Deep within the recesses of space, amidst endless darkness, upon the countless worlds of the cosmos life still prevails. Infinite possibilities play out in an infinitude of ways. A once thriving planet, teeming with life, is now destroyed, becoming a thousand and more asteroids. Across the timeline of the universe, heavenly bodies form, impact, divide, and crash. Yet life still prevails upon just one such space-faring rock, upon one of such perhaps lay the seeds of life which spawned everything we see around us, and upon another such rock may come the very undoing of it all.
On the 24th of September the human race encountered a threat to its very way of life. This enemy surfaced, as they so often do, in the most innocuous of places.
***
On the corner of two seldom-trodden streets, in the poorer part of a tired and dingy city, where the bricks were old and worn, there it stood. Windows caked with dust, wood splintered and rotten, the old wrought iron fittings from another more prosperous age rusting and corroded. The cement was cracked and crumbling, the lights outside broken, and to call it run down would be the kind of generosity only a retail salesman could conjure.
This was the Garden of Eden.
A small plant shop where we find Wayne Tully cleaning up the results of his most recent accident. Having dislodged an ancient wooden shelf an hour ago, he lazily moved a worn and tired broom with worn and tired hands, collecting shards of plant pot and sandy loam that lay scattered across the basement floor.
He was a mousey figure, barely over five feet, with a scruff of brown hair and little else to his name. Wayne had little to do, so in spite of his irritation the accident was in fact a welcome change of pace. In this store customers were few and sales fewer.
Outside of work he lived alone. Yet Wayne was not just alone... but lonely.
As an orphan, he had never really known acceptance. Orphanages don't dispense love and care, nor true emotional connections. Love was really the only thing he had ever wanted. Money would be nice, a nice house, a nice car. He'd eat what he wanted when he wanted.
But without love what would any of that do? He'd be just as lonely as he was now.
As a child he had only ever wanted one thing - a mother. Someone to hold him, cherish him, protect him and love him. Someone who would love him unconditionally, and give him the care of another he had never had.
As he had grown older, that desire hadn't died. It had rather morphed somewhat. He still sought love, and indeed, deep down there would always be a scared little boy inside him who wanted nothing more than a mother to love him.
Yet as boys grew older, they felt a different desire, for a different kind of love. To Wayne there was only one girl like that. The only girl for him, a girl he'd known for years and a girl whom he had a crush on for every day from the moment they met. As a slight clang of metal on wood rang out from upstairs, Wayne could only huff in his dejection. She was less than six feet from him at any time, but she might as well have been on the moon for how far out of reach she was. Hell, she might as well have been from space. No matter what he did, Wayne just couldn't seem to get her to look at him as anything other than a friend.
Closer to a brother by now, he admitted.
It wasn't that she was distant. In all that time she'd been his best and closest friend, but this was the kind of loneliness a friend just couldn't fill.
Wayne had never really had much of anything or anyone in his life. He often wondered if kids who grew up with families felt as he did, as if there was an emptiness in his heart that only someone else could fill. Maybe they got used to having that unconditional love and acceptance, taking it for granted. What they were given from day one was the one thing Wayne had pined for his entire life. Someone to love, to cherish, to hold. Someone who would be there; not just physically be in the same room, but be in your life, a part of your life.
As it was all Wayne had was a great friend and a job. As an orphan he'd been lucky enough to land a job here at all, two weeks before he was kicked out of the orphanage for ageing out. When the previous shopkeep finally gave up and quit, leaving this disaster for the lost cause that it was, he had simply taken over the Garden of Eden. It paid just enough to give him a bed and keep him fed, and not a penny more.
With a familiar resignation, knowing that his luck wasn't likely to change, Wayne swept the spare soil into an old pot he wasn't using. He kept it right below the sole window in the basement that let in just enough light to let him see what he was doing. With the way things were going, Wayne could hardly afford to turn the lights on even when there were customers in the store - those being rare and solemn occasions - let alone in the basement.
