ladreams17

[ladreams17]

The Odd Little Shop

Authors Note: I got really inspired, by watching the SKZ Trailer for their Oddinary Comeback a while ago and came up with this little Story. I really loved the 'Alice in Wonderland' theme,it had going on and really wanted to incorporate it. One character is actually a fusion of two members. Maybe you can find out who it was? I really love the main character and want to make this into a series. What are your thoughts on this?

~L

“Hey guys, look at this alleyway, it looks so cool! Can we go there?” I asked curiously as I stopped in front of the beginning of the narrow street. Even though it was in the middle of the afternoon, it was almost time for a good coffee, Only a minimal amount of light reached the cobbled ground. It was so narrow that no car in the world could pass through it. Not only that, but you couldn’t see where this alleyway led to because it had many curves and squiggles to itself. I found it quite intriguing but my friends didn’t seem to be that interested. “Raeca, we’ve been on our feet for hours, I don’t know about Maya, but I definitely need a break. You know what? If you really want to go and explore this street, then go. We’ll find a cafe and rest.” Lola said with a strained voice. Dang! She really didn’t have any more strength.

Even though I really didn’t want to leave my friends, I felt so curious about this little street. The longer I stared down the alleyway the more I felt a pull towards it. I just couldn’t go into a cafe without knowing what was going on in that street. “Sorry but it’s just so tempting. Save a place for me at the cafe. I‘ll be back in no time!” I shot my best apologetic smile towards my two friends and without a second word I started walking into the mysterious alleyway. In the beginning all the houses were painted white and looked very modern but after a while of walking my surroundings started to change.

Instead of apartment blocks in plain white, little huts made out of wood lined the street. The sun was now shining directly on the ground and everything around me looked just so cozy and comfortable. And finally after a good 15 minutes of walking, I saw the end of the alley. This alley was indeed a dead end! But there was not a wall or anything at the end,no. At the end of the street stood a little wooden shopping hut. It was a bit lopsided and looked very old and not that well taken care of, but I had to admit that it had its own charme. As I got nearer to the cute little hut, I could see an old lady through the windows, which had definitely not been cleaned in a long time. She was sitting behind the counter, knitting a hat out of white yarn and smiling to herself. She looked like she was at peace and very satisfied with what she was doing at the moment.

I just had to go in there and find out what the hut looked like from inside.

As I pushed the door open, the little golden bell rang above my head and the old lady looked up from her knitting project. “Oh hello my dear. What a wonderful thing, that you came to visit our little shop today. We unfortunately don’t have many customers, you know?” The old lady smiled at me, then she continued. “Please have a look around and take your time. I hope you will find something you like!” “I will, thank you very much!”I answered. I gave her a smile back and started browsing through the shelves.

This tiny store had a little bit of everything, from cute home decorations made out of wood, to old china that looked like it was made in the 17th century. But what caught my attention were the doll-like figures in the centre of the room, presented on a mahogany table. There were eight in total. The figures looked like normal boys, but each of them had a detail of an animal to them. May it be ears, tail or paws, every single one had something special to them.

As I was inspecting the little figures I caught sight of myself in the mirror and was shocked to see myself in this kind of state. My hair was disheveled from walking all day and my mascara started to form panda eyes. I could not continue to look like that. “Excuse me miss” I spoke to the old lady who had started to knit again “could I use your bathroom by any chance?”. I hoped there was one in this old building. “Of course my love, the bathroom is just around that corner.” She looked up and pointed towards a hallway that was located straight across the entrance door. I thanked her and walked into the dimly lit hallway. The hallway wasn’t decorated at all, just the little lamp hanging from the ceiling and two doors. The left one was located a bit farther away from me than the right one. ‘Well I guess the right one it is’, I thought to myself and opened the door but what I saw was most definitely not a bathroom. The floor of the room was completely gone and was replaced with absolute darkness, almost like a black hole. In the air of the room though, everything was floating. Tables, chairs, clocks, lamps and paintings were floating around like gravity wasn’t a thing anymore.

