It was just a flower. A familiar flower with an outdated name. But as I stared at it, my skin grew clammy and I felt my chest restricting. My breath coming in and out in wheezing gasps. I ran.
When I was 7, my parents were killed on a camping trip. I was with them, and I survived. I was missing for two days until I was found, wandering, beaten and bloody and mute. I was clutching a small bouquet of wilted wildflowers. I had no memory of that time. Until now.
Some blamed it on the beetles, and the name stuck. It was an event they could point to and remember, instead of blaming themselves. Instead of blaming the quickening slide past the point of no return, to the end of everything. Well, not everything. The end of the age of humans. Humanity died long ago, the rest of us just waited for the inevitable.
Everything was already fucked before the beetles. We took down the climate, and so many species we couldn’t even keep track anymore. We made new ones, to help eat the plastic, clean the earth, eat the earth-cleaners, but we didn’t expect the side effects. We turned a blind eye to the warnings, the warming, the sea water. So here we were now, the darkling days. The next part of the end.
