The Sky

NOTE: I suggest you read my other short stories first, as this is the oldest of the three I've posted so far, and I would at least like to think that I've matured a bit as a writer since I've written this.
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The sky was dead.

Not to say, of course, that it had ever truly been alive. In many respects it had never even truly been there. It was an entity measured entirely in its absence, the small incalculable nothing that separated terrestrial dirt from the endless expanse of space. And yet, by the way it had been personified throughout history, it was very much alive, almost human. A glimpse of sunlight through an expanse of clouds could speak more than any words. Or so they said. A great cold autumn sky spoke of boundless bittersweet memories and, accompanied by the gentle bite of a passing breeze, evoked a romanticism and nostalgia so deep within the soul as to breach the very core of humanity. Such skies stopped time. Or so they said. And, on occasion, an eternal blanket of gray masking the light of the sun, reducing its brilliance to a numbingly morose luminescence, encasing the earth within its somber grasp, springing shadows from the earth like the tombstones of a cemetery. This was the sky of anguish, the den of suicides, the grandiose mimicry of all the darkest corners of the human psyche, the manifestation of apathy. Cold, unfeeling, agonizing gray. In some ways, then, it was not so different than now. A mass of steel and concrete had replaced its living, breathing emptiness, but still the grayness remained. The emotionless, despondent gray. Looking upwards was no longer a sign of hope, rather an indirect means of despair. It evoked sentiments more macabre than any prose ever written or any language ever spoken. And so the cold, dead sky became ignored. Society, after all, couldn't afford to grant their attention to death.

The destruction had lasted but an hour. The source of the first missile had never been determined, but it scarcely mattered. The missiles set off like the spores of a dandelion, floating gently along the atmospheric breeze before crashing down with thunderous determination. The cities crumbled and the forests burned, and for a while the planet fell silent. But mankind would not be crushed that quickly. For years statistics dictated that total destruction was an inevitability. The trenches had been dug and the tunnels had been set, and for weeks the blasts rocked the night and well into the morning. At last it was completed: an artificial valley set deep within the crust of the earth. Not visible from space, but large enough to hold the survivors. Radiation suits were distributed in every major city and bomb shelters sprung up at an alarming rate. And still we were not fully prepared. Many shelters failed, and many never reached them. In the end, very few remained. of those, most would die of exposure. The rest made their way across land and sea until at last all were settled in the valley. They embraced their earthly damnation with optimism. The struggle for life at the core of our being never left us. But still, the surface was irradiated and the open sky posed a threat. The fallen cities proved a wealthy harvest of resources, and the great monuments which once brought humanity closer to the sky now locked it beneath the earth, a barrier of steel and concrete separating us forever from the barren fields above. The sun was enslaved by mankind to do their bidding, its energy gathered and its brilliant light illuminating a wasteland of twisted metal and blood, which had set itself loose in the sudden final sigh of millions, as their life was torn from their frail vessels of flesh and bone. Rivers ran red where streets had once been, staining the nation from coast to coast. Yet standing above this graveyard of flesh and steel was one building. Tall, dark, foreboding, It was the glory of human achievement, the only structure spared destruction. Its miraculous existence absorbed the rays of a sun that no longer shone on mankind. It stood tall above the rubble, rising into the sky its creators no longer knew. It was the last sign that life had existed on this miserable little planet, a monument to both the ingenuity and ignorance of man, the headstone of the concrete tomb they had dug themselves. Its silent epitaph spoke the closing chapter of the human race. Or so it would seem.

Centuries passed. Mankind repopulated. Space was running thin and we couldn't build up, so we dug in and built out. Levels sank deeper into the earth and the valley became a cavern spanning hundreds of miles. The surface was forgotten and the sky of concrete continued to expand. Dull, featureless, gray, it watched over all of society with no remorse.

I was one of them. I had never seen the sky, never felt the warmth of the sun, and never been witness to the splendor of a starry night. I was born long after the war had shaken the earth, long after the dust had settled and mankind grew comfortable with its new living arrangements. As all things eventually go, the memories had faded into myth. Dedicated to the concept of rebirth, the survivors had destroyed all visual records of the pre-destruction era. The literature remained, however. Physical history was unimportant, but literature, in many regards, held our collective souls. The last remnant of a bygone world as far as we knew, it sparked the interest of the more imaginative. Suffice to say, few cared.

