In the year 2050, humanity’s greed overtook them all. The skies rained down acid, burning whatever it dared touch. The winters became longer, colder, freezing whole sections of countries at a time, rendering it useless when spring came once more. The ozone layer started to collapse inwards and the icy vacuum of space started to take what was left of the Earth. Where it wasn’t freezing cold, huge expanses of trees burned, destroying the desperately sought after oxygen. California was lost in 2034 when the largest ice shelf known to man collapsed into the water and sent a tsunami large enough to wash over the surface of the state and rip it off the rest of the tectonic plate. Millions sank beneath the ocean, screaming and clawing to the surface but never to make it. It wiped out the whole coast of North America in its wake, ripping families apart and creating a devastating blow. After, volcanoes erupted all throughout the world, destroying what was once considered beautiful. What survived was covered in thick ash that choked the people who’d been left behind in mass evacuations. Without the farm land, people began to starve. The ground beneath the people’s feet shook and it wasn’t a few years later that the great caldera of the Yellowstone park blew, casting ash out millions of miles in each direction. For the first time, the Midwest experienced what it was like to have a nuclear winter.
Kids died faster than ever before from uncontrollable strains of mutated diseases and parents sobbed as they buried them. The world was being ripped apart by wars that waged across the seas in desperate attempts at obtaining or protecting what few precious resources were left. Millions died, and billions starved. 2062, the whole world went dark. The scientists had worked so hard to keep as much electricity as possible going, but the fossil fuels were drained and everywhere went dark. Whole cities were gone in a few years. Planes fell from the skies and the world was ripped apart even further. Huge stations went dark, and countries lost contact with each other. The vast oceans turned and trembled as the moon got further and further from Earth, daring anyone to cross. Those that did met the bottom of the trenches and inhaled icy water.
Populations had no choice but to disperse and live on their own, spreading out across what was left of the livable land. Even that, too, was shrinking. They fought on their own land over minimal resources, overharvesting the wildlife without knowledge and soon found themselves in vast food shortages amongst the quaking ground.
2065, the smog from pollution was too much for anyone to breathe and hundreds more died. Asthmatics were on the rise. For those on the coast, their nets remained empty except for the trash and plastic that traveled across the sea. Brightly colored objects floated across the surface, seemingly like fish to the animals who still remained alive beneath the icy waters and to the hungry people that were dying with gnawing pain in their bellies.
By 2070, the human population had reduced from 10 billion to little over 2 billion spread out across the seven continents. It was then that the mountains on the north American hemisphere shivered and trembled, huge mountain peaks crumbling and falling. Those living in the mountains fled for their lives as huge avalanches of granite fell around them. Those still practicing science in tiny hutches around the world stared in confusion and awe as the ground ripped open and people started pouring out from beneath the planet’s surface.
They were pale skinned and had dark blue blood. Their veins were black against their snow white skin. They walked proudly and were stronger than any human on the planet. They spoke with the animals like kin and regarded the people as animals. They stared up at the sky where pollution and smog plagued the air above their heads. They stared into the eyes of hungry, sickened children. The humans stared back at their golden eyes and reached shaky hands out to the people. The people from below the surface stared at the fallen cities in the distance, their eyes much further away than humans and they turned to each other. Their language was old, similar to those of the native tribes from long ago.
In English, the chief turned to the dying people of the surface and said. “We will help you.” The great chief summoned his people from below the surfaces to join them in one last ditch attempt to save the planet. They taught those around them how to survive off of almost nothing, having had to do that on their own underneath the surface for so long. They taught them how to clean the airs and clean the seas without suitable boats. The Kukouk chief used his might power to clean nature itself and drain the poison from her land. The animals came out of hiding when they whispered into the wind and they banned together with the people to clean the world and balance finally came once more. By 2110, the ozone was healing and new trees were being planted in areas that had once been destroyed by nuclear blasts and immense cold. People could breathe again! Natural remedies stopped the attacks of incurable diseases, and the people got healthier. They learned about the land and the way to survive together instead of apart. The Kukouk people bonded and became close to the surface people. People started to sail across the seas once more, even without the moon controlling the water’s motions. They spread the teachings far and wide and large tribes started showing up, reveling the Kukouk people as godsends and saviors. Those lucky enough to have children with a Kukouk person was revered as holy and the offspring were revered as demigods. The respect, though, didn’t last long.
They had purple blood, but tan skin and black veins that reached up their chests to their necks to disappear once more around their faces. They had gold eyes and had the strength of the Kukouk, amongst the ability to speak to the animals. They were godly.
Until they weren’t. It lasted almost 200 years. One whole generation and then the views changed. With humanity on the rise and the Kukouk mixed among them, certain habits sprang up once more. Pollution started to slip as people became more greedy and started to take instead of give. Humanity’s weakness was greed of each other, as the first chief of the surface had said hundreds of years ago. The Kukouk warned humanity once more. Humanity’s second weakness, pride, overtook the people once more. As the civilizations got bigger and contact was made once more with the other continents, they started to put bad leaders in place. Those leaders saw the Kukouk warning and begging to not let greed persuade them and shelter their eyes and they started to spread hatred. The hatred rested upon the backs of the Kukouk and it took only two years before the first Kukouk was murdered in blind rage.