I immediately closed the door with a thump and just stood there in complete shock. My brain could not wrap itself around the image that I just saw. I wanted to take another look but I was too scared to reopen the door, so I just decided to peek through the keyhole. What a bad decision. When I looked through the hole I was not met with this weird room but with an eye that did not look like mine. This round eye had such a dark color that you could hardly differentiate between iris and pupil. Because of shock I automatically stumbled back from the door and hit my back on the wall.

With a terrified expression I saw the door being opened by the human that was behind that door. When the door was fully opened, I could see this man just floating above the blackness where the floor was supposed to be. He looked the same age as me but he was a few centimeters taller. The oddest thing about him though was his face. Not that it was ugly, no, but this smile that was etched on him was full of haziness, almost a crazy smile. The other thing was his eyes. Even though I had already seen one of them, the other was totally different. It was an icy blue that was almost white. The only thing being the same was the round eye shape.

With a strange sparkle in his eyes he began to speak “Hello m’lady. Did your parents never teach you to knock first, before opening a door?” He giggled mischievously. “I-I thought this was the b-b-bathroom, I’m so sorry!” I stuttered, my back still pressed against the wall. My eyes flickered from his face to his feet, still shocked that he could just float above a black hole like it was normal. Well it was probably normal, for him at least. He most likely noticed my flickering eyes, because in the next second he reached out to me, grabbed both of my wrists and pulled me into the room. Not knowing how to react I just shut my eyes and let out a long, high pitched scream, fearing that I will now fall into the darkness and never see the surface of the earth again. But the sensation of falling didn’t occur. Instead the man, who was still holding my wrists, burst out in a fit of laughter. “Hahahaha. You should’ve seen your face when I pulled you in the room, it was so incredibly funny!”.

To check if I was still okay, I opened my eyes very slowly. I held my breath when I realised I was now floating in the room as well. I did not scream, because this man would’ve probably laughed at me again. “What, cat’s got your tongue?” He said in a teasing tone. “N-nooo?... I-” “What is going on here?” I was interrupted by the old lady. “Fenix, how many times have I told you to not change the rooms when a customer enters! We already have a low customer rate and yet you decide to scare them away anyway!” The man, apparently named Fenix, started to pout. “But Mrs. Hansley it’s more fun for me this way.” “But it’s not funny for our clients in the slightest, come here my dear let me help you. I am so so sorry!” The old lady reached out her wrinkly hand to me and I gladly took hers in mine and let me be pulled to the hallway again. The landing was a bit rough as I landed on my behind but Mrs. Hansley helped me up right away.

She shot a glare in the direction of a sad looking Fenix and escorted me back to the front of the store under constant apologies from her side. I tried to soothe her worries as best as I could but that was very hard, considering me being still very shaken up from what just happened. As a final apology from her I got a brown box with a red bow on top. “Please take this with you. I hope you can forgive me and Fenix. He can be a little too mischievous at times. And please take the right door when you leave, it’s the fastest way back.”. I nodded and smiled at her and thanked her again for being such a nice woman, not wanting to bring Fenix up again.

I used the door that I was told to use and immediately stepped into the street where I last saw my friends before we parted ways. How was this possible? After a few seconds I spotted them in an outdoor cafe and speedily walked towards them. Before the walk though, I made sure to put the brown box into the backpack I was wearing. “Hey y’all, I’m so sorry that it took so long, the alleyway was longer than I expected.” I stated with an apologetic look on my face. My friends just looked at me in confusion. “What do you mean? You were only gone for a couple minutes.”

#oddinary #skz imagines #skz bang chan #you make stray kids stay #fantasy #writing #stray kids stay #short story #stray kids #chris bang #bang chan #felix skz #han jisung #changbin #hyunjin #lee know #i.n #seungmin #Youtube

[ladreams17]

Someone that feels like family

Authors Note: I saw a Video on Instagram about who would've written the personalities and lives of the members of Stray Kids and I was really touched by Chan's Story. So I decided to write a little short story about it. The video where I got the Picture from is from fe_lix.io on Instagram, please give them lots of love. I hope you enjoy my twist on this🤗. Constructive critiscm is highly appreciated ❤️