Not that our previous world was completely forgotten. The final building left standing was one such myth that would never die. It became a cultural icon, with films dramatizing daring treks to it and theorizing on its contents cropping up every several years. For some, it held a vast treasure. To others, it had held a second group of survivors. The more radical of these even went as far as to say that the surface had been repopulated by those left within its walls, and an equally thriving world rested just above the surface. These ideas, however romantic, never held much credence, and it was questionable whether or not their followers even truly believed them. Science had taught us, after all, that the surface would never be capable of supporting life. The damage that had been done was permanent, and the surface was irreversibly polluted.

This was not enough for me. I had heard talk of the surface for all my life, and the numerous theories were just words to me. I needed to see it. I had heard that there was a passage to the outside world in the vicinity of humanities original descent below the surface. Apparently, some twenty odd years after it had first occurred, a renegade group of survivors suffering equal parts claustrophobia and disillusionment wanted out, so they dug their way up. In a rather cliched twist of fate, they were never heard from again.

It took me years of research and thousands of dollars in bribing, but I had found it. I had nothing to live for here. Not to say my life was bad, rather that it was entirely unremarkable. Born the first and only child of two loving parents, medicated at an early age for "sky"-induced depression (an occurrence so common the drugs had become over-the-counter), raised an average student, and just recently finished working on a business degree. My life had its own peculiarities, but they were nothing more than the occasional blip on a flat graph, averaged out into a monotonous nothing, filed away in some ethereal filing cabinet. In short, I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

I stood at the end of a long tunnel, hidden behind a bookshelf in a long abandoned building in the poorer section of an unremarkable suburb of the world's capital. Its founders had named it Jamestown, likening themselves to the first of the New World settlers. But names were unimportant. What was important was that a doorway stood in front of me. It was notably ancient and covered in dust. I tried the knob, but it was locked. Not a problem, as the hinges had rusted through and the wood had rotted long ago. A swift kick broke a splintered hole through it, and two more allowed me to squeeze through. There were of course no lights, but I had brought a flashlight. I didn't bring anything else. I figured that, whatever was out there, I wouldn't need it. If another population had grown, they would have water. If it was desolate, I wouldn't be long. All I needed was a glance.

There was a stairway carved into the rock, so I climbed it. It spiraled upwards, slowly but steadily, the smooth walls illuminated by the artificial light in my hands. The stream of light pierced the darkness, for the first time in centuries. Darkness this ancient had a heaviness about it, though the light showed no restraint, weaving its way through lifetimes of obscurity in the blink of an eye. After what felt like an hour I reached the end. A ladder sat propped against the wall in front of me, and above me was a hatch. I pushed my hand against it. It was unlocked.

The sunlight that streamed down momentarily blinded me. I closed my eyes and pushed the rest of the way. Upon opening them, I expected to see a brilliant blue sky. I was almost afraid to. My life had been spent fantasizing about this moment, wondering if it was everything I had been told it was. Trembling, I opened them, and was welcome by an inviting yet unexpected canopy of green. I looked around and saw more of the same.

I was of course familiar with the concept of vegetation. We had grown it in our underground cities in much the same way it had been cultivated for thousands of years. But never before had I seen it like this. A sense of green pervaded the air, permeating every inch with its lush existence. I climbed out and was surrounded by a forest. It had obviously never seen the touch of man, and every inch of the ground was covered with the most vibrant foliage I had ever seen. I felt the raw, unfiltered, unconditioned air, and something within me awake, something that had been hibernating for hundreds of years. In my mind I was at ease, and my past seemed as insignificant as a blade of grass. Here there was nature, and I was immersed in it, I was a part of it. I was alive.

Something was missing though. The air was silent. I heard no scurrying of animals (I had never seen an animal, only ever heard them spoken of in much the same way as all the surface was: vague and mysterious). The call of birds did not fill the air. There was nothing. Nothing, except for the trickle of a stream. I followed the noise and noticed, scattered amidst the trees, large steel poles. These, I theorized, held the solar panels which powered our underground hive. I found the stream and, without a moment's hesitation, plunged my cupped hands in it and sloppily drank. I felt a chill run down my spine. Suddenly all the water I had ever drank seemed fake. It repulsed me to even imagine it. This was pure. This was as it was meant to be.

