Dear ..., 

I do not know when, where, or how this letter will be found but, I am writing it in the hopes that one day someone will get to read this. My name is Maeve and I do not know how to say this, but the in the year 2040 earth is hit with an asteroid. Earth is still intact, and some humans are still alive. If someone is reading this though you probably already know about the asteroid that came. For the sake of me telling my story let us pretend you do not know any thing about how it almost all ended. An asteroid came just like it did with the dinosaurs to hit a reset button on humanity, but this time it did not kill all an entire species. I do not know exactly how many of us are still alive, but not very many. I am not going to go into detail about how many people died because I must live with that idea every day for the rest of my life. I am writing this letter, so I will not be forgotten in history. I want people to know that I existed, and I want them to know about my family. Even with my desire for my family’s memories to be preserved, getting myself to write this down has been extremely difficult. It has been about six months since the asteroid came and my current living status is at an old house in the countryside where other kids with no living family members have been sent. The house is like a sanctuary for us while the world tries to put itself back together. Everyone in my family died from the incident. Do not get me wrong its beautiful here and I have been able to make friends with kids going trough the same thing, but I miss my family. I have been thinking about writing down some memories of my family for a long time but had not been able to bring up all that heartache. I didn’t have the courage to start writing until today. So, I will start with this first memory I remembered today as I was walking through the woods, behind the old house, as I passed a cherry blossom tree. I passed the tree with my eyes on the ground not knowing it was there until the light flowery smell caught up to me. I stopped and looked up to see the soft pink flowers in full bloom. As I stared at the tree, I felt tears hit my cheeks and slowly roll off. The smell of the flowers had brought back memories of my mother. She loved the smell of those flowers. At our small house we used to have in the countryside, much like the one I am in now, she had planted a single cherry blossom tree in the backyard. The tree was placed right outside the kitchen window so my mother could almost always see it. The single cherry blossom tree brought so much joy to her day it always amazed me. Spring became one of her favorite seasons because she could not wait to watch the tree transform. I never truly appreciated the trees beauty, until now. I thought she was crazy to get so much joy from a tree and I would always get so annoyed when she would talk about it to me. Now the tree and my memories are all I have left of her. I now see how truly beautiful the tree was and wish more than anything in the world I could be back with her now staring at the cherry blossom tree. It is ironic that I would find this tree so close to my new home but was extremely grateful for the bit of her that I now can go visit. I took the tree as a sign to start writing about my family. I would do anything to see my family again and reverse the damage the asteroid made both to the world and to families, but I cannot. This is my new reality and the only way I can preserve their memory is through these letters. I hope the future is brighter for you than it is for me right now. If you do have a family waiting for you at home, make sure to tell them you love them. We do not know how lucky we are until it is ripped away from us. You never know what the world will throw at you next, so enjoy everything about life’s little moments and treasure the time spent with your loved ones. This is only my first letter and I hope to continue writing about my family, but until then I hope you are well.

Sincerely,

Mauve