Earth Unchanged

• Lil Brewer, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2019

The desolate landscape spread out before her, stretching way out into the distance. Cleo reached one hand upwards, shielding her eyes from the unforgiving sun that beat down on the cracked, bare ground. Slowly she lifted one booted foot forward, and placed it gently on the ground, releasing a puff of orange dust. Cleo’s mind struggled to comprehend the fact that this dead wasteland had once been the home to an oasis of over 3000 plant species. In its time the Daintree rainforest had been a marvel, Cleo knew that only because of pictures. But now as Cleo moved slowly further into the ever-expanding deserted land, the remains of the Daintree was the same as everything else on Earth. Dead.
She sucked in a sharp breath, horribly aware of the thick, viscous air that curled around her, in plumes of yellow and green. Cleo knew any contact with it would result in an instant, painful death. Fortunately for her, it couldn’t get into her bodysuit but that wasn’t enough to stop her imagination from running wild.
Her boots were heavy causing her to lumber forward awkwardly, kicking up clouds of dust that had long ago settled. Cleo stumbled forward as her boot caught on something and looking down, she found the skeletal remains of creature staring at her. Screaming she tried to pull her boot from its ribcage but only succeeded in falling backward. Unable to slow her descent, Cleo’s head made a soft whump as it hit the floor, her helmet sliding off her face and rolling to a stop next to her.
She gasped as the air touched her sweaty face, but this wasn’t the viscous, death air from the Daintree, this was clean, cool, sweet air that Cleo welcomely sucked in in lungfuls. She got up and reached for the door which had the words ‘EARTH AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN’ on it. Gratefully she stepped out of the VR chamber and began to make her way back to the front of the Earth Unchanged Museum. On her way out she passed art structures which lined the hallways. Some were painters’ interceptions of what Earth could’ve looked like. One was a sculpture of people fighting for a small tree that stood in the centre of the chaos. She passed a giant canvas with the words, only 11 years left, painted in red.
Finally, she made it to the exit and passed through the giant revolving doors and into the sunlight. Trams zipped by above her head and Cleo watched travelers walk freely underneath them. Great, big trees lined the footpaths, the tops of their branches gently touching the hovering tram tracks. Cleo smiled as she watched people go about their daily business, and marveled at the fact that these people had had the courage to make change.