Harvestation

                     Harvestation

Restlessly I lay on my hard cot, gazing at the light straining between the boards on the window. How many days had it been? Raising my hand to my face, I touch my beard. I hadn’t shaved since I had been running, always running now. I cringe at the daylight now becoming more present illuminates the cabin with its eerie glow. They would be waking soon.

Hunger ever-present in my days now grips my belly like a beartrap. I try not to think about it nothing I can do now about it. I had found no food on the previous night’s hunt. Now it was day, they hunted during the day, and they hunted man. As if it would do any good anyway, there were no animals anymore. They knew we needed to eat so they did what they could to prevent that. No animals, no fish, no vegetation, it was a wasteland now.

When they came we embraced them, little did we know. Systematically they began to slaughter us, they declared war on earth. They needed our water, so they were going to take it. We had no choice we ran, we hid. They hunted us for fun now, they knew we couldn’t fight back. The best of our weapons were no match to the superiority of their arsenal. 

They needed solar rays to be able to hunt us so at night we were safe but as the sun began to rise as did they. They were siphoning earth water to giant tanker ships in space. All we could do was hide and wait to die. My stomach growls again and I can feel the perspiration begin to form on my forehead. 

I lay there feeling the temperature rise as the sun began its ascent. They destroyed our ozone layer making it another reason to not go out in the sun. They needed radiation it was like their oxygen. As the days got hotter they became more aggressive. They said they were going to help us, that we had destroyed earth, and they would give us the technology to fix it.

We were so naive, it wasn’t till it was too late that we discovered that they were actually building giant siphoning centers in our oceans. We attacked and they slaughtered mankind. Our strongest defenses nuclear energy, only made them stronger and made earth even more inhospitable. 

 I don’t know why I have fought to survive through this all so long. Mankind is wiped out the only reason I survived was that I had run and hid. The lucky were the dead and soon I would join them. I was on day two without water, the streams have dried up. I can survive a week without food and still function but the water I needed to survive. I hadn’t eaten in four days and was used to the hunger pangs. I lick my cracked lips and curl into a ball.

I cannot give up, tonight I will find fluidsr when the sun goes down I will try to hunt. Will I have the energy? I lay there so overcome with the despair that is the end when I hear it, a faint humming outside like the buzz of a bee but more metallic. I sit up the effort is hard as I have no energy, the curiosity of this noise fuels me to stand with achy legs, as my muscles are seriously dehydrated. 

I shuffle to the window and peer between the cracks the illumination blinds me. Slowly my eyes are able to focus and I see the barren wasteland that is outside, scanning the perimeter I see the reddish-brown radiated soil that covers the land now dotted here and there with dead rotting trees. The sun is so bright and the sky has a slightly orangish Hugh to it no clouds anymore. I strain to see if I can see anything and my eyes water, I skan. 

The noise has no general direction in that it seems to b coming from however it does seem like it is getting louder. Is it them I am wondering, is it my time? They didn’t need to kill any more of us, we had no way of fighting back but like man hunted wild game, they hunted us. Earth had become their harvesting center, there was nothing left. The sound rose in intensity to a point that I felt vibrations still, I saw nothing, then silence. I stood there feeling slightly disoriented. Was it the sound that had made me feel this way or was it delirium starting to kick in from lack of food and water? 

I continued to stare out into the vastness that was nothingness outside, fear welling inside me wrapping around my heart like a great constrictor snake. They were here they would find me, nothing was all I could do. They would harvest my body’s water supply and I would end up like a piece of beef jerky. Sweat pooled at the base of my spine as I took a shallow breath. 

My heart was pounding but I could not take a deep breath, it seemed as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the air suddenly realizing that the noise I must have heard had been an air harvester. They had no need for oxygen but the moisture molecules that made up oxygen were very much taken by them.  I collapse onto the floor and pass out.

I am not sure how long I have been unconscious but it is still daylighting out, I can feel the sun’s powerful rays that stream through the boards on the window. I am so hot and my body is tingling. I try to sit up but don’t have the strength, the air is thick and hard to breathe, I can only take shallow breaths. They will leave this planet a husk harvested of it resources and life.

I place my hands firm on the floor and push, I am sitting up. My head spins and my mouth is so dry. My not being able to breathe the air has made my problems of not getting water and food seem insignificant. I will not give up, they have taken everything I will not let them take my will to live. It will be night soon, They will not be hunting they need the solar light to function. I will hunt, I will survive, I will find water, I will find food.

My eyes burn as the air is so dry, and my body has not the required moisture to produce tears. Slowly I try to stand, my muscles are achy and protest to movement. I cannot stand fully upright as I don’t have the strength, I shuffle to the window slouched over. I grasp the wall, brace myself against it, and look between the boards. The reddish sky has taken on purplish-red, the lack of ozone devoiding the atmosphere and allowing a man to see space as it is truly observed. This is good that means it will be night soon. 

I had found a few a week ago, big succulent ones. When they said cockroaches would survive the apocalypse they were rite. I would find one tonight maybe a few, I will feast. But I cannot breathe, can barely walk, and my vision is starting to blur. It is hard enough to hunt cockroaches at night but now, how? I will, they cannot take my will to live. I will hunt, I will be victorious.

I stand there, hovering between consciousness and delirium that is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Gazing at a withered dead tree I ponder how long till that will be me, devoid of lifeforce, decomposing on a dead planet. I must conserve my strength, rest. I shuffle stumble to the cot, each breath labor, every movement pain. I collapse onto the cot and shudder.

I lay there watching the reddish-purple haze turn to a more purplish-blue. Soon It would be utter darkness, night. I slowly pump my leg and arm muscles the cramps were becoming unbearable. I will find substance tonight, a colony of cockroaches, I will feast. As purple slid to black, I prepared myself for the night. I had a day of rest, push, persevere, survive, I stand.

I propel my inner will to survive out into my legs and proceed to shuffle to the door. So crunchy they will be, meat, fluids. I take a shallow breath of the depleted air, focus my eyes on the utter darkness, mustering all strength I extend my hand to the doorknob, opening the door I step out into a dark barren wasteland to hunt.

END