Little Connor was always left alone. His parents couldn’t afford to raise a child, so on one warm summer night, they left baby Connor on the doorstep of the local orphanage. Growing up, the only person that would talk to him was Mrs. Guillaume, one of the caretakers at the orphanage. The other children would always ignore Connor and leave him alone, because the rumor spread that he was a bad friend to play with. Children can be cruel. Connor learned that at a very young age. He was so sad that he barely came out of his tiny room at the very back of the huge, old mansion in which the orphanage has always been. His room was originally built as a time out-zone for naughty children but as the years progressed the caretakers thought less of that method and the room was always empty. Conner moved to the room a little while after his birthday, because his roommates didn’t want him anymore.

Mrs. Guillaume pitied him and as an act of motherly care, she tried her best to get Connor to learn, to eat and drink properly and to be nice even though nobody was nice to him. One day in the beginning of winter, he was rejected by a group of girls again after he tried playing tag with them. He sat on his fluffy bed in his room and cried his sorrows away.

Suddenly he felt the bed dip the tiniest bit and a sweet and calm voice rang through his ears. “Hey Kiddo, don’t be sad. These girls really aren’t the best pick when it comes to finding new friends.” Confused, as to how someone came into his room, without him noticing, he looked into the direction where the voice was coming from. Next to him sat a boy, maybe a couple years older than him, with an encouraging smile. He had little crinkles around his eyes when he smiled and he wore a very similar outfit to what Conner was wearing. Black cargo pants and a gray sweater.

“Who are you and how did you get in my room?” Conner asked curiously. The boy answered, but completely ignored the second part of the question. “I’m Chris and I’d like to be your new friend!”. Conner did not expect that. Never before did someone want to be his friend. Excited at the thought of finally having someone by his side, he immediately asked Chris to play with him and Chris agreed while speedily nodding his head and widening his already big smile. Conner took Chris’ hand and made his way to the orphanage's play room, never noticing that he couldn’t even feel the weight of a hand in his tiny one.

From now on Connor always played with Chris. They were stuck together like glue on a stick and never parted. The other children always asked who Conner was playing with but Conner always shook his head and answered “Come on, I know that you can see Chris, he is right there. Stop lying to me.” The kids, too scared to ask further, just let him be. Mrs. Guillaume had already experienced this before, so she was the least concerned. She knew that nothing bad would happen and that soon, Conner would be adopted into a loving family. All the kids with an imaginary friend would be placed into the best households in town. It was like a good omen to her.

And Mrs. Guillaume was indeed correct. After a while a lovely couple was searching for a young boy to add to their family, since they were unable to create their own but wanted a child so badly. The couple fell in love with Connor, the first time they saw him and Connor did find a liking in them too. After a couple more meetings between Connor and the couple, it was settled that he would move in with them. It was hard for Connor to say goodbye to Chris, cause Chris said that he’d love to go with him but he couldn’t. So, on the day his new parents came to get him Chris stood by the door and waved him goodbye. “Come and visit me when you can, ok?” Chris shouted. Conner turned around one more time and nodded while whispering “I will, I promise.”. The newly made parents, confused as to who their child was talking to, just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. After that short lived moment, they sweetly urged Conner to get to the car.

Years later, Conner had grown into a respectful, young man. He was living like every other person on this planet. He was very busy with his university studies and his part time job at a local market place that sold fruit and vegetables. But he never ever forgot about Chris. His parents held him back from going to the orphanage at first, as they were told that every child there did not treat their son well. But at a later age Conner persisted on going. On one warm summer night, during his break from college, his parents finally allowed him to go.

He immediately went to the big, old mansion standing in the center of the city and ran to Mrs. Guillaume. The by now pretty old lady knew why he was there and gave him the keys to his old room, along with the information that he was the last boy to ever live there. Others were too scared to even walk by that door because the room was allegedly haunted. Connor accepted the keys while having to let out a chuckle and speedily walking to his tiny old room. Opening the screeching door, he found his old friend Chris standing in the middle of the room not having aged one bit. When Chris saw him, a big smile began to form on his face. “You finally came to visit me. I missed you.” Chris said, at the verge of tears. “Me too” Conner answered, kneeling down and opening his arms to hug Chris.

