Desolation has a funny way of bringing new life in its wake, as she had thought many, many times. Just like how death is a natural part of life, the destruction of an entire society is never truly the end. Even if the world was reduced to ashes, there would still be the hand of life weeding its way through the immolation to begin again. No matter how often she found herself amongst the remains, she could only wonder how life managed to penetrate through it.
At least the world didn’t have to start over from scratch.
A clatter of stone echoed down the street as a piece of concrete tumbled along- bouncing irregularly over the cracks and broken slabs. The rock hit a faded metal octagon with a loud clank, and in response, a cheerful whoop echoed out from the source of the rock’s momentum. A girl, standing hardly higher than a young teenager, clapped in celebration of her precision shot. The giant slab of asphalt she was perched upon had been slanted by nearly 45 degrees, giving her a great overlook downward at the rest of the uneven terrain before her. The kick had launched the rock across thirty feet of crags and debris before knocking a dent just off-center of the sign of which the letters that had once painted it had washed away long before she arrived there.
With her successful golfing session out of the way, the girl hopped down several feet to the ground below her perched position and continued forward- resuming the hike that had brought her this far already. To her left sat a long, two-story complex of concrete, the drywall and wood of which had long since decayed away. Framing reminiscent of a spider’s web, which had once held up a magnificent skylight, had mostly collapsed into the remains of a fountain, all visible from where she stood through a gaping arch of an entrance. But the girl wasn’t looking at it. She had passed through this area many times. This was just a part of the terrain. Just as much as the towering half of a hundred-floor tower that stretched up to her right. The once-ridgid, precisely-planned repeating pattern of rectangular angles of reinforced concrete had been crumbled away into a complex latticework of what faintly resembled stone, surrounding the ghastly skeletons of rebar that tried in vain to hold the shape they had been designated to protect. Only now, the distant memory of a concrete stronghold had become home to a new kind of construction- one of nature, as vines, bushes, and even a large tree used it as support. Soil layered itself amongst every former floor of rock and metal, like a crumbling cake, and left a basis for seeds to grow. This is what the girl loved to look at as she walked the road she often did; she loved the way the sun reflected off the tree’s leaves hanging so high in the air, suspended dozens of stories from the ground many of its family called home. A flock of birds passed by the suspended tree, only to land in the nests they had made there, safe from any form of predators. A squirrel was barely visible, a dot scrambling up the long, creeping vines that had curled around most of the structure’s sturdier pillars that ran from the base to its severed peak.
The girl made her way towards the tower, the destination of her path every time she walked it. Maybe one day soon, she’d be ready to go further- but not today. Today, she was only going to the place she so frequently did. Many more experienced Seekers kept their time in taller buildings to a minimum, as the structural integrity could prove to be unpredictable and perilous to even the prepared and practiced climbers, but she felt herself irresistibly attracted towards the ruins. Animals found them an adequate home, and so too did she. As she pulled herself up the rope she had left behind, removing herself further and further from the rough ground below, she could feel the sun’s unfaltered rays warming her up the closer she got to the cloudless sky. The sea of blue above welcomed her approach, her vertical stroll perpendicular to the ground like she was walking to heaven. Upon reaching the middle of the tower’s muddled floors, she tugged herself up into it and paused to catch her breath, as well as get a nice view of the surroundings. No matter how many times she made this trek, or how high she climbed up the tower, she never grew tired of the view. Even halfway up, before she made it to her camp at the second-highest floor, the surroundings were incredible. She could see the former mall in its entirety- the thick jungle that filled its halls peeking through the cracks in the walls everywhere it could find them. The street she walked continued onward and branched off countless times, each branch eventually being lost in the grass and trees, or broken down so much that hardly anything remained to be called a street. Trees, bushes, foliage of all kinds surrounded the buildings that peeked up from the ground of shuffled chips of asphalt, like a glacier of plant life slowly overtaking everything in its path. She could see herds of deer trekking around the ground, joined by a number of smaller critters like rabbits and wildcats, all strewn out in their places across the reclaiming forest.
