Interitus

"Si nos can non take tutela of orbis terrarum, tunc nos operor non mereo mereor vivo in is." -If we cannot take care of the world, then we do not deserve to live in it.

He stood on the metal panel, staring out over the barren wasteland.

 

Nothing moved.

 

Ever since the Great Dying of 2100, any animal bigger than a dog was a rare sight, but now, over two hundred years later, one was lucky to see a butterfly. He ran a hand through his hair, wincing as his identity tag caught in his tangled curls. BD3745. That was all he was. A few letters and numbers thrown together and clapped around his wrist. That was all anyone was.

 

He turned around to face the gigantic dome that rose up from the polluted ocean, casting its huge shadow over ravished shores. The early warning signs for the Great Dying had been detected over a century before, and yet the world ignored it. The temperature continued to rise, the weather extremes continued to devastate the cities, food and water supply levels continued to fall, and it wasn’t until the extinction had already claimed over a million species that they could no longer ignore the fact that Homo sapiens would not be immune. It was only when the rapid decline in population passed all hope of salvation that the fully sealed, self-contained Floating City had been built as a final, desperate option. And after decades of frantic construction, the Floating City was finally ready to be boarded.

 

By the last remnants of the human race.

 

BD3745 was one of four thousand and eighty-nine who lived in the Floating City. He was also one of the fifty who knew that it was not the self sustaining haven it claimed to be. No, the rushed construction of the Floating City had left it with an astronomical consumption rate, and for fuel they used, well, everything. The Floating City was floating for a reason. It travelled around the shores of the continents, using anything it could find. The forests had been all destroyed long ago, and now the fuel collectors took any remains of the once great civilisation that could be used to run the generator, without any concern for what it released into the atmosphere. The collectors were the only people who knew the truth about the city.

 

BD3745 was one of them.

 

A humourless smile tugged at the corners of his mouth; saving a race that was endangered due to their destruction of the environment, by further destroying the environment. His grandfather had once told him that before the Floating City, the atmosphere hadn’t been so deadly. Back then, people had freely walked and lived in the open air. But now he was already sweating profusely, already feeling lightheaded from his few minutes spent in the Outside. He took a deep breath, feeling the acrid air burn his lungs. It wouldn’t be much longer before the poisons would begin to shut down his nervous system.

 

He stepped off the wing of his plane and onto the relatively small titanium structure that protruded from the dome. It would at least half an hour before the others noticed him missing during their salvaging of the place that had once been called “New York.” He began to walk toward the small gap between two plates that was the only unprotected access to the structure, casting a glance as he walked at the pale yellow sunset smeared out across the dull gray sky. He had heard that once, a very long time ago, the sky had been blue. A long time before the Floating City.

 

His smile vanished. It had begun two centuries ago; it would end tonight.

 

Reaching the gap, he turned his shoulders and stepped in, squeezing through the small space. Slowly, he made his way deeper and deeper into the structure, until he was standing on a metal plate humming with the activity below that overlooked row after row of steel wire.

 

The internal circuits of the generator that ran the Floating City at the expense of everything else.

 

The city had been built to be indestructible, and very nearly was. There was only one weakness. It had taken years of crawling through records to find it, but he had, and he was standing there now.

 

BD3745 took another deep searing breath as he studied the circuits. They were uninsulated, a precaution deemed expendable in the rush construction since they were almost completely inaccessible. They were open, unprotected, vulnerable.

 

He took a few steps closer to the edge. With the amount of power in the wires, a single fault, a single short circuit would cause an explosion powerful enough to destroy the entire protective dome.

 

And there was no way a human body could fall onto them without causing a short circuit.

 

A single act that would kill four thousand people. The last four thousand people.

 

After all these years they still hadn’t learned, still devastated the environment, and would continue to do so until it was beyond all hope of recovery. This way the Earth had a chance.

 

The mission of the Floating City was to ensure the survival of the human race, and tonight it was going to fail.

 

“Si nos mundum curare non possumus, tum in eo non deservimus habitare,” he whispered in the ancient language that he had learnt from the old paper books.

 

If we cannot take care of the world, then we do not deserve to live in it.

 

He jumped.

Author's Note

"Interitus" is the Latin word for extinction. The phrase at the end is also Latin.

This is something I wrote for an English assignment that had to be about a current affair. I am actually a bit skeptical about Climate Change, but I believe that regardless of whether or not it prevents our planet's destruction, reducing pollutions levels and carbon emissions must be beneficial in itself. Or in no way not harmful at the very least.

