The Revival of Planet Earth

The Revival of Planet Earth

By Kyle Haggerty

         It was gone. All of it, lost in the smoke. There it was, the empire that we built over the ages, relics of the trials we faced, just rubble in the desert. I had to get to Professor Sorokin's lab because I knew he was the only other one who had the tools to prepare and survive. I sprinted off through the rubble and bloody dismembered bodies. The Mojave dessert before 3013 used to be a tranquil, easy-going kind of place before it all happened. In my mind I could clearly recall the horror of the creatures, the government said it was nothing big and they would find the weakness of the creatures, but they worked too slowly. They were like an undefeated sports team going to face the underdog, cocky and ignorant to the situation that faced them.
         When I got to the lab I turned to see professor Sorokin with a semi- automatic shotgun in his hand and his legs trapped under some half burnt planks of wood. I ran to his aid, tripping and falling once on the horrible blood stained rocks and rubble.
"What happened to you?" I said as I sat there picking at the rubble.
"I can't feel them!" he let out with a cry.
"Can't feel what?"
"My legs you imbecile,"
         Once I removed the last of the rubble, I saw what I had expected...his legs were gone. The only remnants of the legs that were once there were two small blunt ends. The look on the worn, leathery face of the professor was a look of insurmountable pain.
"I need you Kyle."
"Need me for what?"
"I need you to go into my lab," He cringed as he said the words as if the words were the things causing his pain and not the severed limbs. "I've been working on a project, a project to create more of you."
"More of me?" "You said that my project could never be repeated, you said it was too dangerous.
"I thought it was, but I have figured out how to reincarnate a few more humans and make exoskeletons for them the same way that I did it for you, but I could only find three people who were suitable for the reincarnation."
"Who are they?" I said with the most excitement that I had felt in a very long time
"I think you've heard of them, famous patriots Sam Adams, George Washington, and Ben Franklin."
"Why them, why not newer corpses?"
"The death dates of the corpses don't matter in the least, the only thing that matters is their own individual personality traits."
"So why did you choose Ben Franklin and Sam Adams and not some famous warriors?"
"I chose them all for their own specific uses. Ben Franklin for wisdom, Sam Adams for morale, and George Washington for strategy and leadership." "You'll need all of these things for your quest."
"Quest?" "What are you talking about?"
I'm talking about saving our planet from total extinction, you fool!"
"Hasn't total extinction already taken place on the Earth?"
"Not quite, once the creatures started their uprising I knew that I had to act fast." "I convinced the other workers from my lab to be the controls,"
"Controls?" I said as the sharp heated wind blew across my face.
"They are being safely stored under my lab in containment pods with everything that they need to survive, I have 30 men and 45 women in there. Once you've cleared the world of the creatures, they can begin to repopulate the Earth and create a new world with new possibilities and a stronger bond than ever before, so what do you say?"
"I say alright but how do I retrieve the patriots?"
"Easy, just press the button that's on the side of each pod."
"How will they know what is going on and what they need to do?"
"I already programmed their exoskeletons to fill them in on the situation. In fact, the process should be over by now"
Quickly I knew that the number one priority was getting the professor mobile so I ran into the next-door hospital and retrieved a rusty, but usable wheelchair and ran back to the professor to get him in it.
"I hate these insufferable things, they are so inconvenient." Said the doctor with a snarl.
"Too bad, you're going to have to live with it, it's your only chance of movement without your legs."
I went off to the pods in the lab and opened them. It was amazing, three of some of the most well known and revered Americans of all time. They were the image of patriotism. The three of them looked around the lab in utter disbelief of the amazing surroundings that stood before them.
         "We have been informed of the situation and are very much prepared to fight for the freedom and survival of our country and the rest of the world." said Washington with a very clear passion in the words he spoke.
"Indeed!" Sam and Ben resounded the words as if they were some kind of makeshift motto of theirs.
"Kyle!" the professor screamed out.
"What's the problem professor?" I asked as I ran to the front of the lab to open the door for him.
"I just realized that I forgot to tell you all about the tower"
"Tower?" we asked in strangely perfect unison.
"The death children of Seazilla only have the power of invincibility because of a radioactive nuclear test facility tower that went wrong and exploded." "Somehow, the exploded tower caused the death children's bodies to react in such a way that they gained the power of invincibility."
"So you want us to take out the tower?" said Ben with a puzzled look on his face