This was the only world the girl had ever known, born into it long after it had come this far. And even still, it was a world she found herself trekking through just for the sake of exploring, over and over again. For many of her family, this was nothing more than the way the world was. The colony she lived in had built themselves into a stable, safe, and comfortable part of the corpse of a city, and there they survived like scavengers picking away at bones and rotting flesh. Like bacteria cultivating life in the breakdown, flourishing life in places where death was absolute. That was what they were- bacteria, feasting on the remains of their own body. But for her, she found the world around her to be more than just the terrain she’s been living in. There was so much feeling there, that very few could understand.
She could see the echoes of people living there in the past, even if she had no memory or experience of the world when they were. Even if she would never know what these grand structures would have looked like in their prime, she could see it in her mind. She saw overturned tables that once sat objects of everyday interest, and destroyed cabinets that once stored things she could only imagine. Places where doors were fitted before they were washed away, roads that such advanced vehicles would drive up and down, over and over again, until they were worn of color. The vehicles that had once run so easily, so common amongst society that they were expected of everyone, now remained only as faint metal framework woven into the overgrowth, or buried partly in rubble and soil. So much of the terrain had been torn asunder by intense waves of energy, the plates of Gaia disassembling that which was built upon them as the world stretched, but she could still see how they had been arranged before. She could still hear the sounds of people talking to each other in the once-magnificent halls of these mysterious buildings, whose purpose had been lost to time. She could feel the panic and fear that seeped into the walls, from the people who had been none the wiser to the coming doom. And after all this time, here she stood. Standing where they once had, in buildings they built, looking at the same sky. Here she was, alive in a world only of memories, that she called her home. Here she was, staring down at the absence of the people before her, and feeling their lack of presence so strongly that she could almost see them around her.
And, in the same way she had entered her phase of reminiscence, she exited it again. Once again, she was back in the now. She had a destination to reach.
The girl soon found herself on top of the tower, staring down at the surroundings from a higher angle. The difference in perspective, however meager, made such a difference. The world felt so much bigger from up just a little higher, so much grander and full. At the same time, it felt so much emptier- there was so much more space for one little person like her to fill. She had been here so many times, and yet… it never failed to make her pause just for a moment to soak in the vastness of the world, to register just how small she was in comparison. How grand it must have been, she thought, to be a part of the world in its prime. How much smaller she would have been in a world even larger, yet so much fuller with life and presence of each person. A world where the individual is hardly recognized by society, and one could pass a million faces in their lifetime that they’d never know.
Just a floor below, under the shelter of the tower’s highest remaining floor, the girl’s camp had remained for many months. Sitting undisturbed, untouched by the rain and winds thanks to the concrete and foliage that shielded it. She had been there many times so far, repeatedly practicing the same methods and habits- the same survival tactics, and safety precautions. Hopefully, she thought, this would be the last time she’d stay the night in this camp during her training period. Hopefully, as she had hoped every one of the past seven times.
As she sat with her legs hanging over the edge of the tower, where a semblance of a window had once been, she cupped her hands together and placed her thumbs directly parallel to each other. Pressing them together just enough to leave a sliver of space between them, with the crease in her thumbs aligned, she lined up her bent knuckles to her lips and blew. A shrill, ringing whistle resonated from her hands, echoing long and far over the ruins around her. She could hear the sound reverberating from each of the hollow halls of the tower, reciprocated even in the distance by the streets and buildings as though they called back to her from their grave. Two short, lower-pitch whistles, one longer, higher-pitched one. She repeated the pattern, in reverse: two short, high-pitched whistles, then one longer, lower one. Low, low, high. High, high, low. The pattern repeated again, over and over again, as she sat and waited for the echoes to come to rest. She waited, in silence, listening intently to the absence of sound she had created by simply introducing sound. Silence was so much quieter after it was interrupted.
Soon enough, she heard another whistle echo through the ruins again. A different whistle, a different pattern of tones and pitches. A response to her previous call, a cry of attention asking for a reply- and that reply did come. Another had heard her call, and they had called back. The whistles were more than calls for attention, however. To her, and the person who responded, they were a language that they understood. They had meaning, intent, and definition. They were a form of communication that reached further than words could ever hope to on their own. The reply was all she needed to know she had accomplished her goal. Confirmation, once again, that she had finished her task and reached her destination unharmed. The reply had come from someone who was waiting for her to do exactly that. A trial, training, as she did so many times. Today’s work was done.
