“Earth used to be a beautiful green planet, with wild animals the likes you’ve never seen. Giraffes that stood eighteen feet tall, and Elephants weighing close to ten tons, whales’ whose size is impossible to describe and spectacular to see. Animals of all shapes, sizes, and colors, some the sizes of building and others so small you’d need a magnifying glass to see. Carnivores, herbivores, omnivores and there was food, endless amounts of food. Thousands of pounds of it were wasted every year. And there were trees and grass and plants everywhere. There were vast oceans, filled with creatures unlike any others.” At these times my great grandmother would cry. She would cry for the lost beauties and bounties of her youth.... “But there were those who knew better, who stockpiled food for years, freezing it and collecting live stock. Enough for them to survive for hundreds of years without needing aid. Occasionally we see them running around on the outside attempting to revive the ones who were not so lucky. Living deep under the surface of the earth they are considered traitors of the government for abandoning the population.”

In the year 2096 the earth is dying. The once molten center is cooling rapidly and all of earth’s resources are completely depleted. And the people of that planet must rely on the other planets in their universe for resources. The moon being torn apart for the scant water to be found there that is then shipped to Pluto for purification. Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus mined for precious minerals while the greatest minds our world had to offer are on the surface of Saturn trying to find a way to saving our dying planet. And the wealthy are on Mars awaiting the news that they can return home. News that will probably never come. All the few animals that could be saved are being taken care of under the surface of Neptune and the trees and other plants are being grown on Uranus until they are mature enough to be shipped back to earth on the three year rocketship ride along with the precious oxygen that had been collected during the growth..
Less than a million people are left on the planet. The population that has survived are in small cities of several thousand each securely encased in metal and glass to keep out the toxic air while synthetic oxygen is pumped inside. Outside of those protective walls are the unlucky ones, the ones with leprosy, cancers, and mutations caused by toxic air and waste, poisoned food, radiation and diseased animals. Those who are forced to live in the deserts and scavenge what they can from the landfills that cover most of the land. And each year the cities dig deeper into the ground to be closer to the dying heat of the core and the dirt gets drier. Our sun has been dying for ages now, only being kept alive by throwing what flammables can be found into it. We won’t have much longer before the sun goes out and our hope of saving the earth and mankind are extinguished forever.
My brothers and I are the last few children who believe these stories. Most parents don’t approve of my grandmother’s stories calling them fairy tales and berating us for filling our head with such garbage, perhaps I would listen to them if I didn’t wish so desperately for the stories to be true. We are also the last few children with old world names.
My name is Aiden, I’m fifteen years old, mother of six, and I am the last girl in our town. Outside of our home my brothers, Collins and Mason, twelve and seventeen, refuse to go by their christened names and I refuse to answer anything but. Having an old world name makes it easier to think that the things my grandmother says really did happen and aren’t just the fairy tales adults tell us they are.
Marriage as it once was is just a myth now, now it isn’t about love, it’s about surviving and love is a joke. There used to be two of us, females, but then my best friend Nyx Nova, in doing her duty to the species, became gravely ill during her pregnancy and died. And so now I am alone, the only girl left in this god-forsaken village on this goner of a planet. Nursing mine and Nyx’s various children scattered throughout out settlement, II am thoroughly miserable and if it weren’t for my children and duties to my family I would have run out of our cramped little world and let the unlucky ones have me.
Nyx made things easier, she always dreamt of going to Neptune to see the animals of the old world or Uranus to see the last giant trees in our galaxy. She would always sit with me as we would listen to my grandmother’s stories. We would stay up late into the night creating different lives on different planets. We held each other and cried after our first time and named our first born after each other and I held her in my arms as she died.
Without Nyx I feel empty and any joy in my life is dulled. When I see her young children so much the likeness of her my heart aches…
I wake up in a dark room, some man’s arm around me, and my usual disgust for myself rears its head momentarily. I gently lift the man’s arm and climb out of bed, dress quickly and step into the second room of my small house to see twelve children curled about each other on the floor, six mine six Nyx’s, little Slate, Zen and Tethys gripping each other tightly even in sleep. Seven and Nash using each other as pillow, the oldests Nyxin and Aden, Xavier and Zander sleeping head to foot, and Zeratul, Tassadar, and Epsilon literally piled on top of one another. My children and her children all piled together life-long companions and best friends, Nyx would’ve been dizzy with joy and more smug looking then anyone though inside she would be worrying just like i was.
Stepping outside I look up at the early morning sky and my stomach drops through me feet. The sun is huge filling the sky, bloated and swollen and red as blood today was the end. My heart wrenched painfully in conflicting emotion-I was relieved and over-joyed that my children would not have to live the same life I did that they could just be children, but my heart twisted painfully for the fact that this would be my last day with them, possibly the last hour. Tears silently streaked down my face.
I was distracted from my morbid meditation by a gently yank on my skirt, liNash had followed me outside. I grabbed his thin two year old arms that should have been chubby with youth and nurishment and swung him up into my arms making him squeal with laughter.
“Mamma, what’s wrong with the sun?” he asked me quietly and I could tell he was scared. He was shying away from it, hiding his face in my neck.
“The sun is dying baby, it’s about to go away,” as I spoke I watched as the throbbing sun pulled in on itself, concentrating into a smaller more powerful star.
I hid Nash’s face against my neck as the sun exploded. I could see the waves of sound and energy coming off of it and a few minutes later I felt it shake the earth. “This is the end” I spoke these words as the world went dark and cold, clutching my son against me my other hand rubbing my stomach in comfort of the life that had just barely started.