2.0

by Agentt

Content enticements/warnings:

🌑

The machine in front of me whirred into motion.

I could hear the ionic winds blowing, and the paper all around me flipped and flew in all directions because of the force emanating from the GATE.

I checked the machines strapped to it, and there didn't seem to be any problems. The graphs were all in alignment to the calculations.

Tears of happiness ran down my cheeks and I needed to fall down on the chair besides me, for my legs had failed me.

The shock that this, this phenomenon; the fact that it is even possible is just unbelievable.

I made it. A time machine. A miniature portal, a stable wormhole. The mere fabric of space was being bent in front of me.

I alone did it, she is all mine. My baby. My GATE. I am her father, her sole creator. The fruits of years of labour and begging for donations and sponsors, and finally: She is alive.

In past, I have sent rats into this. While I wasn't ever able to retrieve them, there are no signs they died in the process.

GATE was still incomplete, it managed to create a portal; but didn't had any dials in it.

There was no way, theoretically or practically to adjust this wormhole discovered till now.

Of course, there was no way of even creating a wormhole in one's basement until a minute ago, so I am hopeful towards another great discovery.

Yet, I couldn't just sit in silence.

GATE was calling to me. Beyond it was a dark void but I knew any intruder would be well protected from the cosmic radiation.

It whirred, it whistled. It was a land of opportunities.

I might die there but, whose to say I won't find anything much more fascinating?

I had trouble standing up, my mind was conflicted. On one hand GATE was just an unfinished prototype, on other hand was the excitement to travel through the rifts of space and time.

Yes, there was no way to get back, but....

If there any point to? Does this reality have anything worthwhile staying here?

I have lived for years trying to find something.

Something that will touch my heart.

Physics was my first such experience. Something that connects to me, that shows me the world from a new perspective, that shows the connection between each and every being.

Yet, something was amiss.

As much as I yearned, Physics unfortunately couldn't save me while I was at my darkest points of life.

 

I glided my hands over the gold coils of this machinery, they were warm. Like a human heart.

A human. So precious. All I ever wanted was, a human. To hug and talk to. Someone to lie besides on cold nights. Someone to break this silence.

In a way, this was shelfish of me. After all, this was humanity's prize. I cannot take the full credit for this in good faith, after all thousands of years of knowledge has resulted to this.

 

Standing so close, the ionic winds were even stronger and were tugging my shirt into the blackness of the void.

I let it tug me, and slipped into the dark.

 

When I woke up, I was in what seemed to be a forest.

Even if this is present time, GATE's space bending capabilities make me very proud of my daughter.

This was most definitely a rainforest.

The trees had a thick canopy, I couldn't see the sun overhead. The trees themselves were humongous, all being taller than 30 feet.

Their bark was thick and dark like oak.

It is fortunate there isn't any grass here, or else my ill-prepared attire would get attacked by a lot of bugs.

I walked towards a random direction, and kept on walking straight. It would be ideal if I were to find a river but; for not the best path should be to just not get lost here.

I took a straight path, hoping that after some time, I will reach the end of this forest.

 

It was then I heard something, a skittering sound. A squirrel? Or a predator? I didn't knew. I turned around to see nothing, but the rustle of the grass gave it away, something was approaching me. Like a mole or something, too fast to be a snake.

Panic filled my veins and I began to run, and the skittish noise turned into a rampaging stomping of something I didn't dare look back to see.

Finally, it caught up to me, and grabbed my foot. I fell, and it began dragging me backwards, whatever it was.

It pulled me through dirt, it's claws digging deep into my calf and that's when my saviour came.

A heard a man's yell, and I was soon freed. I turned back and saw a shirtless man fighting something dark, a sheet like beast.

The man was extremely muscular, his back looked like a stone sculpture to me and made me gasp in surprise. I never had an interest in art but, that back, those muscles looks beautiful. Perfect even. The scars on it had adorned it.

The man quickly overcame the beast, slicing him using a dagger and then tearing it apart using his bare hands.

The man turned to me, his front was just as flawless as his back. Glistening with sweat, his chest and arms looked like he could lift me easily.