I sat down just to take it all in. It was all unbelievable. No amount of rational thought on my behalf could explain it. My senses were overloaded and my mind was buzzing, and the light was growing dim. Nightfall was coming fast, and I had to see the sky. All above me the green canopy was still present, so I got up and continued on. Coming across a clearing, my heart stopped in its chest. Above me, in all their marvel, unobscured and unclouded, were the stars. Their sparkling light shone down upon me as my dancing eyes gazed up at them. I staggered and fell backwards. The soft ground cover caught me. It felt like I had gone hours without blinking, I was in too much awe to stop for even a second. Always there had been gray hanging above me, be it light or dark depending on day or night. Here there was black. But amongst it was spread the most brilliant array of light imaginable. Its infinite depth, far from being unsettling, was comforting to me. There was nothing standing between me and eternity. I was vaguely aware of my body slipping into unconsciousness.

The next instant I was flooded with light. I saw the blue sky. I saw the clouds. I saw the sun. I could scarcely breathe. If the stars had been beauty, this was perfection. The somber gray that had haunted my dreams for years was gone, dissipated into my quickly vanishing past. I averted my gaze and the sun burnt into it. I had to force my eyes to move away, they were far too fixated upon its splendor to worry about the pain. Despite its burning appearance, the day was cold. It must have been autumn, but the plants showed no sign of it. Perhaps they had changed and adapted. Perhaps the Earth was just a colder place than it used to be.

I looked down at my feet and was flooded with vertigo, again sending me to the ground. I realized that I was standing a mile above the world I had once known. The heights were invisible to me, but the thought of them sent me into a panic. I looked up again at the sky and the feelings faded. Whether or not the world down there even existed scarcely mattered, there was more than enough life here to make up for it. In the distance I saw the rising black peak of a building, and I felt myself drawn to it.

I remembered the stories of the tower, the fascination with it I had had since a child, and the urge to approach it was irresistible. I rose once again and tore off towards it, the sunlight streaming around me as I passed alternatively beneath vegetation and sky, the smell of life surrounding me as I ripped my way through the undergrowth.
Finally I reached its black steel and glass walls. The forest had woven its way against it, and it was difficult to make out amidst the heavy plant life surrounding me. I saw the door, and it had already been busted open.

Light was streaming in from the high windows, and on the floor amidst the newly swirling dust I saw a seemingly formless lump of ivory. Upon closer inspection I found it to consist of human bones. Close by were six more of the same. Human skeletons, each bearing an identical brown pack. I read the inscription on one of them: "Jamestown." I gingerly picked it up and opened it, dumping the untouched ration supplies on the floor. They had never been needed. In the hand of one of the skeletons was a crowbar.

In the far corner of the room a short staircase lead to a wooden door. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I examined it; not a scratch or dent marred its smooth surface. The previous visitors had never made any attempt to open it. They had never made it that far.

I looked back. The vegetation pressed against the high glass windows, encroaching upon this small remnant of humanity left upon the surface. The steel support pylons for the solar panels were almost trees in their own right, but this was a foreigner. I walked over to one of the skeletons and grabbed a crowbar. With one swing I brought it down, but I felt my body weakening. As the dust cleared, I saw a stairway behind it. I started to climb. With every step it became more laborious; this was more than just fatigue.

At last I reached the top, an artificial plateau situated high above the forest. As far as I could see, the earth was green. The trees formed a luscious blanket, a soft sea of green beneath which all of mankind lay. My knees weakened, but this time it wasn't from emotion. Throughout the centuries, nature had adapted. Mankind, deep within its burial mound, had been given no chance. Humanity was a stranger here, as foreign on earth as it would have been anywhere else in the universe. The beautiful panorama stretched before me, the ultimate paradox, a banquet of cyanide.

And so I lay here now, my body slowly weakening. With slowly fading sight I gaze up at the sunset. As the hues of the sky turn from blue to orange, I can see why the sky inspired so many in the past; its brilliance is almost intangible. With it comes the vitality to fuel one last moment of introspection, before I join those in the building below me and, ultimately, all those beneath the soil. I'm fading away quickly, surrounded by vibrant life in a world in which I can play no part, but beneath the roots lives an oblivious society, trapped beneath a dull gray sky. With one last look I see the brilliance surrounding me, the unimaginable hues and the infinite, awe-inspiring bounds of space. As my pulse slows and my breathing fades, one final thought lies trapped within the cavern of my skull as the synapses cease their firing: I couldn't be happier.