“Chris, it’s great to see you again. Thank you for making my childhood less miserable. Because of you, I can live normally. Thank you for always being by my side. I really needed that.” “That’s what I’m here for. Therefore my time here is now over. You were the greatest friend I possibly could have wished for. Goodbye.”. Realizing what Chris just said, Conner released from the hug they were holding, but Chris had already vanished. Now, Conner was alone in his old room, with a small smile on his face as he mumbled to himself. “So that was why the children couldn’t see you…”.

#bang chan #stray kids #short story #short fiction #fanfic #orphan #sadbeautifultragic #chris bang #stray kids stay #kpop #lovestay #you make stray kids stay #author #writerscorner #fantasy

[ladreams17]

2090 Pt. 3

This is the last part set in the same universe. I still have some other short stories left in my drafts that I could post on here but I'll see first, how these ones do. If any questions occur whatsoever, please feel free to ask. I'll answer them to the best of my abilities. With love, L.

Part one - Part two - Part three

"Take care baby, I don't want you to get hurt, okay?", says my boyfriend. "Don't worry, nothing will happen to me. I'll be back for dinner.", I reassure him. Today is my first time helping to clean the ocean with the other men on this isle. Which isle, you may ask? Well it's not really an island it's more like a test, to see if humanity can survive on a platform on steel stilts. This thing which I live on, is a project of the American government. Many continents are shrinking into islands, so the government started this experiment, to see if it is possible to live on an island made out of steel. It wasn't easy to get people to agree to live on here but they managed it somehow. It was probably bribery. They gave us one windmill, where we can get our energy from, and one teeny tiny green house where we can grow our own food, which is definitely not enough for 30 people. "Hey Mark are you coming? The boat will leave without us and we don't want that, do we?", my dad shouts from the beginning of the stairs, which are leading down to the single boat we have. I am giving my boyfriend, Johnny, a goodbye kiss and catch up with my dad who has already started going downstairs. It was a quick and quiet walk down stairs, since we couldn't enjoy the sight of the blue sea, due to the smog covering almost everything like thick fog.

Me and my family have been living here for a while now. We got on this isle because my dad was a former politician and used to be the mayor of the city we used to live in. When he retired, he started to work at the little restaurant my mom was running. I was just a pretty normal kid in Highschool. In my senior year I started working at our little restaurant as well and fell in love with the work. My parents assured me that I could take over our business when I was ready but they still wanted me to go to college. One day my dad got a call from someone. I still don’t know who it was but he seemed happy that they called and he went to meet them. I’m guessing it was a former colleague from when he was a mayor. When he came back worry, sadness and even a bit of anger were visible in his eyes. He was burning with negative emotions when he quietly asked my mom to go to the kitchen to have a talk and me to go upstairs to my room. I went in my room and tried to hear what my parents were talking about, but all I could hear were the heartbreaking sobs coming from my mom. After some time the sobs ended and a heavy silence was laid over our house like a blanket. My parents came into my room and explained to me that we are going to give up our current life and move to a steel island in the middle of an ocean and never come back to our current home. I was so sad to hear this. All my dreams to become the manager of our restaurant and living a fulfilled life popped like a bubble and just because of this one fatal call and this one fatal meeting from my dad and this mysterious stranger. I started to hate this strangers guts for ruining my life and I swore that if I ever met him, something very bad would happen to him. But that changed when I met Johnny here on this island. Honestly I think it just clicked between us the first time we talked to each other and we both think that we were absolutely lucky to meet. Because I met him, I wasn't totally mad at the stranger anymore. At first we were a little bit scared to make our relationship official but in the end everyone was very accepting of us. I guess they have other problems than to bitch about someones sexuality. My parents were totally accepting as well. When I told my mom that I like men she was like: “Really?! Me too!”. My parents are the most loving people to ever walk on this earth and I wouldn't know what to do without them.     

