The Growth

The Earth began to breathe again, and we weren’t supposed to breathe with her…

August 03, 2025. The world seemed no difference than any other day. Sun rose in the sky. Winds rustled the trees, whistling through the branches. Salt in the air as the waves crashed onto the shore. My wife slept beside me and the radio muttered lowly in the distance.

The world seemed no difference than any other day.

We were really just ignoring the signs…They thought what was happening to us was a good thing. They believed they did something good for the society. They had finally fixed the problems that our ancestors had made. They really thought that we were the reasons nature was healthy. That nature was opening her arms to us again. How naïve. I guess I was like a dream really.

No one knew why it was happening. Why the Earth was breathing life back into her system again. No scientist. No amount of science could explain why nature crept over us like a warm blanket over nights. Building slowly engulfed in the beautiful of vines and trees. Homes slowly gashed with trees and overexposed roots, splitting the concrete open to her elements.

They started saying that it was architects and engineers attempting more sustainable ways to protect the environment. Politicians were opening the economy to ecological and safe ways to preserve the world. Scientists making excuses for us to believe we were saving our planet. But they didn’t know…

No one knew…

No one could have predicted it…

My wife was cooking dinner the last time I remembered things being normal. She was happy. Happier than she usually was. She was always a bright beam of color in a grayscale sky. But she was brighter today that she was any other day. Maybe that was a sign too I supposed...

I was in the next room, watching the television. It was my birthday and Cathie insisted on celebrating. I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen until she was finished. But there was something more she wanted to celebrate. But I had to wait to find out.

She asked I closed my eyes before I entered the room. I felt as she pressed her lips against mine, and guided me to the dining table and I sat down. She asked me to wait a bit and don’t open my eyes. Plates and pots cluttered against the surface of the table, and soon as she said I was okay for me to open my eyes.

I woke up…

Rain beat softly against the metal roof we were covered under as we slept. I looked down, gradually become more aware of where we were. My daughter was still asleep in your arms as you sit there in the dark. She wasn’t even eight weeks old as yet, and here we were.

Alone... And wet in an empty, dilapidated tool shed.

The shed was small, trampled over as its content spilled out its sides and the Growth covered its walls. Vines fell from the slanted, dislodged roof and moss filled the air. Useless gardening tools scattered across the mud outside. Shelves holding plastic flower pots and potting soil the owner once used in the garden right outside the door. Action figures, a wine rack, a watering hose and remnants of cigarette buds scattered the grass outside and the path leading the garden and a grill near the fence.

Reminisce of the lives that inhabited the buildings two meters in front of us. Two families lived in these houses. They were partying, maybe a barbeque they were having. Laughter filled the vacant yards as I thought about the world of these residents. Alcoholic mothers sprucing their gardens of summer vegetables with their children playing as their workaholic husbands grilled ribs, sausages, whatever they grill.

Bea kicked me against my chest as she woke up.

Back to reality, Sebastian…

I couldn’t help reminiscing about the world before the Growth. Before we woke up every day and realizing that we were living in a world where people disappeared as ten meters of vegetation swallowed us up every night. I suspected that was how these families disappeared. Bea cooed as her tiny fingers tried to grab after the necklace I wore, a heart-shaped locket with small keyhole in its right side and the key dangling beside it broken.

Bea was only two weeks old and she and Cathie were just discharged from the hospital, after running some test and keeping her under surveillance. My wife was sick during the entire pregnancy. She had to always visit the hospital as she couldn’t understand why she felt so much pain every single day. When Cathie first laid her eyes on her Bea, she thought she was worth the pain she went through. It was normal for some women to have tremendous amounts of pain during pregnancy. Her mother went through the same so she believed it was just hereditary.

Cathie sat with Bea in the sofa, breastfeeding her as I cooked some breakfast. She could have only eaten fruits and vegetables. It was the same during her pregnancy. It was the only thing she could digest. I had placed a fruit bowl near to her on the coffee table and she nibbled on strawberries as she hummed to Bea.

Then, we heard it on the television.

One million people disappeared overnight in India, South America and most of the mainland in Africa. To think about it now, those countries were very rural areas and had large forests. Those one million people were women from three different continents. We were advised from our safety we will be relocated by gender to underground facilities. Females will be relocated for the next six months before the males.

Scientists predicted that the growth of the vegetation might be the cause to these disappearances, and researchers weighting their two cents to say that the Growth was moving radically, spreading ten to twenty meters every night, soon the world would be covered with thick flora.

