When we were little, our parents told us about the end. How, years before, when they were just a little older than we were, about the fire that destroyed the world. Fire so hot it melted metal, and burned away the rocks that held up the earth. They told us about the cities that fell into the earth’s wounds, sinking beneath the soil like stones in water. They told us that only a few survived – those lucky enough to have been underground during the destruction. They told us that were lucky, special, because our families had survived, while so many others had perished. They told us that the darkness and cold wouldn’t last forever, and soon a hero would save us, and make everything good again.

When we were little, our parents told us stories about the world before the end of light, and the end of warmth, and the end of life. We didn’t really understand what they meant, with words like ‘forest’, ‘sea’, ‘sun’, and ‘feast’. But as we grew, the stories started to make sense. As we grew, we learned about the past, little by little. Everyday, new stories told us about our world, and its history. And everyday, we grew a little bit more scared of our future.

When we were little, we were hungry. But back then, we didn’t truly understand why. We didn’t know it was because that there was so little food, not just that we weren’t fed. Our parents never said word of complaint, as the littlest ones ate the most, and the adults were left with only meager crumbs. They sacrificed their energy so that we children could be naïve, if only for a few brief years. By the time we grew up, and the new generation of children began, there was no food left. Machines could heal us, and grant some energy, but it didn’t make the growling in our stomachs stop. And then we truly learned the meaning of hunger.

When we were little, we thought that health meant safety. If you aren’t sick, you can’t die. But as we grew, we noticed. There were a lot less people than they used to be. We’d look around, and notice for the first time that our best friends and favorite uncles were gone, and had been absent for years. Health is only worth so much if there is no energy. Suddenly, the uneven portions made sense. Our parents always told us that we needed to eat, to keep up our energy. We just thought energy was for games, like how long you could play without getting tired. As people started faded away, our parents and we both discovered something. The machines could grant us health, but they couldn’t grant life. After the food ran out, we learned of death.

When we were little, we weren’t cold. There was still wood, then. Fire made light, and heat. But we still hated them. How many times by then had we been told about the fire that destroyed the world? How were we to tell that a kitchen fire couldn’t do the same? Eventually, the dry wood ran out. And that was when the light was restricted to half the day, and that’s when we learned of cold. We didn’t have the materials to make cloth, so our few blankets were quickly worn to threads. And then there was nothing left to protect us from the cold except the stone walls.

When we were little, we had electric lighting. It was always a pale blue color, like the lips of a wood bringer who’d been outside too long. The old computer had them set to turn on an hour after sunset, and go off an hour before dawn. But the old computer was made in a world that had a sun. No one knew what had happened to the bright star, whether it went out, or if the dust in the air blocked all the light out. And no one knew how to reprogram the computer, so we spent half of our day in darkness.

When we were little, people smiled. Back then, our parents had hope, and shared it with us children. But as time passed, and nothing changed, that hope began to die. As children, we had whistled, and laughed. We sang. As adults, we huddled together, whispering and sighing. The children who replaced us as the younglings don’t whistle, or sing. And, the worst part is, they don’t even know what a laugh is. There’s no reason for them to know. Who would be laughing?

When we were little, we had a future. We could dream of food and light and warmth and laughter. Once, we could live. That time faded away long ago, and left behind it only the darkness. And when we saw that overwhelming shadow, we tried our best to find a light in the darkness. But it never came. We dreamt of redeeming judgment, and were given only an executioner. We asked for life, and were blessed with cockroaches. We begged for our souls, and were granted no pardon. We prayed. And we received no answer.

Our parents told us that the world ended in fire. But, it was their fathers, their mothers who started the blaze. They said that they hid underground during the destruction, but why didn’t the sinking cities crush them? They said we were lucky. We aren’t, though. The lucky ones are those that died in the blaze, and never got to see this world. The lucky ones are the ones who died in fire, and never had to endure this icy hell. They said that we would be saved, one day. They lied.