When we arrived at the boat, all the utensils that we'll need are already on the boat. Me and my dad are hopping on the boat and the captain is starting the machine. We are now on our way to clean the ocean from plastic. That is the mission that the government assigned us, with hopes that we could’ve helped  to recover the earth at least a little bit. Most of us think, that situation is completely senseless, because our planet is already to fucked up to be able to change anything for the better. Looking back to our isle made of steel I can only see the stilts through the fog. Without the fog I would be able to see our enormous windmill standing proudly in the middle of our little island. The houses we live in are little brick houses which look very cheap, but at least they  do their job. The only house that is different from the others is our little greenhouse, where we grow our food. Sadly that little greenhouse isn't enough to feed us all. We do have some sponsors who are trying to 'help' us, but what they do is honestly just visiting us and beeing like 'raise awareness' and that's it. They honestly just do it to put themselves in a better light. Almost all the money that is meant for us goes to the government. This shit is just totally rigged.

When our boat is finally as far away as possible, we are grabbing our utensils and starting to fish out plastic. You have to know that we made a plan to fish in different regions everytime. It is honestly totally useless in my eyes but the older generation surely had reason for it. Probably just to play their mind and tell their consciousness that this work contributes to society or that they are going fishing, when in reality they're not. Since this is my first day out here everyone is helping me getting the hang of everything. Nobody is really happy to do this job, but they have to, since it's a mission given to us by the government.

As I am currently fishing out some trash I am starting to cough heavily. I am almost falling over the railing but my dad is pulling me back. I am laying down on my back and continue to cough like someone is jumping on my lungs like it's a trampoline. I can't get air inside my lungs and before everything is going black and I suffocate, I hear my dad say, "Stay with me Mark, please!", with a tone that is filled to the brim with overwhelming sadness.

Suddenly I'm in a white room with two other girls. I don't know their names, nor where they are from, but they look horrible. The girl on my left is covered in blood and doesn't have hair. There are big pieces of thick glass in her right arm and the blood from these cuts is dripping down on the white floor drop after drop. Her doe eyes are looking at me in fear. The girl on my right looks like she fell into the water, because her ripped and cheap clothes are soaking wet. Her face is completely blue as well as her fingers. She has an emotionless look on her face, as if she can't feel anything anymore. The worst thing of them all is that they look so young. What has happened to those two young girls, that they look so bad? The last thing I am hearing before I am going senseless is those girls saying in unison "There's no escaping anymore."

Marks lifeless body is laying on the deck of the small boat and every passenger is scattered around him. His dad is on his knees, hugging the dead boy, constantly checking up on Marks pulse, because he doesn't want to realise that his son just died. He of course knew that Mark always has had some problems with his lungs but why did he have to pass away now? Was it because of his first time on the boat? Or because the smog was more dense at the water surface, so that he couldn't breathe properly? Or because he felt suffocated since there are so many people on board? The captain immediately sets the course back home, where they carry Mark up the stairs and to the house where he lives with his parents and his boyfriend. His mom and Johnny are breaking out in tears and heartbreaking cries when they are seeing Marks dead body. Their screams are echoeing through the entire house and it sounds as if their heart is beeing ripped out of their chest. The only thing that they can do with the lifeless body, is to burn it to ashes and to throw the ashes into the wide ocean. They've done that before and they will do it again with Mark. They can't do anything else with the dead people. They don't have room for a graveyard. But it also makes the ocean dirtier than they already are with plastic. Another soul has left the world and will never come back.

#climate catastrophe #climate change #dystopia #dystopic #short story #writerscorner #writing #activist #climate activism #english #lgbtq #lgbtq community #creative writing

[ladreams17]

2090 Pt. 2

Here is the second part to it. One more will follow. Tell me how you liked the story. Would you have changed anything about it? What would you write differently?

Part one - Part two - Part three

“Please ma’am, We just need some fresh water and something to eat! We’re starving!”. The woman is slamming the front door of her house in my face, without giving me and my brother anything. I look down at him, to see my younger sibling staring up at me with teary eyes. Both of us haven’t eaten or drunken something in a while, mostly because we don’t have money and can’t buy anything. We are now going from door to door, asking people to help us, but nobody is giving anything to us because everyone has become selfish. “Come on buddy maybe we’ll get something at the next house.”, I try to cheer him up. He is just nodding and we are starting to walk down the street to the next house. 

