By: Kidist Yidnekachew
A Note from the Author: This story is a made-up tale about what could happen if we don't take care of our planet. It's meant to make us think about how precious our world is and how important it is to protect it. Everything here is from my imagination.
The last time I saw the sun, it wasn't bright. It was a sick orange, hiding behind a thick, dirty sky. That was a long, long time ago. Before the air filters stopped working for good, and before we all started coughing all the time. Now, outside our safe building, the sky is always a bruised, dull color. It's just endless dust, blowing around, getting into everything.
My name is Amal. There aren't many of us left here in what used to be a big city center. Our old buildings somehow stayed standing after the world got too hot and the floods came. We walk through these quiet, empty rooms, our steps soft on the thick dust that covers everything. Every breath we take is a small win. Every machine that still works is like a gift.
I look at a tall building with no roof, its top floors melted and droopy like wax from the terrible heat. People used to live there and laugh there. Kids used to play in parks with real trees. Trees. The word feels strange in my mouth. The last tree not kept in a special room died over fifty years ago. Its roots got poisoned by the salty water when the sea took over the land. I've seen old pictures of giant trees, reaching for a bright, blue sky. It looks like a dream.
Sometimes, a memory flashes in my mind, or I see a video from the old days. I see green forests, hear rivers rushing, and feel cool rain on my face—not the recycled, purified water we drink, but rain falling from a cloud that meant life, not flash floods. My grandma, her voice shaky from old age and a sad heart, used to tell me stories. Stories about a sky so clear it was like a bird's egg, bright blue. About a wind that smelled like flowers, not just the hot, dry breath of the ruined earth.
"We had signs, Amal," her young face in the video says. She looks so happy, so full of hope I can barely understand it. "The smart people, the old people, they warned us. They showed us the water rising, the storms getting wild, and the forests dying. We knew."
Her eyes, full of that old hope, seem to look right at me, across all the years of pain. "But we were... busy. So very busy. Busy with new gadgets, busy making more and more things, busy just letting someone else worry about tomorrow. We looked down, kept making things, and kept using things. We thought the Earth would just take it. We thought bad things would only happen far away, to other people."
That hard truth lives with me every day. The air didn't just go bad all at once. It got worse bit by bit, slowly, until we couldn't breathe it without machines. It wasn't one giant wave that ate the cities. It was the water slowly, slowly creeping higher, turning cities into watery graves, leaving behind salty land where nothing could grow. The strong winds, the ones that blow now, weren't always like this. They used to be just breezes. Then they turned into choking gales that blew away all the good soil, burying everything under endless dust.
We go out into the dangerous areas sometimes, looking for old machine parts, anything to keep our fragile systems working. Every trip is a risk. We face bad air that burns our lungs and sudden, strong winds that can knock buildings down. We don't think there are other people out there, just the quiet reminders of our past mistakes, blowing in the dust.
The quiet is the worst part. It's not just that people aren't talking in busy cities, but the Great Silence of a world that lost its voice. No more insects buzzing, no frogs croaking, and no calls from wild animals. Just the sound of the wind, the creak of old metal, and the low hum of our machines keeping us alive.
Sometimes, the old people gather in our main room. Their faces show a sadness deeper than any sickness. They tell stories, not just of the blue sky, but of the small, simple things: the unadulterated taste of a wild berry picked fresh from a bush, the cool shade under a giant tree on a summer's day, the sound of rain tapping on a roof, and the easy joy of just breathing clean, crisp air, simply for the sake of it. They talk about a world where nature wasn't scary but a dear friend.
And in those moments, a heavy, sad feeling comes over all of us. We see their beautiful world, so full of life, with so many choices. And we see the path they chose, full of not caring, full of easy ways, and full of a sad blindness. If only they had looked up from their screens. If only they had listened to those warnings. If only they had traded a little easy living for the priceless, beautiful world that was theirs. If only. That word hangs in the quiet air, a sad song about a paradise we threw away. And the silence answers.