The Minimalists

The Minimalists

The man woke in a pile of charred wooden beams, and smashed and splintered furniture. He ached all over, cuts and bruises covering his body, his clothes ripped to shreds. After pushing some scraps of wood off of him and brushing dust from his eyes, he carefully stood up, waves of agony pulsing through his body. Half of his home was completely gone, scattered for a quarter mile in every direction, and he could see daylight through what was left of the walls. He inched toward the open doorway, the door long since ripped from its hinges and effortlessly thrown far away. He stepped outside and looked at the sky. It was orangish red, and smoke billowed from the murky horizon. The sun was setting. He sat on the ground, covered in dew, and gently laid on his back. Closing his eyes, Evan exhaled deeply and thought about what had happened.

Evan had been a high-ranking executive at a prestigious corporation, earning six figures with consistent pay raises. He worked hard, often working between 10 and 12 hour days, and usually at least one day every weekend to get where he was. He had a beautiful five bedroom home, a luxurious vehicle, and more land than he knew what to do with; not that he could do anything with it with how often he was sitting behind his desk at work. He had no wife, no kids, not even a girlfriend, and at 26 years old, he was doing very well for himself. He was happy, or at least he thought he was, if not a little lonely.

At 4:38 PM, the alarms and sirens had begun to wail, and emergency alerts were sent to everyone's cell phone. A dozen missiles had been detected soaring towards various, evenly spaced locations throughout the country, and they were unlike anything the military has ever seen before, with dozens more expected to follow. They each had a payload equivalent to the power of a nuclear warhead, but they weren't. Of course, nobody knew that at the time. The missiles made contact, and annihilated everyone within a 15 mile radius of them. They could be heard as distant pops, followed by enormous invisible shockwaves tearing up houses and trees and throwing them farther than the eye could see, not that anyone was watching them.

When the alarms went off, Evan sprinted down the seven flights of stairs from his office to the ground floor, jumped into his car and sped to his house. He had barely gotten into his living room when the shockwave pulverized his home, turning the beautiful structure into a pile of rubble in moments. He had no idea how he survived the blast, he could only imagine he was the luckiest man on Earth in that moment. Or was he? He was unconscious for hours, and when he saw the results of the explosions, he wept. He cried harder than he ever remembered crying. He had lost everything he had worked so hard for over the last eight years of his life. He had no friends, other than coworkers, his family had passed away two years ago at the hands of three burglars armed with assault rifles. He quickly moved away to California eight years ago, 1000 miles away from what he considered home, to start his life over. He purchased his home well away from the city, which he was now thankful for, and lived in solitude, trying to rebuild his life. He wept silently, as everything he had was gone within moments, for the second time in his life. He fell asleep.

He was woken by the sound of a black limousine parking next time him, followed by two armored vehicles. A tall, pale man stepped out of the car, dressed in a black dress shirt and blue jeans. He was clean shaven, with well-kept dark hair, and he was in decent shape for a man who seemed to be in his late 40's to early 50's. He purposefully walked toward Evan holding a single sheet of paper, and placed the paper carefully on his chest.

"This needed to happen. You needed this, everyone needed it. Read this, and try to understand. Things are going to get a lot better in the coming years, Evan." the man said, with a deep sadness in his voice.

Evan was terrified, he couldn't bring himself to respond. The man walked back to the limousine, got in, and the driver took him away, the armored trucks following. What the hell is going on? He thought, grabbing the paper. His hands shaking violently, he read it.

"If you are reading this, you are one of the lucky few. We have all gotten complacent, spoiled ourselves with material possessions, and taken life for granted. People have been murdering, raping, and robbing for decades, centuries. Technology has made us weak minded, and we have all become dependent on it to live our daily lives. That is now over. Governments across the globe have agreed, and decided that it was time to change. This was not a terrorist attack on our country; this was a cleansing. Of the seven billion people populating this planet, only a few hundred thousand remain. We will no longer destroy our world. We will no longer pollute it. Things are going back to the way they were when humans first began. We must do better." At the bottom of the letter, it was signed "The Minimalists".

After reading the letter, Evan was sick with disgust. How could governments around the world do this? How could they kill almost everyone? He couldn't understand. He crumpled the letter and threw it as far as he could, given how much pain he was in. He was angry. They had taken everything not only from him, but from everyone. Not everyone was a killer, or a criminal. Not everyone littered, or contributed to the destruction of forests and oceans. It wasn't fair. The sun was almost past the horizon now, and it was dark. He laid on the cold, hard ground again and fell asleep.

When he woke in the morning, Evan started walking. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he had to walk, to leave everything behind and start over yet again. Using the sun as his compass, he walked East and kept walking for as long as he could, day after day. After a few weeks of walking and scavenging for food, his body was thin, and he had grown a long and messy beard. Eventually, he found a large valley, seemingly untouched by the destruction of the attack. He had no idea how far he had traveled, but he had gone far enough, he thought. After walking down into the valley, he saw a small group of five people huddled around a small fire. They were cooking, it seemed, and they saw him approaching. Two adult women his three children behind them, terrified. He held up his hands, and yelled "Please, don't be afraid, I'm not going to hurt you!". The women relaxed, just a little, and after a few minutes he finally reached them.

The first woman who spoke was short, with long brown hair down to her lower back. She had a weary expression on her face, and dark circles of exhaustion around her eyes, as did the others in her group. "Were you attacked too?" she asked, her voice shaky and scared.

"Yes, I was... It was terrible ma'am, there was a huge explosion, and fire everywhere. The entire city I worked in was destroyed, everything is gone. The only reason I lived was because my home was many miles away from the explosion. I'm..." he paused for a moment. "I'm Stewart. You can call me Stu." He held his hand out to her, and she shook it with a light, dainty grip. It's time to start over, he thought. "I'm Loren, and this is Sarah." She pointed to the woman next to her, who was also short, and had short, blond hair. "The little ones are Kylie, Emma, and Peter". Loren forced a sad smile, and turned toward the children. They were all very young, under the age of seven or eight, and they looked tired and were covered in dirt.

Evan sighed, sadness creeping into him again at the reminder of everything he lost. Loren hugged the children close to her and asked "Do you know why this happened? Are we the only ones?". He thought of the letter he had been given, of the tall man riding away in the limousine, and decided not to tell her about it. He had thought a lot on his journey here, of God knows how many miles, and decided that maybe the tall man was right. He didn't think so many innocent people should had been killed, but maybe we all really did need this. People didn't need electricity or computers thousands of years ago, it was something to make life easier. He thought that maybe it was better if everyone started over, used the knowledge that we have, and lived their lives humbly and peacefully.

"I have no idea, but I heard on the radio on my way home that the attacks were all over the world... billions of people have been killed Loren. The attackers called themselves The Minimalists, they said they were 'cleansing' the Earth, trying to bring things back to how they were when humans first began. They said they were only going to save a few...". Evan saw Loren start to cry. She told the children to go to Sarah, who was sitting in front of the first a few yards away. He hugged her, and asked if he could stay with them. She nodded, and he let her go. They walked to Sarah, who was sitting by the slowly dwindling fire and watching Kylie, Emma, and Peter play nearby.