3124

Ellie was a riddle. A girl born and raised in the city, but spent all of her teenage years in the country, then moved back to the city post-grad who got a job at a zoo in the desert. That’s all fine, I guess, but the small town she moved to (the zoo was more for animal safety and welfare than tourist attraction so wasn’t very large either) was one of the few on the direct outskirts of the desert, piping hot, and was in the direct way of the blast. She’d worked at the zoo for four years before it happened. A large ray from space (which hit the Earth quite often and have never before broken through) blasted through the ozone layer and struck the earth, luckily in the middle of the desert with less casualties than would have been if it had hit the coast. Eight towns were destroyed. Ellie’s was believed to be. The ray had poisoned all the land and air around it, all the plants and animals, water, food, earth and people. Somehow, however, Ellie’s small desert town survived, believed it to be nothing more than a large dust storm (which occur so frequently none were too surprised). They spent the next 1,100 years in the town without realising it. They didn’t age, they didn’t change, and they had no clue that the rest of the world evolved and moved on without them. But the time came when they ran out of water. The lake they had gotten their water from had dried out and the water tanks and drills they had were dry as the dirt around them. Ellie and a few of the younger workers were sent out to ask for help, perhaps for the lake to be refilled or water tanks to be brought out every so often. However, they found a disaster zone. The villages around them were all destroyed with rusted, old DANGER signs everywhere, the buildings filled with dry dirt, the occasional weed and pests, snakes and spiders mostly. The further out they went the more bewildered they became. It was searching through the furthest town they’d come across that they finally heard people. Untrusting, the group hid amongst the ruins of the town and watched what appeared to be a tourist group travelling through. The language was strange, almost nonsensical, like they were legitimately speaking text-speech as a language. Slowly, the group came out of hiding, startling the tourists and the tour guide. The language barrier was strong, neither group understanding each other until one of the tourists came forward. He began speaking English, though slightly different than Ellie had grown up with.

“Sup! How’r’ye’ doin’?” He asked, genuinely. It was odd, but normal enough that Ellie thought nothing of it.

“Good, thanks. Um. Our town has run out of water. Could you help us?” The oldest of the group, Pearl, replied nervously. The man looked surprised, then confused, but seemed to muddle his way through the language barrier.

“Err…Need to tlk to…gov?” He said.

“Need to talk to the government?” Pearl guessed. This really surprised the man, who mumbled some of the text-speech under his breath.

“Fthr tn I tht.” He turned back to the tour guide. “Frm wt I cn c, nah wtr.” The guide looked shocked.

“Ths ppl shd e dd. Nah wtr. Spd idt. Poi’nd’iens, t lt’f’em. Nah. Cl auth, I rkn ta’r blddg s.” He gave the group a disgusted look. Ellie looked to Pearl and Jayde in confusion.

“What the fuck are they saying?” She hissed.

“Dunno, it makes no sense, El.” Jayde muttered. “He doesn’t like us, though.” The other man looked back at them in interest and seemed to ignore the guide.

“What year ‘s’it?” Oh, thank God! Ellie grinned, she could understand him. He sounded like a douchebag from Texas, but still, English!

“We don’t know. 2026? Roughly? It’s been about two years since we ran out of calenders.” He stared at her, shocked.

“No. ‘S’ da year 3124. Yer really outta date.” He cocked his head. “How’d’ya live tha’ong a’yw’y?”

“Err…” Ellie looked at Jayde again, lost. Jayde shook her head. So did Pearl, Ben, Alan, and Bubbles.

“How’d I live that ong? Bong? Kong? Dong? L-Long? Long! How’d I live that long…aey…a-e…a-e-way…anyway! How’d I live that long anyway!” She cheered, though no one seemed to share her enthusiasm. Ellie stared at the man.

“What’s your name?” She asked. He mumbled under breath just like she had.

“Nm. Jay.” He looked up. “M’n’me’s Jay. Like JJ, but’ust’un.” Ellie could only make of that, ‘JJ but Dustin.’

“J but Dustin?

“J. Like JJ, but just’un.”

“JJ but Justin.”

“But just one.”

“Oh! Jay! Well, Jay, we dunno how we lived that long. Just that we need water.”