Savanna van Mesdag

written age 13
Inverness

The Crumbling World

The year is 2040. Dexter needs to be at school, but he has no hope of arriving on time, no-one does. The rush hour is too rushed for anyone to arrive anywhere on time - even if they are walking and it's less than half a mile away.

Dexter stops and looks up high. All he can see are aeroplanes, recently invented flying cars and exhaust fumes. He cannot see the sky. A bird has no hope of flying in the sky without dying. Exhaust fumes will choke its lungs and it will plummet to the ground. Dexter feels sorry for these birds. There is nothing he can do to help them live.

He looks straight ahead. A huge crowd of people is crossing at the signal of the green man. There is little space for them to walk in.

Dexter looks down. There is no green on the ground for miles, much is gone under the pavement, buildings and tarmac.

While Dexter is standing there, there is a sudden loud, rumbling sound. Dexter freezes with shock and perplexity. He hears the rumble again. He realises with horror that it is coming from under the pavement where he is. As sudden as the rumble was, there is a loud tearing noise splitting the pavement. Now a cracking sound and another rift, a few metres away on the opposite pavement. This grows larger and wider and it stretches into the road.

Dexter stays still and watches.
He looks like he is pondering.

Dexter feels another rumble and another fracture forms below him. He leaps out of the way and sees it progress. Many other people have noticed the cracks and are standing stock still on the road in horror.

There are more and more cracks, rumbles and crumbles, coming from all directions. Dexter moves across the road, as an apartment block breaks into two and rubble, glass and paper thunder to the ground. people run like crazy, trying to find escape from this terrible earthquake disaster.

The biggest chasm is where all the cracks began. It is so large, that many broken buildings, lampposts, and pieces of tarmac are slipping into it, gradually. Then quicker and quicker.

Dexter doesn't run much more. He knows there is no escape. He wants to see as much as he can of what is happening to the earth.

As the biggest crack grows larger and comes very close to Dexter, it is as if the crack is pursuing him. Some loose earth crumbles and there is another opening.

Dexter falls into it. He falls for a few seconds, then clings onto a solid lump of earth, but loses his grip. He dares to look down as he is falling, trying to get a foot-hold or a hand-hold. More and more chasms. Then he sees dark blue. The earth shatters and Dexter can see space.

Dexter takes in everything around him, he breathes in the failing oxygen and dies while still falling. Along with Dexter and everything on the entire planet planet, pieces of earth disappear, floating upwards in the change of gravity. Everything from the beautiful, ancient earth, is gone.

All because of man's pollution.