He tried to talk to me, but I couldn't understand the language. I spoke back to him, and he seemed to know English, albeit a little broken.

His name was Gruz, which I found very cute. Like a toddler's it was.

"What happened?" I asked,

"Group, the, that one," he tried to speak, "the green group."

Gruz explained, and from what I understand, the Team Trees led by Mr. Beast, a philanthropist of my era was too successful.

Their aim was to prevent global crises by planting more trees but, they planted one too many trees. And they slowly took over.

Soon, there were trees everywhere, and they spread. They reproduced and outlived us.

Over the time, as the soil was no longer able to support such a huge population of trees, they turned carnivorous to survive.

What attacked me just now was apparently a lichen, one of the more ferocious enemies here due to their fast mobility. Fortunately, they are very fragile but reproduce easily.

And Gruz here was the last human, or the last human he knew of.

Humans slowly perished away, and the sole reason Gruz is still alive is because of the sole weakness of these trees, their extremely slow speed.

It was hard to concentrate on the conversation. Gruz was obviously very sad while talking about the demise of his parents, but the way he said words like "spread," or "reproduction," with that rolling r-sound just sent jitters down my spine.

Despite being more than a head taller than me, Gruz just felt very adorable, like a baby. The way he was struggling to speak and his social awkwardness, they way he dwindled his thumbs and looked away to avoid eye contact were just too adorable for my heart to bear.

I hugged him when he finished, his body was as hard as rock, but he smelled terrible. I slowly rubbed his head, feeling his hair through my fingers, and it took a few moments for him to realise what was happening, but when he did, he responded in kind.

He returned the hug, much tighter than I anticipated, but I was happy.

 

Over many days, he showed me the present world now, and I shared with him the miracles of the past world. He was so eager to listen, and so curious too. Always asking meaning of words and getting swayed by simple technological advancements.

This world was devoid of any other animal form than us, they all fell into the traps of plants it seems.

Gruz showed me the few plants to be wary of. Majority were harmless due to their slow speed; but their were a few who had evolved traps and poison.

And the lichens, obviously, who can now crawl like a haunted carpet. It was a magical world indeed.

 

The food was just fruits, a few fruits we scavenged every day. I am not a biologist but even if I was, I doubt my knowledge would still hold after all these thousands of years of evolution.

Gurz showed me a test, to see if a fruit is poisonous or not, first rub some saliva on it. If it doesn't react, then rub it on your skin. If all is still well, then the fruit is safe to eat.

Seeing the pearly drops of saliva drip from his mouth however, did make my heart race. There is a reaction in my heart atleast.

When we sat down to rest, I stared at the grass.

I plucked one off, and immediately noticed it actually had many tiny barbs and was coated with a slimy mucus-like solution, but it didn't seem to be venomous.

I rolled and tied it to make a ring, with the knot being the jewel.

 

As many days passed, our hearts were beginning to grow fonder. I taught Gruz my language, and he taught me his own.

With a partner in life, both of us had found happiness among this wilderness, and Gruz was finally able to enjoy small things in world, something as small as eating a meal with someone.

In this apocalyptic world, marriage has no meaning, yet we promised beneath the stars to stay together till death do us apart, to stay together in sickness and well being; to stay together in prosperity and poverty.

That was the first night I laid right besides him, his chest was the warmth I needed for these cold nights.

That might as well be the best sleep I ever had, and I hope the same to be true for him as well.

When I woke up, I noticed we were holding hands.

His was much bigger than mine, leathery even.

Is this between us really love?

For Gruz, I am the only human alive, the boundaries between friends and lovers don't exist for him, but it is still an unsettling feeling.

If we do find another human someday, what will happen then? What if it happens to be a woman?

I ran my finger across his cheek, that part of him was soft atleast.

Gruz completed my world, the world I didn't even knew existed.

 

A half an hour later when he woke up, I ran to him, "Gruz!" I say, "is there a way to make you happy?"

Gruz was very confused, "what?" was all he was able to say in his sleepy self.

"I just want to do something for you, something to make you happy."

He seemed to be even more confused, so I explained, "You have been doing so much for me, so I wanted to return the favour!"

