Lurranus

I walk up to the gate and push it open. I don't care that this walk takes two and a half hours and that I've done it every day for a month. It's either this or sit in a wrecked house after years of war. As my small legs start walking I notice, not for the first time, that the forest almost tells the story of how we almost destroyed ourselves.

It started in 2068 when we ran out of natural resources. Oil, coal, you name it, we lost it. In streets people were dropping dead on a daily basis. In twelve years 3.7 billion lives were lost. To make matters worse our population was spinning out of control. In 2080 our population was at 12.2 billion. No matter how many lives were lost, there were always others to replace our dead. I can hardly believe we made it to the 22nd century. It was thanks to two inventions: the Cube, a tiny thing-only half a centimetre-that would provide a human all the food and drink they would need for a fortnight, and the Slow-Down, a device that would slow down the human body clock. It's thank to the Slow-Down I'm one hundred and forty-one years old and still look like a young adult. Both were made by Craig Donnely, a man who is now remembered as a hero.

The thought of Donnely and what he did which helped us survive changes my grim espression, but only for a moment. I look above me, up at a tree. I look at the last leaf falling off and watch the tree follow it, turning into ash. It reminds me of one of my dads saying about the matter. "Only even worse could follow." My father may not have been the wisest man even but he was right about that.

The Cube and the Slow-Down were very helpful and were constantly begin improved. A new invention called the Grow-Down was also made, in the year 2109. The purpose of the Grow-Down was to make each generation of humans slightly smaller so we could make more use of our land. Everyone was drugged with it. It's the reason I'm only 1.04 metres tall. But, despite the help of Donnelys products, we still had problems. One was that, despite the thousands that had been produced, there just weren't enough Cubes. Another was the population. In 2116 it was 22.4 billion. That was how Oaktrus came together. They were a group of terrorists who considered it their mission to decrease the population of the human race. The attacks began in 2117. In four months Dubai, Florida and Britain were destroyed. In 2119 the United Seven Nations (U7U) declared war on Oaktrus. A war that lasted sixty-five years. On people's Holo-TVs there were always stories about battles, about cities destroyed, about lives lost. I was born in 2115 and had to live though the whole hellish war. All I remember about my childhood is war. No happy memories, just war. I remember watching my families Holo-TV, seeing my parents crying. A hell of a childhood to live through. I lost my father in the Fall of Mumbai in 2138. I lost my mother in a New York bombing in 2142. And the worse part was you never knew where they'd strike next. You'd think you were safe and the next morning your home would be under attack by terrorists with Cyb-Cannons, laser pistols and 2-4-1 WarTech robots. In the year 2184, after hundreds of bloody battles, a man called Carl Roject won the war for the U7U. He hid in an enemy carrier ship, took over it and crashed it into the main Oaktrus base, in the city that was once Madrid. But to most, it didn't feel like a victory. The human population was at 3.1 billion. The world that had once been full of people and light had become a dump. A real Hell. Everyone felt bitter. Even when I found an RA2-6 hover-car, one I'd always dreamed of having, and hotwired it, I didn't fell any better. I had lost my parents and the little friends I had. I knew I would never feel happy again. I haven't since. 

I look at the tree above me. It looks sad and seems to mirror my feelings. I turn away from it and continue walking. The next tree I see is looking slightly better. On it are a couple of leafs and a bit of colour. It shows why I think this forest tells a story and makes me think about where mankind were headed next.

After the end of the Population War most of surviving humans went to the old Mars bases, which had been used in the twenty-first century before we ran out of resources. Plans were made to try and make bases on Jupiter and Saturns moons. The rest of the humans, including me, stayed on Earth. There were only around a thousand of us staying. I don't know why I stayed. We made a life there but in the early 23rd century, everything changed. In 2207 Intrexal formed. They were a company that wanted to make the world a better place for humans. And then they began work on Lurranus. They said that they were going to change the lives of every human in the world. It wasn't until 2230 we found out what they had been working so hard on. Intrexal told us they were able to switch two peoples minds around. That Person One would be inside Person Twos head and vice versa. Then, as the years pasted, the news got better. The world found itself hoping. It was the closest I ever got to being happy. And in 2256 we found out what Lurranus really was. Intrexals leader John Closer told us that in 2206 he had figured out  that the world we were living in was a dead end. We were always hungry and sad. So what if we could live in a better world. A world without hunger, pain and everything you could want. And then things started to make sense. Closer said that him and everyone at Intrexal had been doing the mind experiments for a reason. They wanted to find out if it was possible to put a persons mind into someone elses head and they found out it was. So they moved on. Next they tried putting someones mind into a 2-6-1 WarTech robot and that worked as well. And then they moved on to stage three. They tried to transport someones mind into a virtual world on a computer. It took seven years to get it to work but finally they succeeded. Intrexal transported a humans mind onto a computer. That was what Lurranus was. A simulated world on a computer. Then Closer said that every human could come and be uploaded onto Lurranus, a virtual paradise. People reacted incredibly quickly. The next day there was a rocket launched carrying everyone back from Mars. Two days after the TV broadcast there were billions of people outside Intrexal Headquarters. It took a week to download everyone onto Lurranus. But not everyone went into Lurranus. Out of the 6.9 billion people alive, twenty-three stayed in the real world. Making the decision about whether to upload myself or not should have been easy but it wasn't. Despite the fact that this world was a dump, it was still my home. So I stayed. While ninety-nine of the human populations minds were on a paradise world on a computer, I was in a barren wasteland.

As I reach the end of the walk I do not turn back, like I usually do. Instead I go over to my RA2-6 hover-car, which is hidden in the bushes. I get in, turn on the engine and drive off down the road to my destination. The drive is short-just under ten minutes-and it's not long before I'm at the launch bay. I turn of my hover-car and get out of it for what may be the last time. I walk over to the robot at the entrance and it lets me past without a second glance. Seeing the spaceship is due to leave in five minutes, I rush over to the huge craft and go onboard. The first floor is full so I go up to the second floor. There's some room there. I see there are three seats left and I go to the one nearest to me. "Mind if I sit here?" I ask the man in the seat next to it.

"Nope." he replied, so I sat down.

"I'm James Fell." I said to the man, holding out my hand.

"Connor Jack" he told me, then shook it. I felt good that I'd made a friend.

"Nice car by the way." Connor told me, pointing out the window.

"Thanks." I replied.

We were about to start talking more when we heard someone on the loud speaker. "This is your captain speaking. We are to depart to Mimas very soon. Once the 'bots have checked everything we'll be lifting off." Everyone was silent, waiting for the captain to speak again. After a few minutes he did. "We are now ready to depart for Mimas." I felt the ships engines turn on and then we had launched. The ground was quickly getting further and further away. I was leaving my home behind with every second. And when I finally managed to take my eyes off Earth, I looked into space, were my new home awaits me.