It was time to go home.
At least the world didn’t have to start over from scratch.
A clatter of stone echoed down the street as a piece of concrete tumbled along- bouncing irregularly over the cracks and broken slabs. The rock hit a faded metal octagon with a loud clank, and in response, a cheerful whoop echoed out from the source of the rock’s momentum. A girl, standing hardly higher than a young teenager, clapped in celebration of her precision shot. The giant slab of asphalt she was perched upon had been slanted by nearly 45 degrees, giving her a great overlook downward at the rest of the uneven terrain before her. The kick had launched the rock across thirty feet of crags and debris before knocking a dent just off-center of the sign of which the letters that had once painted it had washed away long before she arrived there.
With her successful golfing session out of the way, the girl hopped down several feet to the ground below her perched position and continued forward- resuming the hike that had brought her this far already. To her left sat a long, two-story complex of concrete, the drywall and wood of which had long since decayed away. Framing reminiscent of a spider’s web, which had once held up a magnificent skylight, had mostly collapsed into the remains of a fountain, all visible from where she stood through a gaping arch of an entrance. But the girl wasn’t looking at it. She had passed through this area many times. This was just a part of the terrain. Just as much as the towering half of a hundred-floor tower that stretched up to her right. The once-ridgid, precisely-planned repeating pattern of rectangular angles of reinforced concrete had been crumbled away into a complex latticework of what faintly resembled stone, surrounding the ghastly skeletons of rebar that tried in vain to hold the shape they had been designated to protect. Only now, the distant memory of a concrete stronghold had become home to a new kind of construction- one of nature, as vines, bushes, and even a large tree used it as support. Soil layered itself amongst every former floor of rock and metal, like a crumbling cake, and left a basis for seeds to grow. This is what the girl loved to look at as she walked the road she often did; she loved the way the sun reflected off the tree’s leaves hanging so high in the air, suspended dozens of stories from the ground many of its family called home. A flock of birds passed by the suspended tree, only to land in the nests they had made there, safe from any form of predators. A squirrel was barely visible, a dot scrambling up the long, creeping vines that had curled around most of the structure’s sturdier pillars that ran from the base to its severed peak.
The girl made her way towards the tower, the destination of her path every time she walked it. Maybe one day soon, she’d be ready to go further- but not today. Today, she was only going to the place she so frequently did. Many more experienced Seekers kept their time in taller buildings to a minimum, as the structural integrity could prove to be unpredictable and perilous to even the prepared and practiced climbers, but she felt herself irresistibly attracted towards the ruins. Animals found them an adequate home, and so too did she. As she pulled herself up the rope she had left behind, removing herself further and further from the rough ground below, she could feel the sun’s unfaltered rays warming her up the closer she got to the cloudless sky. The sea of blue above welcomed her approach, her vertical stroll perpendicular to the ground like she was walking to heaven. Upon reaching the middle of the tower’s muddled floors, she tugged herself up into it and paused to catch her breath, as well as get a nice view of the surroundings. No matter how many times she made this trek, or how high she climbed up the tower, she never grew tired of the view. Even halfway up, before she made it to her camp at the second-highest floor, the surroundings were incredible. She could see the former mall in its entirety- the thick jungle that filled its halls peeking through the cracks in the walls everywhere it could find them. The street she walked continued onward and branched off countless times, each branch eventually being lost in the grass and trees, or broken down so much that hardly anything remained to be called a street. Trees, bushes, foliage of all kinds surrounded the buildings that peeked up from the ground of shuffled chips of asphalt, like a glacier of plant life slowly overtaking everything in its path. She could see herds of deer trekking around the ground, joined by a number of smaller critters like rabbits and wildcats, all strewn out in their places across the reclaiming forest.
This was the only world the girl had ever known, born into it long after it had come this far. And even still, it was a world she found herself trekking through just for the sake of exploring, over and over again. For many of her family, this was nothing more than the way the world was. The colony she lived in had built themselves into a stable, safe, and comfortable part of the corpse of a city, and there they survived like scavengers picking away at bones and rotting flesh. Like bacteria cultivating life in the breakdown, flourishing life in places where death was absolute. That was what they were- bacteria, feasting on the remains of their own body. But for her, she found the world around her to be more than just the terrain she’s been living in. There was so much feeling there, that very few could understand.