"Correct, when you destroy the tower, you destroy the creatures with it, but the Brightside is that not every one of them was close enough to be affected by the tower's blast, the ones that glow blue are invincible but the others aren't. They somehow know that the last people on Earth are somewhere near here so now, all of the Death Children seem to have started migrating to the United States."
"Where is the tower?" I asked
"Hollywood, right by the sign." said the professor.
"A nuclear tower by the Hollywood sign?"
"Under it really."
         We set off on our journey the next morning. For two weeks we walked and camped over and over again. We became friends on our journey and finally we came about what we wanted to see and also what we did not want to see. We caught a glimpse of the Hollywood sign in the distance but sadly it was crawling with death children. Worst of all, most were glowing the dreaded color blue.
"In my life, I was a leader and I made the lives of my men a larger priority to keep safe than my own.," said Washington with a confident look on his face.
"What are you suggesting George?" asked Ben with a grimace. I could tell that he knew exactly what he meant in reality, but didn't want to admit it until it came out of Washington's mouth.
"I distract the creatures while you all get to the bunker and neutralize the tower."
"Are you suggesting suicide?"
"If it's what necessary to save humanity, than yes, yes I'm suggesting exactly that."
"You are a great man George" said Sam with a smile on his face, the truest smile I had seen in my entire life.
"Thank you, Sam, now we must act fast before the sun sets."
Washington ran off to the right side where the bulk of the death children horde was. We ran to the edge of the hill and stood there watching the greatest act of bravery in history. We ran to the bunker and tried not to look off to the right, with Ben trailing behind but not far. We made it inside, and I stood in the doorway, gasping for breath. Ben, with his large frame stumbled over to the railing. There was a break in the rails that Ben was too delirious to notice. He tripped on some strange, slimy liquid, which was right in front of the open bars and he fell into the last remaining container of nuclear waste left in the plant. He screamed, but it was only for a short while before he was only bone floating at the top of the waste. That leftover pit of waste was in the blast radius, so it was so heated that it was at a temperature very close to the usual temperature of lava.
"Good God man, he was just burnt alive!" exclaimed Sam
"I know it's bad but we have to neutralize the waste before the death children figure out we're in here"
I ran to where I knew the neutralizer would be from research at the lab a few years before that. I picked up the container, twisted the lid off, and let the neutralizing gases flow out.
"Is that gas dangerous?" asked Sam.
"No, it doesn't affect humans." I said
         We heard screams resound throughout the outside of the bunker, we looked outside and sure enough, there they were, millions of dead carcasses scattered across the hill and the sign. We hiked back to the lab after about a week of not sleeping except for about 3 hours every other day. We reached the lab, and I was glad to see that the professor was still all right. When he saw us coming to the lab, his face lit up with happiness and he wheeled over to us as fast as ever.
"We have to get to the pods and release the workers inside so we can repopulate the Earth and build our new society." The professor said with an eager grin. That grin was another facial expression that seemed so rare for him that it seemed as if the expression should've been completely alien to him. We went to the basement only to realize our worst fear.
         The pods had been broken, every last one. Then we saw it. Past all of the carcasses and broken pods we saw it... the mother of the apocalypse, Seazilla. We stared, horrified, at its curled black body sitting there like a heap of dirty, black laundry. Then it saw us, before we could even react to the attack, it lunged. We ran up the stairs, but it was too fast and grabbed Sam by the leg with its horrible serrated teeth and pulled him down. The professor yelled out to me from the doorway.
"The ray!" he exclaimed with utter terror in his voice
         I knew what he was saying from years of working with him at his lab, I reached the backroom fairly quickly and grabbed the emergency ray gun that he used for the possibility of rogue specimens. I ran to him and just as I reached him, it grabbed his leg. Luckily I was experienced with the ray since I was working at the lab when it was tested. I shot at the beast but missed by just a hair and the ray went straight through the head of Professor Sorokin. I screamed out in terror but then calmed myself but only for a moment so that I could aim and this time, shoot the dreaded beast. So there I was, the last human on Earth. Not even really a human, I had outstayed my welcome on the Earth, so I did what anyone else would do if they were in my position, I used the weapon that ended the life of both the professor who taught me everything and gave me new life and the beast who started the apocalypse that caused the entire planet I lived on to tumble and fall, and shot myself straight in the forehead so that there would be no suffering.
         It was gone. All of it, lost in the smoke. There it was, the empire that we built over the ages, relics of the trials we faced, just rubble in the desert.