Allegra and the Fall.

A short story, copyright mine.

She closed her eyes and yawned, so sweetly, like a little kitten from a long, peaceful sleep. The digital hologram clock on her wall bleeped. "28th December, 2015. 1:34 pm." The alarm she set days earlier roused her into a wakeful tension, her body shrugged together, her languid eyes alert and darting around cautiously for one second. Then, sighing, she gathered up her wide skirt, having fallen around her carelessly, and stood up from the warm bed. Almost in a trance, she walked slowly to the doorstep and down the stairs, her beautifully expensive heels click-clacking on the thin layer of ice crystals formed beneath.

He watched Allegra from a distance, from the safety of the heated study, draped in a thick shawl meant to be tossed on the couch. He smiled at her leaving figure gently. After all they had went through, he felt lucky to have her. They were the only ones left for each other in this world. "I love you, Mark" she had whispered onto the mirror in the parlour before resting, and the sound of her musical voice had turned the heat and light attuned mirror into swirls of beautiful hearts with the message, almost like a kaleidoscopic twinkle of poetry, each time you look at it.

People's memories were short, she told herself as she boarded the Shinkansen. No one here remembered what happened anymore. Newspapers suffered terribly during the Fall. Now, the only way they could survive was to devote most of their electronic space to financial, and health reports. No real news was ever found since it was not lucrative. As predicted, the 2-million dollar healthcare industry in Sangria aggresively grew in the last 5 years to a 5 trillion dollar one. But the side effects of all the multivitamins and self-cancer checks was that people had forgotten what was important to them. After the Fall in Sangria, houses were built compactly without spaces for books. No one read anymore and fewer books were produced each year as paper became increasingly scarce and ibooks sold for a mere sum onweb. The radiation and waves from the various digital implements had severe debilitating effects on the memory aspect of the mind, but it was only 20 more years later when they realised the permanence of short-term memory had taken place.

Allegra also, had forgotten most of it, only that the mention of "The Fall" made her shudder and seem to be in shock for sometime. Saving precious, expensive paper, she had years ago written an account, and each year this day, in memory, she would go to the Grounds and read it. The Grounds was a beautifully, digitally enhanced landscape with birds and fruit trees, all tropical, but transported through the digital medium to exist here in Sangria.

Allegra sat under a cherry tree with rainbow colored cherries and opened an airtight capsule. The air in Sangria had discolored all natural elements, even clothes now had to be woven with only nylon threads. Most of their clothes were nylon now, the manmade fabric withstanding the harsh elements of weather and radiation. She perched herself comfortably and read.

"Dec 28, 2009.
It was one year ago that these events happened, something so terrible that even today I shudder to think about it. The violent weather which for some years now have been warning us about things to come: Earthquakes and Tsunamis, sudden electrical charges, flash floods. In Sorepa, we were ravaged by floods all around. Being a peninsula, we had no chance of survival. My meagre items were all washed away, the legacy that my parents had built up for myself and my older brother Myerl vanished in hours. The grief of losing such was replaced with joy at finding them all alive. However on the way to the refugee camp at Sangria, my brother mysteriously disappeared along with other guys his age.

Horror stories abounded for years that they were abducted mysteriously to become spies for neighboring countries, and strange evidence surfaced now and then, but I could never be sure whether Myerl is alive, and even if he was, maybe tortured, or transformed so much that perhaps death was a better option. I lost my parents within six months of each other, they both caught Rinal disease, after the floods, their respiratory systems collapsed. Now, Rinal can be controlled with just a cocktail of pills, but back then, the whole population of Sorepa died because of this strange disease. I survived because some strange antibodies in my body acclimatised myself almost instantly, and because of Mark.'

Allegra smiled as she read this. It was a blessing, even now when Mark was like this, to have him. She never doubted his evident love for her, only sighed when he did not have the strength of mind to speak it. Deep inside, she believed that in this turbulent future, some Divine Being would help them all. She uttered a soundless prayer, for any audible words she said could put them in danger of the Sangria elders, who planted hearing trees all over the countryside.

'After being in a refugee camp for 3 years, I realised that I was not so luckless after all. I saw young children who never knew they were born of noble birth and crept about on their forelegs, looking pitiful and detestable. I did not bother about the older ones, with purple welts and boils up their legs, a sure sign that later Rinal disease was to ravage them. Each day the wheezing sounds could be heard as one by one, the older ones succumbed. They went almost peacefully as though they had held their breath themselves, so peacefully that I could not grieve them.

Mark was a Sangrian not older than I, who had offered to help out in the refugee camp. A true martyr he was! But actually he was learning medicals, and this knowledge later proved to be useful to me. I saw his face as one with no beauty of form, a luckless creature, built stolidly, huge arms and hands with a weak chin and droopy eyes, not like the noble, graceful form we were used to seeing. Yet, there was something about him that enchanted me. The way his eyes watched me, with care. The way he would offer me help. I loved him for this. I wondered if I had the luck to lead a peaceful life with a noble Sorepa once. But now that my kind was dying out, this Sangrian seemed to offer me joy, and happiness should I choose to follow him. I don't know. It has been a year now and the situation has much improved. The governance of the Seven Worlds has seen to the stability of their instruments. No one lives near the Waters anymore for fear of the Fall. Two of the Worlds are now formless, lifeless, a mere black pool of water with only strange, waterliking creatures that inhabit its surface. Noble Sorepares have migrated either into Sangria or the fierce Wilds of Shylom. And me, I have decided to make my home with Mark as long as I live.'

There were more writings beyond this sentence, but time had rendered them almost invisible. However after her memory was regained every year by this letter, Allegra relived those bitter times once again. And she rejoiced with a smile that she had things to smile about.

Their lives had been prolonged with artifical intelligence, since all sustenance had been destroyed in Sangria and most of the Seven Worlds. Mark was noiselessly pacing about the house, with a furrowed brow and only when Allegra returned, he broke into a smile. "Allegra! Allegra, my love!" She smoothed his face till it was shining brightly with unshed tears, and she, on the verge of tears itself, just invoked his name, such a dear syllable to her own heart, again and again. He would never have the intelligence to live independently on his own nor the mind to fathom medical disorders as he once did. The artifical intelligence destroyed him and he only remembered her - Allegra, and that he loved her. And that was all.