything that your people saw was because of a coincidence. Mother Nature," he said with a sneer, "won't kill me because I yank up a few handfuls of grass.
To make a point, he leaned over and pulled up some grass. "See?" He held the grass and dirt in Leslie's face. "Nothing's happening to me." He bent down and began pulling up grass by the roots, throwing the bits and pieces to the side as he dug. "You live with an irrational fear, nothing more."
"Clay." She reached for him. "Clay, stop it. Please. Stop! Don't do this!"
"You have to understand!"
The forest went deathly still. Clay realized that Leslie's face was wet with tears. She took his hands and pulled him back to his seat. "Listen to me," she said. "I know that this is difficult for you to understand."
"You don't know anything. You're living with fear."
"Shh, shh. Quiet now and listen to me. When we found you, there were three other chambers, three other people who were woken one at a time. Each of them were given to me to teach. I was assigned to incorporate each of you into this new world because I am the one who knows what life was like before the storms. Each of them refused to believe me and now they are gone. You are the only other one who could understand the changes that this world has gone through, but now you must fix what you have done to Her." She gestured to the gaping hole in the earth.
"You can't possibly think that I -"
"You must," Leslie hissed. "She's already got her eye on you. Can you sense it?"
Clay cast her an skeptical look. "Sense it?" he repeated.
"Oh, were we always so close-minded and critical?" she asked the silent air. "The hair on the back of your neck and on your arms is standing on end. If you would listen, your gut is telling you that there is someone watching you at this very moment. Am I right?"
He closed his eyes and sighed. "No," he told her firmly. Then, a shiver, caused by a sudden icy coldness on his spine, gave him away. "Okay, yes."
"Fill in the hole again. Replace the grass. Water it." She set out a flask of water. "Oh, and apologize to her when she gets here. Good luck, kid."
"Wait, what?" Clay caught her picking up her skirts and hurrying away. "Why are you leaving?"
"Well, I'm not going to hang around. Now, quickly, get on with the repairs. The wind is picking up and she'll be here soon."
Grudgingly and still a bit skeptical about the whole thing, Clay started to fill in the hole again with the chunks of dirt and grass that he'd torn out. He kept the grass on top and emptied the flask of water over it. Then the rain started to pour and he grumbled about how he'd just wasted a flask of good water on a small patch of grass.
"It's just a rain storm," he muttered and tried to ignore the fact that he hadn't seen any clouds building up on the horizon all day.
"It's not just a rain storm," a voice next to him said. "It's my rain storm and I have to say that I'm more than pleased with it. You, on the other hand, have been disappointing, just like the others were." The voice sighed. "And I'd had such high hopes for all of you."
Rating: PG
Summary: The earth has gone through some changes. A man that's been roused from a cryogenic sleep must learn to accept the differences.
"Earth is different now."
The woman looked up from her basket and stared at him for a moment. Clay wasn't surprised; they were his first words since he'd woken. His voice was raspy from disuse, something else that didn't surprise him, as he'd been put into a cryogenic chamber fifty years ago.
The woman, Leslie, hadn't been the first person to see him when he woke, but she took care of him now... taught him things, but she was a very quiet person. Often, he wanted to choke her for being so mysterious. Now, she nodded at him, agreeing with what he said.
"Yes, she is. Very different."
There were plants everywhere, growing on everything. When had everything gone into such disarray? When had humans let the planet overrun itself? There used to be an order to everything.
"I remember buildings and cars," Clay went on. "There were people everywhere. This place wasn't so wild."
Leslie heard the distaste in his voice and motioned for him to sit. "Be happy that you're still alive. You're lucky that the chamber worked at all after the storm." At his puzzled glanced, she made a little 'ah' sound and went on. "That's right. You'd already been frozen before it happened."
"What did happen?" His voice grated harshly and he winced. She handed him a flask and he drank the warm honey-water inside. "I've heard the old men talking."
"Oh, they're always talking, talking, talking," Leslie chided with a laugh and brushed her silvered hair from her eyes. "They never learned anything from what happened and they never will. But you..." She smiled at him warmly. "You were given new life in this world. Don't defile your new chance by worrying about what happened."
Leslie shooed him back to town and he didn't see her again until the next day. She came into the hospital - a short string of rooms in what he thought might have been a library - and she was humming as she started to make a meal for him. She did not strike up a conversation.
"Are you ever going to tell me anything?" he demanded.
"About what, dear?" she asked calmly.
"About what happened. When I woke, I was told that you would tell me what I needed to know. I was told that you would teach me." He ignored the bowl of food that she held out for him.
"I've done what's required of me, Clay. I've told you the rules that apply to the world now. We take care of the earth. We do not litter or use the land excessively. We do not build technology that will pollute or damage the earth in any way. Ask of Her first and we receive; steal and we are punished." She set the food aside and the wooden bowl hit the table with a sharp clatter. "It's all you need to know to survive. Follow all those rules and you will stay alive."
She started to walk out of the room and he yelled out to her. "But I don't know what the rules mean!"
Clay's voice cracked at the very end and he fell back into the bed with his hand at his throat. The burn was excruciating. What he would give for some Tylenol! A warm compress pressed against his throat and warm-honey water dripped into his mouth. He swallowed obediently.
"You're a very stubborn young man. You must have been born in the city," Leslie said.
He nodded. "New York."
She shushed him. "You mustn't use your voice. You've been straining it enough as it is, chatting up the young lady that visits you every morning." She sighed. "I'm getting very old and it seems that I'm the only one that remembers what happened for what it really was. Come now. I must tell you a story and this is no place to tell it. Just follow me and don't speak."
Leslie led him away from the town toward a loose gathering of trees. Sunlight streamed through the leaves so that the clearing glowed with a strange yellow-green light. Vines crawled up the bark of trees and the metal of lamp posts alike. She made him sit on a small bench and drink more honey-water before settling herself down for a good story.