Cold, moist stone walls with earth as mortar kept the basement cool even in summer. The everpresent musty smell of dirt and the background fragrance of the hundreds of plants which resided down there was the
Stumbling slightly over a mislaid box, he realized while looking out of the spotted window that the day was far darker than usual. The crackling of an old radio upstairs reminded Wayne and all the other down-on-their-luck residents for the hundredth time of the impending solar eclipse.
"Truly a historic event. Our little town is right in the path of the eclipse folks! Make sure you have eye protection and get ready. In just five minutes we'll be seeing - or rather not seeing - our sun! A dazzling astronomical display. As a special guest, I have with me Professor Andrew from Rido College. Care to explain Professor?"
"Ah, yeah. Thanks. Um, well you see the moon is going to uh... move in front of the sun."
Wayne listened to dead air for several moments, pausing his sweeping.
"Oh... uh- Well thank you for that enlightening explanation Professor. Anyone wishing to take part in his historic event should head outside now as we have only minutes to spare!"
The broom clattered against a nearby table as Wayne pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled deeply. From what little he could make out in the dimming light he still had plenty of work to do. It didn't seem to matter whether he did it now, or later, or tomorrow.
Really why even bother at all? Staring at the old stonework around him, the floorboards clearly rotting above, he wondered why he kept going with it.
"What the hell, right? It's a once in a lifetime event, and it beats sweeping." He shrugged, jogging upstairs to join the idling crowds in the street all staring up blankly at the sky.
Wayne peeked out from around a corner as he exited the basement.
"Hey Darlene, you wanna go check out the-"
Wayne's voice caught in his throat. There was Darlene, the girl he loved. Her body was a slender canvas of pure beauty. Every curve and line was a testament to nature's artistry. Long, wavy red hair cascaded down her back, hugging and framing her delicate neck and shoulders which were barely covered by the low-cut boyish green tank top she wore. The fabric clung to her in just the right way, revealing the outline of her perky, firm breasts. She never wore a bra - much to Wayne's eternal delight and equal dismay. Her hips swelled just slightly around her tight, round ass, which sat atop long, shapely legs. Everything she did, every time she moved, it was with the grace of the flora in the breeze, a silent invitation to follow her.
There was the girl he loved... in the arms of another man. As usual in his black leather jacket, and his motorbike parked only a few feet away, Flynn swooped in and wrapped his arm around her waist whilst aiming for a kiss.
His burly six foot frame was a testament to a life lived hard and fast. His muscular arms, thickly veined, stretched the fabric of his leather jacket. Broad shoulders tapered a narrow waist, and a rugged face was etched with grey hair. The leather creaked with every move, and his heavy boots kept him planted as if daring the world to challenge him. He carried himself
Darlene turned to smile at Wayne before Flynn's kiss could land.
"Hmm?" Flynn's lips lifted off her cheek just enough to speak, his beard still tickling her skin. "Yeah, that eclipse thing?" Flynn asked. "Sure. The two of us were just uh... heading out. You know, you should join us." He offered with a condescending smile.
"Join us, Wayne." Darlene added, her voice far more sincere.
Wayne nodded, fumbling for his keys as he moved to lock the doors behind him.
"Th-that sounds great." He smiled behind clenched teeth, trying his best to look unbothered as the three of them walked down the street.
Flynn smirked, slapping Wayne hard across the back of his shoulder as they walked. "That jaw is looking a little tight there, buddy. I hear that's not good for ya. You might want to see a dentist."
Down a few blocks children were grinning excitedly, asking all sorts of questions they didn't really want an answer to as some parents continued to answer them regardless. In a rare moment, everyone, child and parent alike, stared up at the sky with a gasp of unified wonder.
Wayne tried to recognize and appreciate the moment for what it was. No matter how he may have felt, it shouldn't take away from the majesty of the moment, but inevitably... it did. As the two of them blatantly made out in the periphery of his vision, Wayne kept his eyes skyward. In a few minutes the sun would be back, and he'd be just as poor and lonely as ever.
