19 October 3024
Sector B12, Earth's Upper Research Dome
The sky hadn't been blue in 300 years.
Dr. Eric Relish traced his fingers across the dome's glass, watching ash clouds roll over what remained of Earth.
Everything had changed.
The once colorful, vibrant planet was now dead and gray.
The buildings, the forests, the oceans, the cultures, the lifestyle even humanity itself.
He sat quietly, his shoulders heavy with a kind of grief that didn't speak. It simply stayed. A scientist among ruins, watching the echoes of a planet that used to be home.
The smell of ash and dust lingered in the air as he breathed.
The dome's filtration systems hummed faintly, trying to keep the toxins out, but nothing could keep out the weight of extinction.
He didn't know how to bring life back to his home, his planet our Earth.
All he could do was watch and pray that the new project the one they'd poured everything into might somehow work. Not to save this Earth, that hope had long expired.
But maybe just maybe to save another.
"Dr. Relish, report to room C-09, please."
The voice crackled through the desk radio, cutting through his thoughts.
He stood slowly and walked with steady, tired steps toward the elevator. As the doors slid shut behind him, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirrored wall.
A small, hunched figure, four feet tall at most.
Pale skin.
Eyes entirely black no white, no iris, no red vessels. Just void.
A head shaped unlike anything once called human.
He felt like a stranger in his own body.
It reminded him of the first day he learned the truth about his kind the day that ignited the feeling of not belonging.
Flashback
"There were people like us, but taller. Six feet, on average. These are pictures of the old kind of humans how our grandparents looked just two to three generations before us..."
Ms. Elara, our teacher, pointed at the display screen. It flickered with images from centuries ago lakes, forests, cities lit with neon, families smiling in the sun.
We didn't look like them at all. We looked like the deformed version of them and It hurts.
Our Earth didn't look like theirs either.
That was the day we learned our Earth wasn't always broken. We broke it.
We dismissed peace and chose war as the only option. We made a decision, and now we were living with its consequences.
I remember thinking: If they knew what would happen, would they still have chosen war?
That day, a seed of purpose was planted in me. A question that never let go.
I arrived on the floor I needed to be in. The soft sound of the doors opening pulled me out of my memories.
The lab buzzed with frantic movement. People rushed past, screens blinked, technicians barked orders. Normally, the dome was eerily quiet. But not today.
Today was different.
Today was a big day a step closer to fixing the mess our kind had made. Our chance to rewrite our fate.
Today was the launch of the Revival Mission.
It was our final attempt to go back in time and stop it all from happening. A chance to warn our ancestors before it began.
Rows of technicians in gray uniforms clustered around terminals. The main chamber's ceiling arched like a cathedral, illuminated by soft blue LEDs that pulsed with energy.
At the center of the room sat the vessel: sleek, curved, and entirely unlike any human vehicle of the past.
It pulsed like it had a heartbeat of its own.
The only issue? We didn't know if it would work. And if it did... what would it cost?
"I'm a bit worried, to be honest," said Orson, my long-time colleague and closest friend. "We have no idea what happens if we succeed. What if we erase ourselves?"
"I get it. Trust me, I do, Orson. But how are we supposed to know if it's going to work if we don't try? We'll die anyway. At least this gives us a chance."
"Or it will make everything worse."
"Well, look around. What could be worse than this?"
Orson stayed silent. His eyes said what his mouth wouldn't.
He's a very smart guy, yet always afraid of messing things up. I'll admit I'm afraid too. We all are.
Yet, there was no turning back now.
This is our last chance of survival, the illnesses we started to develop will kill us all and there won't be nothing called humankind.
I glanced at the observation deck above us. A few of the Elders watched in silence. They were the closest link we had to the past humans who had survived the genetic shift but bore the scars of war in their minds more than their bodies.
Some had voted against the mission. Said it was unnatural.
"Let them fear," I had said in that final council meeting. "Fear is the ghost of mistakes unhealed. We must act."
We prayed this was the beginning of a new age for us and our Earth.
I looked out the window toward the launch pad. The vessel shimmered in the artificial light sleek, silent, and humming with power.
It didn't carry bombs. It carried warnings. And most importantly... hope.
"Let the countdown begin," I whispered, my heart pounding out of my chest.
Somewhere deep within the launch bay, the engines ignited.
They were going back.
But time had never been predictable...