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The sun that had provided the planet with the light and heat necessary to sustain life had grown substantially from when creatures first set foot upon the land. As a result, it never set completely below the horizon anymore, even at the poles. The polar ice caps were now gone, and the tropical regions had spread northward and southward. It also created a substantial change in the climate and core temperature. If humans did somehow manage to survive this long, they could never last in such a world. In fact, few animals could, and did. As the morning sun climbed higher into the sky, a lone insect – a descendent of the common cockroach – emerged from the smooth granules of Cascadia. Its movements were so light and delicate that it wasn’t even able to detect the rumble of a quake below its feet. The ground shook for approximately two minutes, cracking the rock walls of a nearby cave and displacing the sand around the creature. As particles shifted and sank, the insect began to crawl along the edge of the once-buried artifact that had suddenly ascended from its pocket of earth and pointed skyward toward the sea and distant rising star. It paused momentarily, as if with some conscious forethought, next to a rusty metal label atop the artifact. The inscription on the label was mostly obscured by the decayed elements, but a smarter being reading it would’ve been able to make out a small portion of what it said. “A. Post.” TO BE CONTINUED... << Previous |