Gruz rubbed my head gently, and smiled while half sleeping, he then pulled me in the bed again and cuddled.

This idiot doesn't understand my feelings, does he?

Over the next few days, I slowly began missing my old world.

I didn't had any friends or family to miss me, but I had something else.

An attachment.

The work I did, the bus I took, the skyscrapers, the bridges, the coworkers.

All were a distant memory now, a pipe dream.

Here, trees and flora loomed over as far as the eyes could go, and food remained the same everyday, so was our trail.

Life was getting monotonous.

Gruz was a joy to have, he was one keeping me happy here, but he couldn't fulfil everything.

Just because something is best, doesn't mean everything else is trash.

I loved Gruz dearly but, there was nothing to do here.

No maths, no physics. I remembered GATE, about how she was still a prototype. There was so much work to do on her, and now, it shall never be done.

I could be immortal, but I still could never complete my GATE again.

As the night falls, the stars emerge.

Stars are beautiful, I admire them but they still leave emptiness in the sky.

A thousand stars can't match for a Sun after all.

There were a few times I jokingly suggested us to take different paths during our foraging sessions, but Gruz said a stern no for that.

I once wanted to map the area atleast, but it was proving to be difficult. The leaves had no all turned thick and fleshy now, and I couldn't find anything to actually draw with other than a few pieces of charcoal.

It was a failure of course, even more so because we had to change our base everyday. "The trees can be slow, but they move," Gruz said.

The trees, from what I gather, don't move. Or don't move at noticable speeds atleast. After seeing many plant lives like shrubs walk and roll on grounds like animals, I am sure trees move as well, but they do it as if they were as slow here as on Earth.

The past Earth, I meant.

 

I did once find a cute plant. A round cylinder dog like one, covered in bark. Gruz said he calls them Koroaks, and they are filled with sap.

I wanted to adopt him as a pet, but Gruz refused, demonstrating how viscous it gets just by exposing a hair strand to it.

It wasn't a pretty sight.

Another night passed by plainly.

Gruz insists that we eat and properly chew the seeds too that come with the fruits, as we have to be cautious in not letting the seeds give birth to new plants.

I always find them too unappetizingly bitter to eat, but I would chew anyways without making a fuss.

That was getting difficult to do.

As the fruits slowly lost their charm, so did my will to eat that bitter seed.

I would stare at them for moments, thinking of just throwing them outside.

Perhaps this life would be better if there was some trees right outside our door now, banging to open it.

But alas, there wasn't anyone at the door.

On our walks, I would stare at the forbidden paths, wondering what would happen,

I never did step out because I would die, of course.

But, I miss the first time I met Gruz. That look on his face, that fire in his eyes.

That was a different man than the one walking in front of me.

I ran my fingers across his back, it had gotten soft I noticed.

That night, I decided to take a bold step, and finally had our bodies linked in bed.

The fireworks of emotions, the lightning, yes, but I wasn't satisfied still.

Nay, my heart isn't throbbing.

It needs to beat faster, harder, hard enough to crawl up my neck.

My cheeks weren't flushed enough, and the little feeling of euphoria I had quickly slipped away.

I remember the last time my heart throbbed.

It was when Gruz was attacked by a Cavern, a plant which acts as a trapdoor and locks you inside it's body while you get digested.

Yes I remember him splashing around, oh, how adorable he looked. So helpless, trying to punch his way out.

 

Many days passed like such, and these little thoughts were all I had that reminded me of myself.

I want to see this world, I want to know what happened to it; the exciting new experience.

But doing that is to invite death; Gruz is literally trying his best to keep me alive.

This is a night that has no morning, I am externally trapped watching the stars.

My thoughts were evil, I know that. In reality, I would never let harm come across Gruz, but.

These thoughts, they are all I have right now.

I don't know what else to think.

I don't know what else remains to be thought.

I try to tell this to Gruz, but he can't understand these complicated feelings.

He just says they are bad dreams.

He gave me a kiss, and then another one. Soon he was sitting on me, ravaging my lips and cheeks. His breath smelled of fruits,

All the while, I thought of one thing.

 

 

I miss fire, I miss the crackling sound it created.

🌑

 

Author's Account:

Agentt