The Earth's Heart

Deep in the dark of the earth, the hole was called the Kola Borehole. Before the final war, for twenty years the Soviet Union dug, they dug until they reached a point where the drill became useless, the high temperatures baking the metal, and so it was sealed. Another 100 years passed, technology grew more advanced, and the Russians had the skills to continue the Soviet’s project. So in secret, they continued the dig, every year going deeper, and every year adding to the skill of their labors. They dug until they reached the center of the Earth, where they reached the space of liquid iron, molten in its turmoil. Pressing through to the center, they removed the drill and put a camera on a heat-controlled device. Dropping the device down the hole, it reached the end point of their digging, a blinding bright light shone through all the molten iron. They moved the device towards it, and for hours it went, until it reached the light. It was a small circular object, the shape and size of a dollar coin. And its color was ever changing, morphing between colors, alive and vibrant.

It was nicknamed the Earth’s Heart, and when the diggers brought it out of the depths, every one of them was instantly blinded. Researchers came wearing goggles that darkened the light drastically, when one of them attempted to touch it, he was instantly electrocuted, and he died. The Russians forged a container for it, to block out the light and to direct its energy, to easily harvest it. They forged a heart shaped locket to put it in, because they found it appropriate because of its name. The metal of the locket was solid gold, and there was rubber on the inside so that it wasn’t lethal to touch, except for the heart’s point, where there was a plug receiver in order to collect the energy. The locket could only be opened remotely, and only via their supercomputer.

To the Russian researcher’s surprise, it never ran out of energy when they hooked it up to provide all of Moscow’s power, it never even showed signs of running out. They began preparations to power all of Russia with the heart, but it would be difficult to run power lines from one location to power all of Russia. And even harder to do it all in secret, they wanted to ensure that no other world powers would discover its existence.

It was around this time that Earth started, decaying. The year that the Earth’s Heart was removed, had the most recorded hurricanes, and the next year broke that record, and the next and the next. Volcanoes previously thought to have been extinct began erupting again, tsunamis were happening without warning or cause, and earthquakes became as regular as a thunderstorm. And despite it being obvious removing the heart disturbed the Earth, the Russian scientists continued their project.

When Russia powered their entire country, the United States, China, and other big countries took notice, and sent spies to figure out what was going on. Before long everyone knew of the Earth’s Heart, and every country wanted it. Russia began getting offers in the billions from country after country, some countries were even offering to become a part of Russia just to get the free energy. It only took a year of that for the final war to start. It only took several months for nuclear bombs to ravage the earth.

When the dust settled, the population had dwindled to a fraction of what it used to be, and no one knew what had happened to the Earth’s Heart, but they had bigger problems. After the man-made nuclear disasters, came nature’s disasters. Every year storms got worse, every year Earth’s population was cut in half, every year it seemed more and more like the time of man was over.

Ten years after the final war, it was very hard to stay alive. There were only a few small pockets of people surviving together, one group of survivors was in what used to be Nikel, Russia. Michail was in that group of people. His job was collecting water from the river North of their camp. He couldn’t drive to get water because gasoline was no longer mass produced, and it was an extremely valuable resource, used only in emergencies, some even traded with it. But despite the limited gasoline, almost everyone had a vehicle, they were ready if one day they got their hands on some gasoline. Because of the gas shortage, Michail would have to walk to the river, with two buckets of water, along with two other water collectors, Adrian and Dimitri. It wasn’t too long of a journey, and they only had to go once every week since there weren’t too many people in their camp.

It was a normal water run, Michail, Adrian, and Dimitri were to go collect water then come back, so they would likely scavenge ruins of the past for anything interesting. “Clumsy Ox!” Michail tripped over some cords while they were on their water run, spilling his two buckets of water. “Go on without me I need to go refill these!” He fumed, glaring at his empty buckets. Adrian and Dimitri grunted in acknowledgement and continued towards their settlement. Michail stood up and kicked at the wires he had tripped on, and doing so, unearthed what they were plugged into. He was looking at a corner of an intricately designed metal that shined in the sun. “What…?” He picked it up and brushed the dirt off, it was solid gold, and it was heart shaped. Realization that it was a locket hit him and he tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. “It couldn’t possibly be..” He mumbled to himself in disbelief. By this time everyone had knowledge of the Earth’s Heart and what it looked like. If this was the Earth’s Heart that he held in his hands... he thought about how much this had damaged the Earth when it was removed. If it was, could he be the one to set things right and return it to where it belongs? Yet, it couldn’t hurt to harness its power for himself for a time. He looked at the wires plugged into it, they all merged and led up to one outlet at the point of the heart; he could hear a hum of energy when he listened to the other ends of the disconnected wires, a few looked ripped and damaged. Michail disconnected the damaged wires, and carefully carried the locket back to his house.