And within a few hours, police and soldiers began escorting. They walked through our apartment complex halls. Knocking on the door where only females reside. Daughters and mothers. Daughters taking from their fathers.

Cathie rocked with Bea in her arms, standing firmly as she watched women walked past their door through the peephole. Soldiers walking past their door. Waiting for them to come and knock on their door next.

“Catherine, come sit.” I insisted, gently rubbed down her arms. I didn’t like to see her like this. Tense. Anxious. I didn’t want her to think that this was the end of the world.

We were going to see each other again.

She hesitated. Her eyes didn’t want to leave the peephole. But she sighed. She turned slowly to me, smiling and handing Bea, comforting her as she placed her on shoulder. Cathie kissed me on my cheek with tears in her eyes as she rubbed Bea’s back gently. She smiled as she rested her locket into my hand and closed it tight.

There was a knock on our door…

She asked that I took our daughter and hid somewhere. Whispering under her breath to herself as she opened the door. I stood with Bea in the bedroom, leaving the door slightly open to peek out. I tried to not make any sound. Luckily Bea was fast asleep.

There was a man, He sported a head of silver hair and scar along his right eyebrow to the tip of his nose and was dressed in a long white coat. It wasn’t a lab coat but it was similar and had a badge with a spouting plant on her coat pocket.

“Catherine,” This man greeted her warmly, like a man to his daughter.

His accent was thick. French.

“You are hard to find.” She held the door slightly open and poked out as she answered him, like a children talking to a stranger while they are home alone. “It’s time. Where’s your family?”

The man stepped closer to the door, trying to look inside the apartment. She looked back, searching for me. I could see the terror in her eyes. Eyes telling me to run. Escape.

“No one else is here.”

She was gone.

Rain had stopped. We crawled out from under the shed. I gently rubbed Bea’s head as I looked around me. As we slept, the Growth grew further. We were surrounded by thick layers of vines and scrubs when we decided to use this shed as shelter for the night. Now it is overgrowth with thick roots and trees, no longer able to see the ground in front of us. The Growth stopped inches before the shed, creating a circle around us that the vegetation hadn’t touched.

It had been like that for weeks.

The Growth didn’t try to take us. The Growth didn’t even try, instead it grew past us. Like we repelled it, lacking what it wanted. Physical repulsed by others that it didn’t even want to touch us. And as we stepped towards it, it slowly parted. Avoiding its body to come in contact with us.

We headed out from the backyard and rested on the front porch of the duplex. Bea began sucking onto my t-shirt and the saliva soaked through draining down my chest. She must have been hungry. I took a bottle of baby formula from the side of my bag and rested on the step as I took her from the chest carrier and rested her in my arms, feeding her.

Why did that man take Cathie?

Why did the Growth not try and take us?

There had to be a reason the plants didn’t want us. My mind raced loudly as I waited for Bea to finish her bottle, before we headed off. She cooed as I patted her back. She burped and I smiled. Cathie should have been here.

I packed Bea’s bottle back into my bag and decided to venture further out of the suburbs. The sun was not too high in the sky. Perfect time to travel. I wrapped Bea back onto my chest and headed east towards a town.

We needed to get more food and supply. We raided the houses here for what we could have needed. Nothing was really here. Decent equipment. Not a lot of food. Only three houses had supplies for Bea and they didn’t have much. It was better if we headed in town and find a store or something.

The building was wrapped in thick vines, moss and dirt and trees grew from their roofs. Some grew out the windows. It was hard to believe that it had been eight weeks since the world was being embraced by what we called the Growth.

The stores were completely covered with the thick vegetation. Trees blocked windows and doors. The vines, though repelled by us, didn’t flinch as I tried to touch it. Seemed that it was trying to prevent us from getting supply to survive. After throwing enough stone as windows and other glass panels, I gave up and headed further into the town.

After spending time searching inside empty dilapidated houses, I found a truck parked inside a forested church ground. It wasn’t covered in vines or scrubs, but it used the existing vegetation as camouflage. Someone was using this truck. Maybe as a hideout. Maybe they were inside. Maybe we could help. Spare supplies? But still I had to remain cautious.

What if they didn’t want to help? What if they didn’t even want to be found?

But I had to do something. Bea was running out of food and fresh diapers. I needed some water.

The truck was warm. Someone probably drove it here about an hour ago. It was dirty, covered in mud and crushed leaves. The debris was layered onto its surface, hiding the once pure white paint.

“Sebastian?” a voice called from behind me.

I knew the voice…

Catherine?