We weren’t always that poor. When I was younger and my brother wasn’t there yet, me and my parents lived in a comfy apartment. We had enough to live a good life and we weren’t starving. But everything changed once my dad lost his stocks in fossil fuels. We of course knew what was happening in the world. Continents getting smaller and smaller due to the rise of the sea level, deforrestation and the extinction of certain animal species, but we never thought it would effect us. Ever thought that way as well? One day, my father came home from his job at the bank and was a total mess. He went to my mom who was lying on the couch, pregnant with my brother Jae, and he told her that he lost his stocks in fossil fuels and that he got fired. He lost his stocks because the fossil fuels died out, due to humanity using them for their vehicles and such, well we used them basically for everything we needed them for. He was the only one with an income, because my mom took care of me and was pregnant with my brother. We couldn’t afford food, water and electricity anymore, basically we couldn’t pay for anything, so we lost our home too. You have to know that we couldn’t live in the city we used to, because of finances, so we went to the place where Jae and me are now. My parents chose this city because they were supporting fossil fuels as well as the city was supporting those energy sources before the extinction. This place was the nearest one from our home town and they didn't want to go to a place that didn't match their believes, so we landed here.  My mom gave life to my brother on the way to our new hometown. But sadly mom and dad are not here anymore. They got cancer from beeing outside so much, so I am now taking care of my brother. How can beeing outside cause cancer, you may ask? Easy, the ozone layer got destroyed and now to much sunlight is getting to the earths surface.

As we are walking by a window I am seeing an old man in his bed, looking very ill and coughing very badly. There are only a few candles lighting up this room. The place where my parents took us, is one of the, what they called, “outlaws”. This city has no electricity whatsoever, because they refused to rely on renewable energy. My parents told me that there are quite a lot of those cities. Mostly made by the deniers of climate change. Which brings me to the question of, how can you deny something that has already happened?

I am suddenly beeing pulled out of my thoughts. “Hey earth to Jenny! Let’s go to that last house there! They always give us something.” Jae is pointing to the last house before the “beach”. I am giving him a small nod and a ‘sure’ and we are heading to the already familiar house. We are knocking on the door and not long after a lady in her fourties is opening the door. Before we can even say anything she is giving us a knowing smile, disappears and comes back to the door with a few snacks and something to drink. I smile and thank her as well as my brother. She just pushes our thankfulness away with a small gesture. We are saying our goodbyes and she is slowly closing the door. “Let’s head to the ‘beach’ and eat something finally”, I am saying to my brother and we head to the shore.

Getting there, we sit on a few rocks, a few steps away from the water. The water is totally polluted with plastic. Every wave is bringing new pieces of plastic to the shore. But the ‘beach’ doesn’t look better either. There is plastic lying everywhere and no one has the intention to clean it up. They gave up a long time ago. No one wants to use this place to go swimming anymore. As we are eating and talking, I look back to the city to see the red hydrogen pipes that are coming out of it. Hydrogen is produced in a factory here and sent to different gas stations through those red pipes. The thing is that the planner of this city was stupid and put the pipes over and not under the ground, where they wouldn’t disturb anyone. This city is a very dark place. Without the sun beeing able to shine through the thick smog, the only light sources are the candles which shine through the windows. The baracks that are made out of cement make this place look even more bleak than it already is. The people that live here, work either at a car station to refill those cars with hydrogen, in the hydrogen factory or as a prostitute. Not really the most fullfilling jobs, aren't they? After the fossil fuels died out, the citys factory had to switch to producing hydrogen, otherwise the people living here would've all been jobless. Hydrogen is a great renewable energy, which is why this place that supported fossil fuels wasn't particularly happy with the switch to fabricating hydrogen.

Another thing that isn’t great either for the city, are the reoccuring tsunamis all over the world. Due to the polar caps melting, the water levels started rising and many cities on the shore have been flooded. Not only cities on the shore have vanished even whole islands or half of a country. Our hometown was once located nowhere near water, whereas now it’s directly on the shore. Many people that live here feel very anxious about a tsunami flooding the city including me and Jae. We still like to go to the shore because we want to look after any signs of a tsunami occurring. But today is different. We are just talking and having a good time not caring about anything. It’s hard to try and live carefree, that’s why I treasure these moments even more. It’s kind of like trying to escape our tough lifes and live like children our age should live. With minor things to worry about and not the future of our planet.

