When the birds stopped chirping

26. Beyond The Horizon

- I have travelled to unfathomable ends, struck with the sight of true destruction. Such a world as the Party strives to rebuild cannot rise up from ashes so easily in the blink of an eye! I was faced with true despair, visiting the other side of Earth. Submerged ruins left to decay! Treasures forever lost! And the swelling stench of death! That's what the Unknown Lands look like! Revered as unexplored countries reclaimed by Nature: how laughable! Those tales are for children's sake!
Shinji wasn't as laid-back as before he was, fists clenched. He looked straight at me with swollen eyes. It must have been a traumatising experience, digging up Earth's remains. What may have forged him were the horrible things he saw on his journey to the other side of Earth. I could not begin to imagine what wonders or nightmarish sights held the Unknown Lands.
- If this political farce goes on, we'll have to move on all over again. Trapped inside Heavensgate's battlements, disaster is inescapable. Y'all are responsible for it! he shouted. By keeping the crowds in check, you've been lying to them about the threat looming over their heads. You, threatened with death penalty, chickened out by agreeing to take part in this foul masquerade, didn't you? That's a coward's attitude! Even SLACK's wannabes face down the Party bravely! As much as I resent to admit it, they're quite brassy nestlings, although they think up reckless stunts. Which often gets them in trouble...
- They're the Rebellion's dropouts, Gwendoline spat. Those youngsters aren't fighters. They're unfit to take part in the next upcoming revolution.
- Not to mention, their actions greatly discredited our cause, Shinji added. By incurring the Party's wrath, they've put all of us in danger.
- Especially after the incidents of recent days, Gwendoline nodded.
- Incidents of recent days?
- Haven't you heard? Following Teeny Grannies' reckless momentum in reaction to John Mansfield' arrest, leading to their incarceration, Black Police's men blitzed on suspected opposition's strongholds.
While retained in Hellsground's pits, I had lost notion of day and night because of little to no communication with the outside. Even after my evasion I lived in another timeline, groping for my bearings. I relied on Shinji and Gwendoline to keep me informed about latest going-ons.
- If your commitment were strong enough, you would not have given up.
- There are no righters of all wrongs, I rebuked. They're merely fictional.
- There are believers, Shinki argued. Thirty years ago, I was living on the edge, scavenging what I could find from deserted lands. I got to witness Earth's slow decay over time. Decades, even centuries ago, authorities could have made the right environnemental decisions. Globalisation drove everybody nuts. Ravaged lands, deserted metropolis litter our now submerged planet Earth. Long ago, we reached a stage of no return, long before the occurence of the Exodus to Heavensgate. There will come a day when Heavensgate will be threatened as well as the rest of the world, irreversibly trapped in a vicious cycle of unending disaster, which is saddening.
In my earliest recollections, I gazed at the ever blue ocean gushing on the horizon, imagining what our beloved Earth resembled before the Exodus. Mother and Father resented retelling to Shinji and I about these times when height-defying colosses mocked the skies. Science pushed technology at its finest, but at what cost? In the end, a warless era, built upon a long-term peace yet so fragile, was swept away on that stormy night that sealed its imminent downfall. Their chests filled with horror, people ran away from home for their lives, boarding ships to the open sea, no matter what greater danger lied ahead, at Earth's mercy, in shambles.
- I was scared too, and alone, abandoned to dwell with great loss at a young age. I can't recount how I wished we'd all reunite in the end. My prayers were never answered. At least to the day we met again, a week ago.
- I don't want to reminisce about what happened then.
- « Let there be light, lest fade into night », isn't it what you're feeling?
- Those tales for children kept us hoping, when all lights were extinct. We believed in a coming future for those who trusted in mankind's ability to survive the End. What's the truth? Wrecked ships. Deserted lands. Scavenging clans. And in the midst of Chaos, there is Heavensgate, sticking out the ocean like a sore thumb. Its sparkling castles of glass and concrete may soar high in the skies like modern time giants, albeit it's sheer mirage for the commoner's eye. Travellers who went missing, or simply refugees, were never heard of again. It's the sad truth behind this mock Apocalypse. Surely, it could have been prevented from happening decades ago, by those who led the country with an iron fist. Yet, nothing was done. In short, we were doomed to fall.
- What will happen now, in your opinion?
- Our end's a matter of time. Our Mother Earth will reclaim its lands, eventually.