Megan Van Autreve
Before one reads, they must be warned that realistically, there is no end to this tale. It shall repeat and repeat until everything is dead and there is nothing left. There, truly, is no resolution to this tale. But I shall give you one for your own sake.
It starts the day in which Summer comes and it is lovely. The sun shines brightly over towering trees. Light streams through leaves and onto the ground below, warming the concrete with a soft glow. Wild animals roam the streets of an abandoned city. Deer, racoons, rabbits, and every animal that roams the forest scour for pieces of food laying on street corners and deserted pantries. Gorgeous flowers bloom on concrete buildings. Growing on every car there are green vines that snake through every pipe and engine. The beauty invades every street corner as though to hide the desolate gray underneath.
But the gray is still there, and when winter comes, the greenery will die alongside summer. The greens turn dark brown and fall, dead on the ground to slowly decompose. The animals leave for brighter places, leaving the gray city to be on its own for a while. The sky no longer shines—a dark cloud blankets the sad scene. And the city will wait until summer comes to bring the beauty back again.
Winter brings them. The dark things that follow the buildings as the day shifts to night. They are the things that scare the trees into shaking, the wind far behind in their thoughts. They stalk and consume everything sitting outside of the sun’s range, spitting them back out when the sun decides to shine there. The monsters consume and consume and consume until there is nothing left, and the darkness consumes all that there is.
Spring tells the green to start to make its way onto the buildings. New beginnings are the key to the coming summer. The growth of a new bud brings the animals intrigue, and they too come to see the city’s new beginning, brought home from their sunnier pastures. They explore the cracked streets to find the growing green. And when they find it, it is beautiful, and it is everything. The animals are consumed by the glory of the purple buds streaming up the tallest tower in the city. They are compelled to stay. Monsters continue their tirade when the skies cry, but when the sun makes its appearance once again, they screech into their darkness.
A new summer, a brighter one, summons the sun and the monsters leave with the shining. The vines have returned to their hidden corners, curled up in the warm embrace of the sun. The purple buds on the tallest tower have bloomed into blue flowers that encircle the building with a soft hug. The animals surround the tower, curious, entranced. They spent the rest of that beautiful summer drawn to the flowers and the feeling it gave them.
Halfway through the summer, a deer gently walks to the tower and takes a small bite out of the flower. The sun got hotter. That was when the animals discovered the alluring taste of the blue flowers: strawberries and chocolate. The deer made its way across the city, sharing the beautiful flavor of a summer picnic and sunshine. From all across the city, the animals came to try the blue. No longer was green on their minds; the blue invaded their every thought. The animals ravaged the tower of its flowers while the skies wept once again. The destruction of the buds that had grown to save the city from abandonment hurt the skies as the sun burned from behind the clouds.
Sharp teeth and honed nails tore through gentle petals until nothing was left except wilting green. Suddenly it was Fall again, the green turned brown. The sun still leaves a stinging burn when it hits, but it leaves earlier and earlier in the day. The monsters are attracted to the strange warmth and come earlier and earlier in the night. Suddenly, instead of animals consuming the petals, it was the monsters consuming the animals in a hope to get a taste of the strawberries and chocolate in their stomachs. They searched every corner, every building until there were no animals left, no buds, and suddenly it was Winter.
When it was supposed to get colder, it just got hotter. The sun beat down on the city streets until it left a burn to the touch, but only for so long. Among the torn flesh of the tainted animals, were the monsters waiting for the sun to leave. And when the sun left, so too did the joy the flowers brought. Busy streets were desolate once again. The only thing left was torn corpses at the bottom of the tallest building, every spec of the blue flower lost in them.
As the winter got hotter and hotter, the animals’ bodies were cooked alive, steam lifted into the air and out of their bodies. The concrete melted under the sun’s rays and soon the once beautiful city was only a concrete puddle at the bottom of a hill. This is all we have of the abandoned city and the greedy animals. This is the resolution to the tale that you so desired. I hope you enjoyed it because the end will never happen—not if the monsters have anything to say about it.