The first massacre happened a month later. Then the leader of the seven continents ordered the execution of every Kukouk for being fake gods, false prophets and bad omens. And the genocide started. What was once regarded as humanity’s savior became the bane of humanity. Cutting the head off of a Kukouk was praised and applauded. Some of the Kukouk people became angered and started to kill those attacking them. In retaliation, their children were banned and half breeds were enslaved and beaten to death in front of those who’d been caught. The Kukouk tried to flee back beneath the surface, but never made it. They were wiped out slowly and piled. The Kukouk and their offspring were cursed to once again live below the people of the surface.
The Kukouk extinction was a cause for celebration and people came together to drink until they passed out. The son of the chief of the Kukouk, however, had escaped one of the last fights. He was mortally wounded and was discovered by a young woman who’d been out hanging clothes. She stared at him, false accusations flowing in her head, and as she stared into the beautiful eyes of the Kukouk man, she set down her basket. She looked back at the house where her husband was waiting for her, demanding dinner and for her to clean the house before he beat her and she stared at the innocent man in front of her. There was anger in his eyes, but fear as well. He was similar to her in every way. Hurt, scared, but both were determined to live the best of their lives, even if it cursed them with misfortune and pain.
She extended a hand to the Kukouk man, the last of his people and she ran with him. She fixed his injuries and nursed him back to life inside the forbidden forest. A forest where millions of people had once died, the trees themselves were said to be haunted. No one entered for fear of their lives. They spent years there, and slowly, the woman fell in love with the Kukouk man. Their first child was a young girl, healthy and beautiful. At the age of two, she was following her father out to hunt and learned the rituals perfectly. The second was a pair of twins, a boy and girl who loved their mother indefinitely. They were two when the little girl was 5. The boy became sickly, a strain only halflings could get. The mother had no choice but to venture outside of the forest at 4 months pregnant with the fourth child. The father bid her farewell with two healthy kids at his arm. While in a market looking for the plant, someone saw her and knew of the disease and followed her back. He recognized the woman as well, and told her ex-husband who was overcome with anger. He rounded up a hundred or more people and they marched to the forest screaming for the beast to come out and surrender the woman.
Except, it was the eldest daughter who came out, carrying her young brother in confusion, having come out of his sickness. A bullet pierced the girl’s heart and they wrenched the boy from the girl’s arms and got the attention of the Kukouk man. He fell to his knees as he watched them slice the throat of his child. He turned to the woman and with angry tears in his eyes, he kissed her forehead before walking towards the mob. With great speed he wiped out the first few, ripping their heads off their shoulders. He launched himself into the air, pouncing and breaking bodies as he raged. It took 15 bullets to bring him down after he’d ripped his way through over half of the men. They held his head on a spike, brandishing it with pride. The last of the Kukouk. They set fire to the forbidden forest, leaving the woman with no choice but to escape.
The woman grabbed the last of her living children and wiped the tears from her face as they fled towards the base of the rocky mountains. Behind her, the people shouted for the death of the “monster’s bitch”. Across the great plains of the west, her last living child was shot. They saw the purple blood running from the child’s hands, and killed it without hesitation. The axe swung down, splitting the skull in half. The woman was 7 months pregnant as she buried her last child before running to the edge of the mountains. And she searched for the path leading below ground for years. Her last child was born in a blazing snow storm, a young boy with black lines crawling up his face much like his father’s. His eyes had the faint gold in the iris and she knew that he couldn’t be anywhere near people. She was fearful that her son would die as well. He was four when they found the path beneath the surface of the world. They packed up quickly and said their goodbyes to the sunlight one last time before immersing themselves into the utter darkness.
Below the surface, it was always freezing. Food was scarce and they lived off of bugs and cave dwellers. Plants were even scarcer. They used the roots of trees for fire wood, climbing up the sides of the rocky walls to shave wood from the thick tendrils of root. When food was scarce, they ate the bark. Life was easier, though, despite the trembling of the ground. Despite how cold it was beneath the surface, the rock beneath their feet was always pleasantly warm. They were able to make a home with a protective fence around the perimeter.
His mom slaved away for days, using large chunks of rock to grind down small shelves in the farthest wall of their home. They stored what little food they could find there, away from the mice. The young boy managed to carve weak chairs out of large root clusters to rest his aging mother’s back.
At the age of 13, his mother’s face was wrinkled beyond recognition and her hair was ashen grey. She was weakening as if time was passing a lot faster for her then it was the boy. She still held the most beautiful smile, though, and used up her last days to teach him how to read and write both of the languages he was born from. Learning his father’s language was hard until he found an old house in his adventures. Inside were old stone tablets filled with the familiar language, and it eased his progress tenth fold. His mother smiled at the tablets in her hands before wiping tears from her cheeks. She then sat him down and told him stories of his father, who’d been the most amazing man she’d ever had the privilege of meeting. She told him of his siblings who were all waiting for him on the other side when it was his time to go, and for once, they both didn’t feel as alone as before. And she told him of his destiny, which had been written by the stars themselves.
The next day, he ventured further into the undergrown world than ever before. He watched the cave birds fly above him and turn their feathery heads in confusion at him. He watched the bugs slink across the walls in fascination and tried imagining how people could live here for so long, and be content in a world so dark. Every day his mother was getting frailer and older.
When he returned the next day, he’d found the fire had died and his mother had laid still on her side, eyes wide open but there was no more life. He’d fallen to his knees and held her head in his lap. He stayed at her side until the gnawing of hunger was too much. He covered her body in a mound of rocks before packing all the stuff he could carry. He turned for the surface and left their home behind with one last look.
His name was Tian Ashturokma, and his purpose on the planet was much more important than any chief before him. It was he who would bring his people to freedom.
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