Retribution Day

It was late afternoon when he opened his eyes. The blanket of clouds had broken in several places, and beams of golden light planked the valley floor, illuminating the tops of the ruined buildings. Though the valley still looked cold and wet and unwelcoming, the light gave it a newfound majesty.

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For the first time, he understood why he had chosen to risk losing the timepiece.

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Almost all the buildings were damaged, some more severely than others. The damage seemed to radiate outward from a single point near the southern edge of the ruined city, where a wild crater sank deeply into the ground. A gumtree had taken root in the depression, and their silvery leaves shook in the gusts of the directionless breeze.

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He uttered several lines in forgotten language: there is an invisible poison here, in the air you breathe, in the ground you walk upon, and in the food you may eat and the water you may drink. “What a poison?” asked his accomplice, her thoughts as slow as her heartbeats.

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He continued in a gloomy, upset voice, “During the war of worlds, one of the Nation’s great fuel plants was destroyed. Whether by design or by accident has never been clear, but the result is what you see and what you cannot see, for the resulting explosion rendered the world unfit to live in.”

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He then turned to look at his watch: the timepiece. “January 1st 2027,” he said and before she could say anything he vanished with a loud crack as the sound echoed down the empty city streets travelling faster and faster until he vanished beyond the horizon.

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He was going to stop all of this from ever happening. He was going to prevent the extinction of life itself, but there was a problem he could not fit into his plans. He was the one who caused the energy plants explosion, he was the one who destroyed the world, he was the one who designed the reactor.