Reviews

[Weaver]

comma after "Great Dying of 2100"
"you were lucky to see a butterfly" - awkward - "you" suggests that the narrator is addressing the reader directly, and that jars with the next sentence. Try rewording this one.
comma after "over a century before"
"The temperature continued to rise..." - good use of repetition throughout this sentence
"Homo Sapiens" - "Homo sapiens" - italicize
"rapid decline in population" - And if this had happened a century earlier, maybe the planet could have been saved. (We hit 7 billion this July - scary, ain't it?)
"self contained" - "self-contained"
"By the last remnants of the human race" - GOOD use of sentence fragment as separate paragraph
Why are you italicizing the protagonist's ident number?
period, not comma, after "floating for a reason"
This city is floating on the ocean - why are they not using sea water for hydrogen fuel?
period, not comma, after "corners of his mouth"
"saving a race that was endangered due to their destroying of the environment, by further destroying the environment" - "Saving a race that was endangered by their destruction of the environment, by further destroying the environment"
"But now, now he was already" - either replace comma with ellipses or delete second "now"
"took a deep breathe" - "breath" ("breathe" is the verb form)
"It wouldn’t be much longer before the poisons incapacitated his nervous system" - If it's THAT serious, he'd already be having a lot more trouble than just light-headedness. Change "incapacitated" to something milder and the sentence is fine.
Don't put place names in quotes.
Some things to consider: How much disease is still around out there after this Great Dying? I know you're not saying that plagues caused the extinctions, but all those dead bodies would have been prefect breeding ground for all sorts of nasty bacteria and viruses. So, do your people out scavenging fuel have to wear any kind of biohazard gear, and if so, why don't they also have protection from the bad air? (If the air is so bad for them, why aren't they wearing masks, at the least?) The gene pool is too small to be wasting anyone. And if the forests are all gone, how are they getting oxygen to breathe? (Splitting it out of sea water would make sense, but if they did that, they'd have the hydrogen for fuel, so...) Algae cultures, perhaps?
Considering the bad air, I would think they'd have some kind of seal at the entrance to the city, even the place that contains the generators if people have to work there.
"there were almost completely inaccessible" - "they were"
"And there was no way a human body could fall onto them without causing a short circuit." - good foreshadowing, even though this is very close to the end of the story
I understand that you have written this as a cautionary tale, and as such it wouldn't NEED to have any of the things that people could actually do in such a situation to survive without continuing to wreck the planet, but it still seems too simplistic to have them do nothing but what they have always done in the past. A little more realism would, I think, give the warning more impact.

[Revolutionary]

Very cool science fiction wake up call.I love the references to the once blue sky.I find it hard to watch the sunset sometimes because of the aircrap.Sad to not enjoy the sunset.I also like the way it made you think about if the world was actually created for us.I don't think so,but there is millions who see it that way.

[Preeti]

I like your backstory of how the human race got in such a pickle. It was well crafted. The ending is a bit depressing. I got to say that it makes me a bit skeptical. Who is this one person to decide, to judge, that the human race is no longer worth preserving? This should either be explained (what's so special about him?) or the moral tension present here should/could be explored.
Some of your descriptions were kind of vague/unclear. For instance, I had to go back and read several times to get a picture of what exactly he was standing on and what sort of craft he was in. I think you should elaborate on the descriptions and make it crystal clear. Other than that, this was a nice piece to read.

[Alphachad]

Wow fabulous piece. It's dark and miserable, and politically engaging. I love it when people get the justice they deserve, even if they're the last of the human race hahahah.

"It would at least half an hour before the others noticed him missing." mayeb put a "be" somehwhere there? Aside from that its 100/100 for me :D

[Andrew Scorah]

Yes this is a good piece, man has an innate ability to learn lessons of the past and the present, so long as money can be made somewhere these lessons pass by unheeded,we will be our own end.

[Drako]

i saw this and wondered what it was about. so i decided to read it. upon beginning the story, i wondered where it was going. i found it interesting that the main character's name wasn't a name, just letters and numbers. up until the end, i was unsure of what would happen in this story. had i known what the title actually meant, i might have guessed at it. then again, i still would have been surprised. being of a religion in which i honor the earth, this story moves me. though not a fan of suicide, the idea that a man would sacrifice himself to give the earth a last fighting chance is a great one for me. i thoroughly enjoyed the read

[emily joe]

This is really good ! Me and my brother thouroughly enjoyed reading this.

[spence]

Hi there. I really like the idea of this dystopian short- it's the sort of thing that aqttracts me as a reader and motivates me as a writer, although it reads a little like a first draft/info overload in places.
There was a lot of info on the backdrop to the tale, but I felt that some of the moments in the present were vague. For example- I got the feeling that BD3745 was stood upon some sort of aircraft that has been commisioned to maintain the floating city, though it does not explicitly give detail, whereas there was a slight indulgence in the harsh reality in which humans had found themselves and the lessons 'we' had not learned.
I imagine that this short is borne from enough thought to fill a novel or novella and that is the cause of the condensed feel to it, but I think this deserves to be stretched out a little to give the reader a clear picture of this world.
I will not further patronise you with examples, but one thing occured to me during the opening that i think you may find useful- the term 'mass extinction' is used twice during the opening paragraphs and a scientific term for ancient events of this nature and extent are sometimes described as 'the great dying'. Hope this review is helpful and I will happily elaborate further upon request.
All in all i like the story a lot and I'm particularly like the latin tag line that turns out to be the final words spoken by the human parasites, but I reckon this deserves more attention. I'll give this a 75 for now, but I think it has greater potential- take care, spence

[NoneOfYourBusiness akaK..]

from the uprooted hearts in flux of today and minds scattered in mindless drives~I can see this future all too clearly~ gripping tale~

[Geralyn Miller]

Stunning work, hopefully not prophetic. I appreciate the use of Latin, nice to know I can occassionally use it.

[Cassiopia Summers]

Wow, this is a really good piece. I like the meaning within, and it slaps us in the face with good points. (: Good write.