The Water Wars | Teen Ink

The Water Wars

March 13, 2015
By Chase Fragoso BRONZE, Wauconda, Illinois
Chase Fragoso BRONZE, Wauconda, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Earth has always been a thriving planet full of life ever since the arrival of water. Water is the center of all life on earth and set off the Cambrian explosion a few billion years ago which bestowed the earth with millions of single celled organisms. Humans haven't been on the planet for very long at all and already in 2047 we have used up over a third of our freshwater supply. The problem was fixed, just not in any way anybody was expecting.

The gift our long dead ancestors of dinosaurs and prehistoric plants have given us has run out. Their decomposed bodies made to be the perfect fuel for our machines and technology to run off. However the byproduct of all this industrialization was tearing a massive hole in our ozone. As a result the ozone couldn't protect earth from the ionizing UV rays the sun gives off.

Soon after this event occurred in 2023 the cancer rate in humans quadruples. Many argued that this mass death was a good thing. This indirect population control was good for our species as a whole and scientists dismissed it with a simple wave. The whole idea was to drink more water and try not to get sunburnt. This excessive water drinking drained the aquifer underneath america dry. Not even ten years later the water wars began.

The Five Great Lakes are the worlds largest body of freshwater, everyone wanted a share of them. All out war started for freshwater and countless others were added to the list of dead the cancer rates had started. The U.S. was the first to step up and propose a solution. Their government called the solution, Project Natural Selection and everyone welcomed it with open arms because they thought, finally thought that they would get some water. Now Obama wasn't lying when he said the water would be returned to the people. He just never specified on who was going to get that water.

What the government wanted to do was model human survival after what the animals were already doing. With the massive evolutionary pressure this abundance of water was  providing, the animals left alive had learned to chemically combine the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the atmosphere to generate water. It was a great idea to try but, ultimately impossible to execute in humans so the U.S. government did something a little more...savage.

Massive calls for the remaining population of North America were broadcasted through the radios still left. The government built a facility in what was left of Chicago. It was stark white, a massive contrast from the bleak, desolate area Chicago had become. People were separated very simply but, strictly. Men went into one room while women went in the other. Each was asked a series of questions lasting thirty minutes exactly, no more, no less. When they were done they went into one of two rooms, the green room, or the blue room. Each room would open its door corresponding with each person's answers.

Unfortunately if the persons test scores did not meet the cut, they would be sent to the green room. They would be told to wait and be given a ham sandwich while the techs behind the room pumped chlorine gas into the room. Chlorine is a green, exceptionally poisonous gas that destroys the human nervous system overtime, death occurs in just a few minutes. This process took place over the course of five years and in the government's eyes, worked beautifully. All the weak, simple minded people that took up precious resources were exterminated so to speak. This grizzly procedure was similar to the holocaust, only… nobody stopped it.

A new species of human was made that final year, homo superious.


The author's comments:

I tried my hand at writing a dystopian short story without characters.


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