Concrete Coffins

Nobody expected to face a third world war, but the reckless decisions of a few led to the destruction of many. My parents and I were among the few who found ourselves in bunkers, hiding in fear as the shockwaves rippled the earth above us. We watched the news in horror as cities were reduced to ashes and civilisations were wiped out in mere seconds. I wondered how the world could go back to some form of normalcy years later. It seemed impossible. Even with others like us surviving in bunkers around the world, we all would most likely be confined to concrete coffins for the rest of our days…

A decade passed before I could re-enter the outside world, or at least what was left of it. My parents, however, didn’t live to see that day arrive; they remained buried in that concrete coffin. I wondered just how many others like me watched their families fade in such quiet confines—how many were left alone in deafening silence, not knowing if they’d ever feel the warmth of the sun again.

When I returned to the surface, I was surprised to see new inhabitants clearing wreckage and building homes. I attempted to hide the second I saw the aliens, but one of them spotted me and spoke to me.

“We mean you no harm,” they said. “We’ve also lost our homes, just like you. This was the closest place we could find to start anew.”

One of the alien children ran up to me with a smile and held out their hand; I took it and walked up to the rest of them. We bonded over tales of our pasts over the hours that followed as I helped them with their work. They were no strangers to decades of war and genocide, much like us in all the years that led to humanity’s last devastating war. Both our species were driven to the brink of extinction by our own greed and pride. Those of us who remained only wished to start over and teach our future generations to do better. We could only hope…

In the years that followed, our united efforts restored much of what was lost in the war, and we salvaged whatever sources we could find about human history. Many of us worked tirelessly to examine all the information we could find to weed out any details that could lead people astray. Fear-mongering, war-mongering, propaganda—so many books were riddled with such obscenity. We made sure that the right information remained accessible to all people, and that clarifications were made on what misinformation was spread in the past. Advances were also made in science to debunk claims of superiority and halt any form of discrimination. We owed it to all the fallen; we owed it to all who survived.