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“monster” by: Angel Vale
Home by: Bruno Ferreira
Planet 5T2019 had a long subject of study. Many thought it could be a good escape from the dying sun. I too, had the dream of one day traveling here but now that I had arrived here, I was speechless. I stumbled my way through the debris, it was a strange mixture of broken cement, metal beams, and splintered wood. It seemed so familiar, yet how could the eternal sunset sky be a blinding arsenic green color?
The beeping from my radiation reader finally broke through my trance. I sighed realizing that my radiation shield had already automatically activated itself. I continued trudging to the ruins. “Who were they?” I whispered. I took a better look at my surroundings. The view of the dying world drowned me with astonishment once more. A tall skyscraper was at the center of this place. It towered above the sky itself. The strangest part was that it had a perfect clean vertical cut through the center, so half of it stood proudly while the other had toppled over. What could have caused this perfect cut?
I felt something calling me towards the area to my right, it wasn’t a sound but my body began walking towards it, curious to what this feeling could mean I followed the call. My somber footsteps echoed through the hollow city. I approached the ruins that had called me. It was a white house or at least what remained. Yet it was standing unlike its siblings who laid on the coarse charred soil. I entered it, the shade emanating from it finally covered me like a blanket. It felt so familiar despite the interior being completely destroyed. A sparkle caught my eye, it came from the edge of what I assumed was a living room. The toxic light of the sunset entered the room from a broken window. On the floor layed a blurry picture in a broken frame.
I grabbed the photo wiping the dust r. Once I caught a glimpse of the person in the photo the photo already hit the ground once again. The sheet was released from its wooden glass prison. It elegantly flew upwards before drifting to the ground.
“Me?!”
I quickly grabbed the photo and gently stuffed it in my storage bag. What is a photo of me as a child doing in this place? I must investigate further, I thought to myself. I kept looking through the remains of my childhood home. I found my teared up teddy bear whose charm had been lost to the elements. Even though this place was identical to my childhood home, deep down I knew it didn’t feel like home. I knew where I had grown up was galaxies away in a beautiful condition and still housing my parents. So where the hell was I?
