To the "Me" in 1000 Years

Beep... Beep...

"Subject number 0021 is slowly gaining consciousness."

The myriad of noises surrounding me and the harsh beeping sound beside me rang inside my head, waking up my groggy consciousness in a rude manner.

"W-Where am I?"

"Good day, Codename 0021, Miss Aida. I’m your attending service robot, Max. You're currently in the infirmary after we have salvaged you from the now deserted blue planet. We surprisingly found you in a cryopreservation cell when we scanned the planet a week ago." A robotic male voice said beside me. I scrutinized him and noticed that despite his human-like appearance, his mechanical eyes were clearly that of a robot.

I calmly rummaged through my foggy memories and managed to find out that it was indeed as he said. “Where are we now?”

“We’re currently in station 609, in the Solar System within the Milky Way galaxy.”

My eyes went wide with disbelief. So that means I got transported into outer space? Am I so important, or is this somehow a sci-fi movie now?

“From your analysis of my cryo state, how long have I been frozen?”

“Approximately a thousand years.”

A thousand years!

I gasped with my eyes wide open. Both in excitement, and of fear. This would mean a lot of things. This was either a blessing or disaster. Who would’ve known that I’d survive for that long, especially in my rusty cryopreservation cell which I treated as a self-experiment.

“Can I leave the infirmary?”

Max nodded, motioning for me to follow him. Surprisingly, the infirmary was not far from a transparent wall that overlooked what seemed to be a black planet, and the vast space surrounding it. There were a few other people looking at the scenery as well.

Suddenly, a voice spoke from somewhere, quenching the curiosity I had regarding the events spanning a thousand years.

-

From the you of a thousand years ago,

To the ones who will face the morrow;

Do not forget the sins of one's past,

Humanity had destroyed, and were thus outcast.

-

Abusing the very land where one was born,

Parasitic they were, but not all were a thorn;

But due to greed and one’s own selfish desire

Humans spread a sickness where all things were left to die.

-

The humans were poisoned and so were the rivers and the trees,

It was then that humans realized, it wasn’t all a dream;

They panicked and ran, thinking of solutions left and right,

But everything was too late, and so they took flight.

-

A few thousand or so humans were the only ones left,

Using their remaining intelligence, a safe haven was built.

And out of that despair, a thousand years had passed.

Thus in the present, “you” must never forget.

-

The surroundings were silent until suddenly, a laser beam shot out and landed on the planet right in front of me. A horrifying realization then struck as I knelt down with a thump.

The black planet just now… It was Earth.

—

written by Angelie Maguinda

illustrated by Jomarie Del Rosario

layout by Lee Maiah Diaz