1 The original Eden. The unfinished and never will be version

This is my original story of Eden written by Caleb Schade, Anthony Chan, and Paige Reali. The story Project Eden is a revised version of the story Eden. Enjoy.

The world's end rained down upon the Earth in a hellish fury. Volcanoes erupted, spewing molten death every which way. Earthquakes fell cities and toppled empires. 

Death became a common visitor. Her shadowy figure looming over every man, woman, and child. And when it was time, she reaped their souls and let no one escape her wrath. But she did make three exceptions. Three singular exceptions in a world of billions. Their names were Heather Nach, Christopher Njord, and Francis Wistle. "Are we there yet?" a student asked.

"Not much longer," the tour guide chirped.

"Ugh," the class groaned.

Their class had recently won a trip to an underground science lab. The only problem was that their class was so big that the elevator got backed up on its way to the lab.. At last, the final group of students boarded the elevator and hit the ground. The teacher walked to the front of the elevator.

"Here we go again," Chris muttered,"It's the same old speech every field trip."

As the teacher  gave her speech, Francis realized that Heather, Chris, and himself weren't the only ones bored. "Now this will be the only time I am going to say this," the teacher began, "don't touch anything; it could be toxic."

"Yeah, 'cause they'll let a bunch of kids see the good stuff, " someone muttered..

At that time, the elevator door opened slowly, sounding like it needed a good oiling.Students filed out of the elevator in rows of two. The room that they entered was a large room with a rusting metallic look the same look you'd find in a abandoned warehouse. The ceiling had a few water stains and was a bit moldy.

"What a mess," Heather said.

 The class walked around for awhile looking at different machines that do different things that did different action that would help keep the world green, but most of them looked like large tin cans.

"I don't know about you but this is getting really boring" said Chris. 

"Where'd they take us, a science lab or the tin can museum" joked Chris.

"Yeah, they both have a lot of cans,'' plied Heather.

"DON'T EVER BRING UP THE TIN CAN MUSEUM" roared Francis. "I don't know who in their right minds would want to take forty teens a the tin can museum

    "And we weren't allowed to take our phones,," Heather said..

    The teacher looked at her watch. It read 11:59. She was beginning to realize the boredom in the students and decided to have lunch in hope that it would removed the boredom from the students. 

    They all were walking down to the lunchroom. Many smiles were slowly growing back on their faces. The ground began to shake gently. Chris noticed the shake and try to bring it to the teacher's attention.

    " There's nothing to worry about," the teacher replied.

    The ground shook again, this time more violently. This time every student including the teacher noticed. But this time she tried to pretend to not have noticed.

    " The ground didn't shake, there is nothing to worry about," she repeated..

    That made all the students panic, they waited. Some of them were so worried than began hyperventilating. Then, it happened. The earth shook again, this time ten times more forceful than the last. This time the teacher couldn't come up with a cover up. Chunks began falling from the ceiling.

    The pieces that were falling ranged in size from small pebbles to the size of cars. The rocks were falling at a rate that it wouldn't be long before the entire building would fall.

Chris yelled RUN!!! Grabbing Francis and Heather by the arms trying top find the stairs or another way out. Francis studied the map on the elevator so he took the lead in trying to get out of the building. They to the second flight of stairs that lead out of the building. In order to get there the three of them had to run through another large room. Chris saw a doorway that lead to the room. They ran faster to the large doorway.

Francis, who was shaken up by this, want to stay in the large underground bunker.

"We need to get out of here," Heather said,  staring intently at the crumbling ceiling. 

Chris looked around, but he couldn't find any exit. The cables on the elevator were snapped like a small twig, and the emergency stairs were buried in a pile of rubble. 

"If you can find a way out, we're all ears," Chris said.

A chuck of the ceiling fell " DON'T JUST STAND THERE!" Heather screamed, terrified.  

"There's nothing we can do," yelled Chris.

             "I know what we have to do," Francis remarked standing up quickly, "We need to clear the path in the front of the steps. Hopefully it's clear all the way up".

              "And how are we supposed to do that?"Heather snapped. 

             "Together."

              They walked up to the largest piece of rubble and together they managed to heave the chunk cement and moved it out of the way. Behind the rock they could see the stairway began to cave in. they began to walk slowly and very cautiously up the first section of stairs. Once they were all in another chunk a dirt and cement fell down, once again covering the entrance to the stairs.

    "Well, we aren't going back anytime soon, are?" Chris said, staring at the demolished building.. 

    "You two alright ?" Chris asked. Once again they nodded their heads.

    The three of them continued up what seemed to be everlasting flight of stairs. Now they could tell they were nearing the top of the stairs. The temperature was getting increasingly warmer. They were now seeing ash begin to form on the steps.

When they finally found their way to the ground level,they found was ruined by the thick layer of ash that covered the once grassy plains. Trees and grass reduced to ash. Underneath the thick one-inch layer of  ash was infertile soil which contained some but very little to no moisture. 

"Look at this" Francis said gazing over the plains of ash.