Jenny and Jae are so immersed in their conversation, that they aren’t paying attention to that immense wave that is coming from the width of the ocean. It is approaching them faster and faster and when they are finally picking up on the sound of the wave coming to them, It’s already too late. The wave is towering over them and in the next moment comes crashing down on them. They get pulled by the water, into the deep ocean. They are trying to get air and get to the surface but they never learned how to swim because their parents didn't teach them. So in the depths of the water, Jenny pulls Jae onto her chest, giving him a last peck on his forhead and is breathing her last breath, as well as Jae. Now the two children are being shoved around by the water streams in the darkness of the deep sea with nobody to help them, nobody to notice they're gone and nobody to bury their lifeless figures. A little later their dead bodys are washed up on a hidden part on this so called ‘beach’, where they’ll never be found. 

#short story #writing #writerscorner #writerscommunity #climate change #climate catastrophe #dystopia #dystopic #activist #climate activism #english

[ladreams17]

2090 Pt. 1

Hi. This post here is a short story written by me. My native tongue is german, which can lead to possible grammatical errors. Sorry in advance. There are two more short storys set in the same universe, that I will upload shortly after this one. Have fun reading and please feel free to leave any kind of constructive criticism.

Part one - Part two - Part three

Looking out the window and seeing… nothing. The smog in the air is so dense that I can't even see the sun clearly. "Kristyn we're going to be late. Hurry up! We have to get to the town hall before 12!". I sigh and get up. The big flood caused my mom and me to lose our home. We used to live in a small city on the coast of Florida. But we were lucky. We found a new home in Dallas. Now we just have to get registered. Before I go out of my room, I take my medicine, as always. I have to fight against my cancer somehow, you know? I don't want to die like my father did. I go to my mom who is waiting for me by the door. I quickly slip on my jacket and my shoes and I put on my mask. Nobody goes out without a mask nowadays. We walk through the little garden in front of our house and look at the little thing that is painted on our mailbox. It's a white bear going on all fours on a tiny iceberg. My mom says it's a polar bear. I've never seen one and neither has she. They died out years ago.

Both of us get in the car. My mom is in the driverseat and I sit next to her. My moms small figure is looking weird behind the steering wheel even though she was an excellent driver back in the day. My mom starts the engine and the car starts to drive on it's own. We start driving from the outskirts of the city to the center of Dallas. Our car is one of the older hydrogen models but it works just fine.

While my sight is just swerving around the car and the scenery that we're passing by I am beginning to think. So much has happened in the past decades and mostly because of climate change. The polar caps have almost been melted, due to the whole world warming up, and because of that the water level started to rise. Floods were occuring more and more, getting bigger and bigger everytime and islands started to vanish from the world's surface. It's like they got erased with just a snap of two fingers.The countries that thought that they wouldn't get flooded got flooded. The once beautiful Caribbean islands aren't existent anymore and you can only see the volcanoes of Hawaii. The rest is under water. The Netherlands are under water as well and a huge amount of Germany too. The continents becoming islands, caused the rate of homeless people to skyrocket and the world leaders to worry even more. Speaking of them, the politicians have finally realised that climate change is indeed real. Even the people that totally denied it.*cough* like republican politicians *cough*. I'm assuming they "realised" it because the fossil fuels died out and they lost their best money source. Their best money sources were of course their stocks in coal and oil. Even though the extinction of the fossil fuels was a good thing, because they emitted most of the carbon dioxide, it still wasn’t enough to stop the ongoing climate change.

As I'm looking out of the car window, I can see almost no trees anymore. Because of the deforrestation and the huge forrest fires, there is basically no wood left. The whole landscape went bald. Now the free land is used for windmills, because that's the only source we can get our energy from. But it's honestly way too late to make these windmills our main energy source. We should have done that years ago, when there still was a bit of hope to help our planet. When there still were possibilities to change at least something. When there still were people who actively fought against climate change.

