The Short Story

"To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day."
–Winston Churchill

The Kryons had come swiftly, destroying all that fought against them. The World Union of Nations was powerless against them, after the disbanding of all armies.

The year of the invasion, AD 2023, or simply referred to as the Year of Burning, had started as the best year on record. Under the guidance of the WUN, the countries of the world, now just states in an empire, had solved all problems of world hunger, global warming, and racism. People looked forward to a prosperous eternity.

But when the Kryons came, everything that the WUN had done collapsed. The world fell swiftly. Most people had been killed, while millions more had been captured and returned to the Kryon homeland. However, there were a few people who survived the holocaust. These people gathered in what is now known as the City of Souls, once known, according to legend, as New York. The Kryons remained on the Earth, and demanded a payment of one-tenth of the young males of the survivors to be sent to them and to be killed yearly. However, the Kryons had not come for the past three years.

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The surviving humans had lived in fear of the Kryons returning. But now, the Kryons appeared to have vanished, and the survivors, living in the wreckage of an ancient city, wondered what else their planet could hold. Their leader, an elder by the name of Survivor, since he was the only still living survivor of the Great Burning, selected one man to leave the island on which they lived, and to venture out into the world. This man he chose was named Jude, and was one of the men to be sacrificed, should the Kryons return.

He was handed a small hatchet, and one of the few remaining boxes of matches. He also received an ancient rifle, and a small pack of ammunition. Finally, he was given a small amount of rations to help him on his way. He put these items in his sack, and got onto a small, makeshift rowboat.

He rowed to the mainland, and got off the boat. He viewed the land around him, and saw that it looked much like the ancient city. Melted glass and metal, and charred bones were lying everywhere. He looked around to see if anything seemed different from the island where he was born and bred. Straining his eyes, he saw to the west an enormous tower.

The tower stood among a pile of rubble, destroyed from countless bombs, but yet the tower itself was not scarred in any way. Not only that, but it looked nothing like the few still-standing towers of the ancient city. Jude could only suppose that it was a Kryon tower, having been built by them after the Great Burning.
He sat down and pondered what to do. He could either explore the tower, and quite possibly get himself killed, or return to the ancient city, to near the people that he loved, to report that the world was a complete wasteland. He decided to travel to the tower.

Night was beginning to fall, and Jude suddenly realized how tired he had been. In all of the excitement of finding the tower he had forgotten about any necessities of life. Finding a safe cave of rubble, he crawled into it for the night.

Jude was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud humming noise. He looked up to the sky, and saw lights flying in towards the tower. Gathering his sack, he stood up and began the walk towards the tower.

Ships were landing on the top of the tower, ships that did not resemble the human ships Jude had seen in surviving books. They were shaped something like a bird, with a large projection coming out from the bottom, presumably an engine or gun.

Jude approached the tower, located a door on the ground, and entered.

What he saw next amazed him. The entire tower was one large room. A huge hologram of the Earth floated in it, with the moon orbiting it. As he watched he saw small cities begin to appear. They expanded, presumably as populations increased. Watching with awe as cities came and went, eventually the entire planet became covered with buildings.

As the city flourished, a small group of dots began to appear near the moon. They moved down to Earth, and fire began to appear throughout cities. It spread rapidly, and slowly, all of the cities were reduced to rubble. The dots, presumably the Kryons, had departed.

But slowly, a yellowish light began rising from the east. Jude looked closely, and saw that a similar tower to the one he was in was coming out of the ground. Spots of light began appearing from all over the Earth, and towers rose up out of the rubble.
The picture zoomed in on a single tower. Jude saw that it was, in fact, a safe haven for survivors. Suddenly, before him, a staircase unraveled from the wall. He eyed it suspiciously, shrugged, and started walking up it. When he reached what he had thought was the ceiling, a trapdoor opened, and he walked up through it.

Inside the new room was a strange cage, with a door hanging wide open. Not trusting what would happen if he stepped inside, Jude put his sack inside. The door slammed shut, and a greenish light filled the room. When it disappeared, Jude’s sack was gone. Wishing to get it back, Jude climbed in.

He found himself standing in the center of a bustling city. It was populated not only with humans, but also with another race, one he had seen in the books. Kryons.

Stopping a passing human, he asked, “Where am I?”

The man responded, “You are on Kryon, and your dress is not similar, are you the first of the Ancients?”

“Ancients?” asked Jude.

“Yes, those remaining on the Earth. Those towers, they are the gateway to this world.”

Jude, taken aback at this comment, asked how he could return to bring the remaining humans to this world.

“You cannot return, you are stuck here. You must only wish that your fellows find the tower.”