Michail’s house was one of the pre-Final War homes, but it was weathered and damaged by the superstorms that were everywhere. He had thrown all the electronics that belonged to the previous owner in the attic when he had gotten there. He, along with the rest of his group, had come from one of the big cities, which became extremely dangerous after the Final War since laws ceased to exist and there were bandits plundering homes left and right. Michail went to the attic, and grabbed every cord he had. He decided to start small, so he grabbed a lamp that didn’t have the lightbulb smashed. He searched through the wires, and found one that matched. He plugged the lamp into the locket, and it lit up. “Let there be light” he marveled, it had been ten years since he had seen electricity. Rushing to the attic he took down every single electronic that wasn’t broken from all the storms. For the next 5 days he was wiring his house and plugging in electronics, but he was careful to not have any lights on at night or else attract attention from the rest of his group. He was going to help them power their community eventually, but first he wanted to get his house done.

After five days the community ran out of water, and they realized Michail had not gotten his water. The community leader pounded on his door while he was working on hooking up a lamp and demanded he go for water. So Michail left, forgetting about the lamp he was powering. On the way back from the river, a superstorm came, sudden and without warning. Michail ran to the nearby cave as dozens of tornadoes began forming and thunder deafened his ears. He remained in the cave for hours, and then the storm ended. When he came out, it was night, and he realized his mistake.

Michail began running back to his house, by now the whole community would’ve seen the lamp and would be waiting for him to question him, he thought. But it was much worse than that. When he was within viewing distance, he saw fires and he heard gunshots and screams. Dread filled him, as he realized his light glowing in the middle of the night had attracted bandits, and because of his mistake the whole community was being slaughtered. He crept up to his house, and for some reason his light was out, and he feared that the bandits had found the Earth’s Heart. Michail reached the back of his house and heard people inside flipping stuff over and trying to find the heart, which confused him.

Someone who was hiding in the bushes behind his house tapped Michail. He jumped, and turned around. It was Adrian, and Michail could see some other people where Adrian had come out of the bushes. Adrian motioned for Michail to follow him. When they were out of earshot for the bandits, Adrian whispered, “When I saw a light in your house, I investigated, along with some other people. We found the Earth’s Heart, how you found it I don't know, but I grabbed it and hid when the bandits came. You should’ve dropped it in the Kola hole, it could’ve fixed Earth’s weather, and if it didn’t, well it would’ve been worth trying to.” Adrian pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Michail. “Redeem yourself for what you did to the community, go to the Kola hole and return it to the Earth, and maybe, just maybe, humanity may start again. I have to lead these survivors elsewhere. The bandits came on motorcycles, steal one of them.” Adrian disappeared with the rest of the people, and Michail had no more doubt about returning the Earth’s Heart. His previous choice had killed most of his community, and he was not going to make that mistake again.

Michail peered to the front of his house, there were five motorcycles parked there, and it looked like all the bandits were ransacking his house. He readied himself, and ran to a motorcycle, and tried to start it. The bandits heard this and began running to him. When he had started it the bandits had gotten outside, and Michail heard a bullet zoom past his ear. It would not be a long journey to the Kola Borehole, Nikel was very close to it, in fact Nikel had a tourist stop for people going to see it. So Michail drove, he drove until it was day, and he finally reached the hole, and it shocked him.

The original hole had the diameter of a basketball, but now it was the size of a large pool. The Earth had collapsed around the spot where it’s heart was taken, and heat roze up to the surface from all the molten iron. Michail looked over the edge, and it went down as far as the eye could see, and it was glowing red. It looked like a portal to hell. Michail held out the locket, and dropped it in. When it reached the bottom, the gold melted and the heart returned to its original place, attracted like a magnet. The earth healed, and humanity had a new start.