Another Dark Age

By Raven Sheed

Orbiting around the Earth is an object of ominous properties slowly affecting all forms of life on the planet. Over the past 26 months human culture has disappeared with only physical remnants left behind like a ghostly shadow of what once was. The Mona Lisa still hangs, but in an empty Louvre; The Mexican temples of Chichen Itza stand as abandoned as the time of their civilization’s vanishing- no longer drawing guests seeking answers from the past nor simple tourists hoping for an exotic photo from one of the steps to hang in their suburban American homes; Centuries-old parchments continue once again to collect dust no longer being studied; And the Holocaust museum and other war memorials are no longer frequented by poignant-faced visitors, leaving the memory of the departed forgotten as those very memorials sought to prevent. Development or enlightenment of any kind has come to a slow halt like molten lava flowing down the side of a volcano cooling as it descends. The proverbial eruption has already occurred here. Left now are the effects of the aftermath until the human race’s eventual extinction. You see, The human race cannot survive without intellect; without progress towards something greater; without hope that things can always be better.

On August 20, 2015 NASA detected an unidentifiable object orbiting Earth. There were no clues as to how it got there. There was no indication as to what it was. Just a dark orb slowly rotating with no signs of change. The president of The United States went on television to assure the nation and the world that there was no need for immediate anxiety or panic over what this “entity” was. A state of emergency was declared for the country until more information could be collected or until citizens settled down and went back to their normal lives. This was when strange things started happening. It was so subtly that this “thing” came to hover around human lives, slowly consuming them from the inside out that no one could have predicted that this is how the world could end.

The first sign of abnormality in society was the fact that it did not need this state of emergency. It was only the first week that there were any cases of looting, and oddly most instances of theft were reported from small towns in the Midwest and Southern regions. No major cities experienced any heightened reports of theft or murder. In fact, urban crime overall that first week was down by 10% throughout the country. Reports from other parts of the globe were almost mirror images of America’s. Following this small phenomenon, the news reported congratulations on having national pride and a sense of community in these uncertain times. Morale was high, at least on paper. On the streets it was business as usual. The state of emergency was lifted after two weeks and people went about their daily lives going to work and caring for their families as if nothing were out of place.

But something was. New York City was alarmingly quiet, regardless of there being the same number of people out and about, yet no one seemed to take notice. A month later Times Square turned off the intersection monitors and electronic billboards. No longer were there enthusiastic advertisements for the upcoming Tony Award nominated Broadway shows. News reported that this was due to recent results from focus groups that showed very little economic effect from the advertisements on ticket sales, which had been steadily declining for the past month. Therefore, money was no longer going to be spent on this inadequate mode of advertisement. The peculiar thing being that no one questioned the fact that this particular mode of advertisement, commercials and billboards, had been the most successful way of increasing the sale of a product since their invention. The appropriate experts never appeared on news networks to share their nuggets of wisdom or expertise with the general public. Everyone, it seemed, was being slowly categorized into the general public realm. Even the branches of government, including the president of The United States were immobile in their running of the country, acting like benched high school football players who had flunked out of school and no longer had a place in the game. The president was now spending all his time in leisure, almost as though he didn’t know what else to do. Once again no one noticed this as an outrageous abandoning of his duties. And there were no more late night show hosts to joke about this president taking more vacation time at Camp David than George W. Bush.

Six weeks later language was disappearing. Long distance travel was no longer possible. In short, humans were losing their minds, their abilities to think and move forward. Technology was at a stand-still with many parts of it no longer in use. Television had become a few channels of simple news with no differing viewpoints. iPhone app downloads dropped to 0%. Automobile sales of anything other than standard feature vehicles disappeared entirely. And then the blackouts came.

Now the Earth looks like a larger version of the black orb that encircles it. Humans have become vegetables. Vegetables that will eventually rot into extinction…unless…

Unless I take this vessel of mine and leave this solar system. It is not my place to destroy a species whether accidental or not. This was supposed to be a simple follow-up mission 700 Earth years after our initial scouting mission to explore the planets orbiting closer to the sun. This was the first one with signs of intelligent life and we could not have known how our simple presence in their orbit could have affected their very existence. There is much to investigate, but I will sacrifice my studies in order that these beings can once again live and be players in the universe.

I am profoundly sorry for my interference. End transmission.