By: Kevin Lee

Ellen was a good kid. She was popular and good-looking but most importantly, she was intelligent. Her grades were above average and her report card was all A+’s by the end of the semester. However, she could do nothing with her hands.

She wasn’t taught to do anything with her hands. She didn’t need to in an aristocratic family, the maids and servants would do it all. She thought that they would do everything for her, forever.

But that was all about to change.

The next day at noon, there was an alert from top astronomers that a gamma ray coming from a star 4000 light years away would hit Earth that evening and that we should prepare with The Shield. This was a force field that helped the ozone layer to reflect radiation that could harm complex life on the Earth, albeit The Shield would need to be repaired for 10 years to be active again.

Although this was a big threat, the government, called the Decimation overruled this statement. They said that the gamma ray was nothing to worry about and that everyone should go back to their daily lives. They were confident that the ozone layer would protect the Earth. You could hear the shouts of protest from the astronomers but they were silenced in a jiffy, with the TV show Ellen was watching back on the screen.

But as the day progressed, everyone could feel a weird sensation, something that was creeping up on you. At 6:30 P.M., a red ray of light spanning the whole Earth and off into the space horizon was spotted speeding towards Earth and everyone knew what was to come, the gamma ray had arrived.

Everyone sped towards the safety pods, little one man pods that protected someone from any danger.

People shoved and grunted to get to the pods that were scattered in stations across the city. Then someone shouted, “Let’s have the children get in, they will rebuild our civilization better than the older generation ever could!”

A massive groan arose from the crowd as Ellen looked up to the man who shouted it. He was a poor man, ones that slept on the streets, ones who believed in the old ways millions of years ago.

Ellen was ushered into a pod and she crouched in the pod, shivering from fear.

Then, a surge of light and heat washed over the pod outside. Ellen heard a great wave of sound from the screams of people outside.

Ellen stepped out into a wasteland of ash and gray, gritty dirt. She spotted other people climbing out of their pods in a daze.

Ellen dropped to her knees and began to weep for the rebuilding of humanity that she didn’t know how to initiate. She would need to work but didn’t know how.

She began to cry for the destruction of humanity initiated by themselves. She wept for the burden on the shoulders of the lesser generation and the passing of the greater generation to guide them.