After the Nova by YA Stories

Author:YA Stories
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unapologetic Voice House LLC
Published: 2021-11-05T19:18:27+00:00

The Pied Piper:

A Dystopian Fairy Tale

Cana Severson, 15

Once upon a time that has not yet come, there was a large country full of people. It was a rich nation because most of its earth was fertile, and they could grow food in abundance. But gradually, around the outskirts of the country, the ground began to die. The farmers and townsmen began to move inland, gravitating toward Tellus, the capital city. As more of the land died and more rivers dried up, more people came to the great city, relying on its seemingly endless resources. But then the city too began to fail. Its electricity went first, leaving the streets dark and the machines dead. Then food began to run short. Then water. Just when it looked as though the city itself would collapse and everything would be lost, a creature appeared in the distance.

It wasn’t like any creature that land had ever seen. It was large, taller in fact than their buildings, towering over the wasted farmlands. And, as it came closer, they began to hear its noises. Every morning, it gave a shrill but hollow whistle, like the sound of breathing over the lid of a jug. For that reason, they began to call it the Piper. It came nearer, and the city sent people to meet it.

“It’s huge,” they reported back. “Made of something like metal, and in a cylinder-shape, but a little narrower at the bottom. It has different colored panels that all shifted and spiraled, like a metal tornado, but it’s very alive. And…” the messengers paused, letting the people wait for their news. “It gave us food, or something like it.”

The next day, more people, almost half the city, went out to the Piper. They reported the same thing: it gave its whistle then dispensed sweet tasting thin items, enough for all the people who came to it. A few went back to the city to report for the people who were still there, but most had stayed out by the Piper, ready for its whistle the next morning. Before long, the entire city had moved near the Piper, pitching tents around its giant metallic shape, ready for its gifts. The Piper still moved every day, but soon it was moving away from Tellus rather than towards it. Nonetheless, the people followed. And they continued to follow it, camping by it and moving with it, for years and years. Their nomadic life became regular as people grouped themselves into communities and even a government system that organized the distribution of the Piper’s gifts. It kept giving, though no one knew its source, and it kept moving farther and farther away from the land they knew. But it didn’t matter: it fed them and they were willing to stay with it. Before long, Tellus was a ruin, and there wasn’t a person within a hundred miles of it.

Over the years, the Piper led them across the land, through forests and fields, even across a desert and a canyon.

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