She could see the echoes of people living there in the past, even if she had no memory or experience of the world when they were. Even if she would never know what these grand structures would have looked like in their prime, she could see it in her mind. She saw overturned tables that once sat objects of everyday interest, and destroyed cabinets that once stored things she could only imagine. Places where doors were fitted before they were washed away, roads that such advanced vehicles would drive up and down, over and over again, until they were worn of color. The vehicles that had once run so easily, so common amongst society that they were expected of everyone, now remained only as faint metal framework woven into the overgrowth, or buried partly in rubble and soil. So much of the terrain had been torn asunder by intense waves of energy, the plates of Gaia disassembling that which was built upon them as the world stretched, but she could still see how they had been arranged before. She could still hear the sounds of people talking to each other in the once-magnificent halls of these mysterious buildings, whose purpose had been lost to time. She could feel the panic and fear that seeped into the walls, from the people who had been none the wiser to the coming doom. And after all this time, here she stood. Standing where they once had, in buildings they built, looking at the same sky. Here she was, alive in a world only of memories, that she called her home. Here she was, staring down at the absence of the people before her, and feeling their lack of presence so strongly that she could almost see them around her.
And, in the same way she had entered her phase of reminiscence, she exited it again. Once again, she was back in the now. She had a destination to reach.
The girl soon found herself on top of the tower, staring down at the surroundings from a higher angle. The difference in perspective, however meager, made such a difference. The world felt so much bigger from up just a little higher, so much grander and full. At the same time, it felt so much emptier- there was so much more space for one little person like her to fill. She had been here so many times, and yet… it never failed to make her pause just for a moment to soak in the vastness of the world, to register just how small she was in comparison. How grand it must have been, she thought, to be a part of the world in its prime. How much smaller she would have been in a world even larger, yet so much fuller with life and presence of each person. A world where the individual is hardly recognized by society, and one could pass a million faces in their lifetime that they’d never know.
Just a floor below, under the shelter of the tower’s highest remaining floor, the girl’s camp had remained for many months. Sitting undisturbed, untouched by the rain and winds thanks to the concrete and foliage that shielded it. She had been there many times so far, repeatedly practicing the same methods and habits- the same survival tactics, and safety precautions. Hopefully, she thought, this would be the last time she’d stay the night in this camp during her training period. Hopefully, as she had hoped every one of the past seven times.
As she sat with her legs hanging over the edge of the tower, where a semblance of a window had once been, she cupped her hands together and placed her thumbs directly parallel to each other. Pressing them together just enough to leave a sliver of space between them, with the crease in her thumbs aligned, she lined up her bent knuckles to her lips and blew. A shrill, ringing whistle resonated from her hands, echoing long and far over the ruins around her. She could hear the sound reverberating from each of the hollow halls of the tower, reciprocated even in the distance by the streets and buildings as though they called back to her from their grave. Two short, lower-pitch whistles, one longer, higher-pitched one. She repeated the pattern, in reverse: two short, high-pitched whistles, then one longer, lower one. Low, low, high. High, high, low. The pattern repeated again, over and over again, as she sat and waited for the echoes to come to rest. She waited, in silence, listening intently to the absence of sound she had created by simply introducing sound. Silence was so much quieter after it was interrupted.
Soon enough, she heard another whistle echo through the ruins again. A different whistle, a different pattern of tones and pitches. A response to her previous call, a cry of attention asking for a reply- and that reply did come. Another had heard her call, and they had called back. The whistles were more than calls for attention, however. To her, and the person who responded, they were a language that they understood. They had meaning, intent, and definition. They were a form of communication that reached further than words could ever hope to on their own. The reply was all she needed to know she had accomplished her goal. Confirmation, once again, that she had finished her task and reached her destination unharmed. The reply had come from someone who was waiting for her to do exactly that. A trial, training, as she did so many times. Today’s work was done.
It was time to go home.