"It's all gone. Everything we ever loved, gone" Heather whispered, a lone tear sliding down her cheek. 

They spent the rest of that day feeling guilt and sorrow for what had just happened and the loss of family friends and other loved ones.

With everything gone they soon realized that they would soon need to find food to survive, along with water. 

"This is hopeless" Heather started "No food, no water, and the sun is hot as hell".

"I think we both know" Francis said with a smirk on his face.

       After saying that he pulled out a device shaped like a deformed cylinder with multiple chamber inside of it.

Francis informed them about the root the are underground that is edible, but that is, if the are still there.

While Francis attempted to figure out how to use the device he stole from the bunker,  Chris and Heather started to dig a large cave-like hole in the ground to obtain the edible substances.

While digging for roots and other food, the two discovered how cool it was in the cave compared to the suffocating heat at ground level. 

"It's so much cooler down here," Chris remarked, his hands fumbling blindly in the dark for roots.

"Yes, the sun's been rising earlier and setting later than it used to. You know, before it happened," Heather said. 

For a moment, the two were silent, grieving for everything and everyone they had lost. But it was a new world now and there was no time for them to waste on  memories of another life. The day was ending and they needed to return to Francis.

As soon as the two crawled out of the safety of the hole, they were immediately assaulted by the scorching heat of the sun.

"Stupid sun," Chris muttered and he kicked the dirt.

"That's it!" Heather shouted 

"What?" Chris asked.

But Heather was already in the hole poking at the dirt walls, her pile of roots lay forgotten all over the ground..

"What are you doing, Heather? We have to get back to Francis."

"Come here, Chris. I've just gotten the most brilliantest idea ever!"

"Is that even a word?"

"Who cares? Just come here!" Heather was breathless and beside herself with excitement.

Chris shook his head,  muttered something about "insanity" and "weirdos", and joined Heather in the hole.

"Well?" Chris asked.

"Don't you see, Chris? If the walls are solid enough, we can dig further underground and sleep there!"

"Why would we-" Chris's eyes lit up with understanding,"Heather, you're a genious!"

"No more sleepless nights, no more sunburns, and no more heat," Heather agreed excitedly.

Together, they explored the expanse of the hole once more. And to their delight, the cave walls were indeed solid enough to dig small rooms for sleeping. 

When Chris and Heather returned to the surface, they informed Francis of their plan.  They spent the remainder of the day digging a ten by ten foot room.  When the room was completed, there was just enough for the three of them to sleep in. As night fell that day, all of them went into the hole and went to sleep.

"How did you guys sleep last night" Heather asked half asleep the next morning.

Both Chris and Francis agreed hastily that they both slept well

"I have an idea of something we can do" Chris started with a tone of inspiration. "If we continue to leave the extra roots out in the scorching sun they will shrivel up and lose their edibility" he continued " I thought that we should dig a tunnel with a small room that we could use to store food."

 Heather and Francis agreed to this and they got right to digging the tunnel. This took an extensive amount of work and energy because they only had their hand to dig. 

"We dug for three hours." exclaimed Francis gasping for breath and energy."I need to take a break."

Chris and Heather, feeling fatigued as well, also need a break to regain energy.

"Let's all take a break, I think we all need it".

The next day they began to tunnel out a small corridor that lead to a room the same size if not a little smaller for them to use as a storage room. 

Chris began to notice how the room was beginning to slowly get warmer which made sleeping more restless once again. Chris realized they needed to find a way to make a door to keep the cool air out. But with living in a barren wasteland where were they going to find anything hard, flat, and long enough to use for a door. 

Later that day Chris informed the other two about the temperature rise in the rooms. The two noticed the raise in temperature after it was brought to their attention and realized that a change had to be made, or they extra food would go bad. The main issue they had was that there was nothing to use to make a door. All they had was mounds of dirt and ash, no wood, no leaves, nothing. He even tried to used part of the water supply to hardened ash but it was hopeless.

With the temperature 0f storage room increasing most food they had was slowly going bad. Along with that sleeping was once again as impossible as walking on water. The temperature never got as high as it did outside. And the thing that affected them the most was that the number of roots was dropping fast. There supply has dropped greatly. They had half the food they had about a week ago.

About two and a half months after the World's end, the first signs of plant and animal life were discovered. There wasn't much life but there was enough to tell that life ways coming back.Very small droplets of water began appearing on the ground. By the end of the third  month, the droplets of water formed into small trickles of water and a  thin layer of grass formed over the fields covered in ash. This caused the three survivors to rejoice and be happy because the return of life meant food.

The next day Francis woke up early that morning and noticed something different, much different.  He noticed very small green specs barely breaking through the ground. Francis began jumping around frantically yelling "Life is back, life is back". Francis' yelling startled the other two and they came running out of the hole.

 They could not resist to try one. The berries were small, barely more than a mouthful, yet to the survivors it was a rare delicacy. It had been months since they had eaten anything other than tasteless roots. They grabbed all the berries that they could find and put them in the storage room. They realized that the few bushes that produced berries would not last long so they planted half of their supply. 

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