We are now in downtown Dallas, almost at our destination. The people outside look power- and emotionless, they have blank looks on their faces and most of them don't have hair anymore. Because of the carbon dioxide we were emitting, the ozone layer got tremendously destroyed and that highered the chances of getting cancer, because the sunlight couldn't get filtered anymore. This led to many people getting cancer. The state that the world was in didn't help at all to cheer the people up. Everyone fell into a depression. It seems like a dark tunnel without a ray of sunshine at the end of it, for them. They fell into a big hole of nothing with nobody to help them get out or a plan to escape it. Along with depression everyone feared that their life would just end tomorrow, maybe because of a big flood while they were asleep or because of a lung disease due to the smog. They basically got anxiety as well. Everyone was fighting from one day to the other, not caring about anyone else. They became egoistic and got angry easier, as if their life depended on that package of toilet paper, that they were currently fighting over like cavemen. The whole society got messed up.

The car came to a halt. We are standing at a traffic light two minutes away from the town hall. Suddenly the car is starting to move even though the traffic light is still red. I am looking to my side and see my mom helplessly trying to stop the car which is speeding into the ongoing traffic directly into another car. In panic I am trying to shield myself with my arms as our car is colliding with the other one. I am hearing a horrible crash sound and I am starting to scream. I am feeling like I'm being flipped around and I can feel pain rushing through my right arm. I close my eyes, not wanting to see anything. I am getting pushed into the already popped out airbag. The last thing I hear before everything goes quiet is a loud 'Boom' and I feel heat rising all around me.

Everything around me is black. I am looking down and seeing my body. Ok so my soul hasn't left my body yet. My vision is starting to get blurry and when it's starting to clear up I am astonished. I'm standing on a breathtaking forrest clearing. All around me are big and strong trees and the sunlight is seeping through their leaves. It looks like golden threads are sewn through this wonderful scenery. It almost looks like a work of art, no, it is a work of art. I lay down on the grass and look up to a sky colored in the most vibrant kind of blue with clouds that look like fluffy cotton candy. I breathe in the clear air around me, close my eyes and let the sun tickle my skin.

Opening my eyes again I'm standing in a busy city. There are hydrogen cars everywhere and smog is nowhere to be seen. The people around me have smiles on their faces and almost seem to be careless. Everyone has beautiful hair styled to perfection, not a bald head from chemo therapy, and they all look totally healthy. I'm starting to think that I want to live here so badly. This is the life the world should live, the life everyone wants to live, the life that we could've had. I am suddenly hearing my name beeing called. I turn around to see my mom just a few steps away from me. Between us, just a pedestrian crossing. "Sweetie, come over here!! We can get coffee to celebrate that we just moved in our new home here. You were right, it is so beautiful here." I smile at her just because of the fact that she said that we live here now. We will live in this clean city with beautiful and happy people, with clean air and a clear sky and with trees on the sides of the street. My mom is calling my name again and winking me over to her. I am starting to walk but I speed up my walk, so that I am almost running. I can't wait to be able to live here. I can finally live without worrying for our planets future and mine, to finally get healthy again and to finally live happily. I am rushing over the pedestrian crossing and almost jump into my moms arms that are widely spread for a giant hug. I am hugging my mom tightly like she is hugging me. We are reunited again like the old times, when everything seemed to be perfect and we all lived a relaxed and quiet life...

A long "beep" is echoing through the intensive care unit of a hospital in Dallas. A doctor and a nurse come rushing in to check where this very familiar sound is coming from. Finding the source they sigh. The world has lost another soul. The heart rate monitor of a young girl in her teenage years has gone to zero. "It was just a matter of time until it happened. It's sad that she died this young, eventhough it is 'common' in today's state of living.", the doctor said. As he jotted down the time of death on his clipboard the nurse is nodding. "Yes you're right sir. I think that it's just kind of weird that she died in a car crash. I mean the cars are driving themselves, so how could that possibly have happened?...". The room is filling with silence, both of them trying to figure out how this girl died in such an unusual way.

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