"Before..." She paused, smiled... "Before you went into cryostasis, the world was large. Vast. The population of people was somewhere around six billion... something like that. Technology was advancing further and further. We were exploring nearby worlds and trying to discover ways to stretch our lifespans. I was barely an adult then, but I remember that the environment, while being a concern of many, was simply not in the forefront of our minds.
"There were recycling plants and communities that took it upon themselves to plant so many trees each year, of course, but the battle against pollution and the harvesting of forests was hardly a battle at all. It was a pebble against Godzilla." She mused for a moment and wistfully mentioned that Godzilla had been a good movie.
"We definitely should have paid more attention to the Earth and her needs. It was a given that, soon, everything would come back and bite us in the ass. Soon, raw materials would run out; oil would become more precious and trees would become hard to find. Soon would never be now. No, no. The threat was always there, approaching, but it would never arrive. We weren't afraid of any repurcussions just yet, but we should have been.
"It started off small. Changes in temperature. Summers would get hotter and hotter where winters would pass without snow for years. Then, the oceans changed. Hurricanes. Nations would spend billions on helping others after each natural disaster when we really should have been preparing for the next one to strike.
"It all started coming at us, too fast for us to really react. People started dying in the thousands... millions... It was as if it kept building momentum, kept getting stronger with every day that passed. All around the world people were calling it Judgement Day. There were just as many who, like me, saw it as something else.
"Earth was reclaiming itself.
"Like out of a movie or a book, Mother Nature rose up, angry with how we'd used and abused every part of her we could get our hands on, and crashed upon us. Many survived her assault. Some I really think shouldn't have been allowed to live. The rules that I told you earlier were learned after the storm.
"Despite the damage that she had inflicted upon us, it was only to wipe the slate clean. She was awake now and was keeping a careful eye on us. Those that watched like she did soon saw that those that littered weren't in their beds the next morning or the morning after that. Those that cut down trees and rooted up grass without reason vanished. Those that killed others were chased away by animals and eaten.
"Once, a young lady and a mother of two children found a working truck and suggested that it might be used to carry us in search of other people. The truck took us to the next grouping of people, but refused to start the next day even though a mechanic told us it was in perfectly good working condition.
"Then we started to learn our lessons. We tried very hard not to hurt the earth in anyway. We discovered that we were allowed to grow and harvest foods from an elderly man, whose home and garden had remained perfectly intact throughout the series of storms. Now, we live like this."
Leslie gestured to the area around them. "Mother Nature has reclaimed the land and there is a sort of harmony now. With each month that passes, we are given gifts. Food, animals, technology... and people." She patted his leg. "I think that there is a gravity to the life we live now. Thought must be given to every action that we do. Unlike our previous lifestyle, we can't do what we want and take what we want. Do you understand?"
Clay nodded. "I understand. I understand that you people have wasted your lives in fear."
"What?"
"How can you live like this?" he asked. "Nature is a force of this world, yes, but it has no mind. It does not attack people or make them vanish simply because they tossed something onto the ground. Everything that your people saw was because of a coincidence. Mother Nature," he said with a sneer, "won't kill me because I yank up a few handfuls of grass.
To make a point, he leaned over and pulled up some grass. "See?" He held the grass and dirt in Leslie's face. "Nothing's happening to me." He bent down and began pulling up grass by the roots, throwing the bits and pieces to the side as he dug. "You live with an irrational fear, nothing more."
"Clay." She reached for him. "Clay, stop it. Please. Stop! Don't do this!"
"You have to understand!"
The forest went deathly still. Clay realized that Leslie's face was wet with tears. She took his hands and pulled him back to his seat. "Listen to me," she said. "I know that this is difficult for you to understand."
"You don't know anything. You're living with fear."
"Shh, shh. Quiet now and listen to me. When we found you, there were three other chambers, three other people who were woken one at a time. Each of them were given to me to teach. I was assigned to incorporate each of you into this new world because I am the one who knows what life was like before the storms. Each of them refused to believe me and now they are gone. You are the only other one who could understand the changes that this world has gone through, but now you must fix what you have done to Her." She gestured to the gaping hole in the earth.
"You can't possibly think that I -"
"You must," Leslie hissed. "She's already got her eye on you. Can you sense it?"
Clay cast her an skeptical look. "Sense it?" he repeated.
"Oh, were we always so close-minded and critical?" she asked the silent air. "The hair on the back of your neck and on your arms is standing on end. If you would listen, your gut is telling you that there is someone watching you at this very moment. Am I right?"
He closed his eyes and sighed. "No," he told her firmly. Then, a shiver, caused by a sudden icy coldness on his spine, gave him away. "Okay, yes."
"Fill in the hole again. Replace the grass. Water it." She set out a flask of water. "Oh, and apologize to her when she gets here. Good luck, kid."
"Wait, what?" Clay caught her picking up her skirts and hurrying away. "Why are you leaving?"
"Well, I'm not going to hang around. Now, quickly, get on with the repairs. The wind is picking up and she'll be here soon."
Grudgingly and still a bit skeptical about the whole thing, Clay started to fill in the hole again with the chunks of dirt and grass that he'd torn out. He kept the grass on top and emptied the flask of water over it. Then the rain started to pour and he grumbled about how he'd just wasted a flask of good water on a small patch of grass.
"It's just a rain storm," he muttered and tried to ignore the fact that he hadn't seen any clouds building up on the horizon all day.
"It's not just a rain storm," a voice next to him said. "It's my rain storm and I have to say that I'm more than pleased with it. You, on the other hand, have been disappointing, just like the others were." The voice sighed. "And I'd had such high hopes for all of you."