***
As the moon roved across the roaring nuclear furnace of our sun, it cast an all-consuming shadow over Earth in a both delicate yet divine dance. One by one, as they were plunged into darkness, the cities of the world cheered. Though their voices all rang out in wonder, their cries were silenced in the vast cosmic emptiness of space. Even were the entire Earth to cry out in joy, or shock, or fear... it would be entirely silenced by the all-consuming void.
Just as the moon was about to fully converge with the sun, a smallest of glints flashed along its edge, tumbling from beyond the stars. With the city now shrouded in darkness, a tiny bead of intense heat ploughed through the atmosphere carried by the celestial force that had launched it so many eons before. Like a well worn shield, Earth's atmosphere did its best, burning away at the foreign body like a dragon's flame. Slowly it melted down until the once massive rock, that could have leveled cities, was worn away to a size that could fit into the palm of a hand.
Yet for the destruction to come that was all that was needed.
It slowed, dipped, and fell... crashing right through the window of a dimly lit basement and the plant pot below, coming to rest with a slight sizzle.
***
Wayne absently flipped the 'closed' sign to 'open' as he wandered into the store the next morning, not that he thought it would make much difference. Darlene's shift didn't start till 9, and then, just for a moment, his life would be just a little brighter. They'd talk, they'd laugh, they'd have fun, and at the end of the day she'd be gone, and he'd be just as alone as before.
Making his way downstairs he peered into the dim cellar, squinting for his discarded broom from the day before. His shoes kicked about the scattered earth as he blindly waved his hand in front of him, unable to see a thing.
A crunch under his foot brought him to a sudden halt. What had he just stepped on? Carefully lifting his foot, he moved it gently to the side and placed it back down only to hear an even louder crunch.
Whatever he'd just stepped on, it definitely wasn't earth. He paused for a moment, then shrugged to himself in the dim light. There wasn't anything valuable down here. Whatever it was, he would just clean it up. With the aid of the faint pillar of early morning sunlight behind him, he fetched an ancient metallic flashlight and shook it. The two rusted batteries corroding inside might just be able to give him an idea of what was going on.
He pressed hard against the button as the worn metallic ridges pricked into his fingertip and, after smacking it against his palm a few times, it managed to emit a feeble beam of light. There on the floor he saw exactly what he expected. Dirt. Plenty of it, along with the occasional fragment of pot. However, he'd stepped on many a shard of pottery in the dark before and it didn't crunch like that.
Stooping closer he sifted through the refuse as he held the flashlight above him, pointing down. Then he saw it, a thousand tiny diamonds lit up like a dragon's hoard.
No, not diamonds... glass. Shards of glass. He winced as he felt a sharp scratch on his finger, no doubt from one of the glassy slivers below. Carefully as he could he scanned his finger with the flashlight, looking for any glass, but the tiny scratch was just that.
Ruefully, he realised he must have broken something important without realising it. This already dreary day had already found a way to get worse.
Slowly tracing the trail of shiny debris across the ground, he followed it up to the tabletop and saw a pure beam of sunlight coming from a new hole in the window as the sun began to rise.
"Shit." He cursed. "Those damn kids again. I told them to stop playing with rocks."
Far too distracted by the window, Wayne failed to notice the pot he had left on the table the night before was now home to an odd lump. Several minutes later, after he had taped over the hole with a strip of cardboard, and collapsed into a chair, he wondered how he was going to pay for any of this. Only then did he notice a single green vine draped just over the edge of the pot.
"What have we got here?"
Curious, he leaned over and peered in.
It was the oddest thing he'd seen in his four and a half year career in botany; something like a mix between an artichoke and a venus fly trap. It was a plant unlike anything he'd ever seen. Indeed, he'd have been sure it was just a venus fly trap if not for... well, its 'mouth' looked an awful lot more human than it should. With thick, plush lips, it was hardly the stuff of plant life.
With little else to do, he fetched some yellowing books from his old boss's office upstairs and began to do some research.
Lost in his books, he barely noticed the sweet scent around him. Being that Eden was a flower shop he was well used to a bouquet of scents, practically nose-blind to it. Yet something sweeter than usual seemed to grow around him as he read.
An hour passed without a customer, but in all that time all he learned was that whatever this thing was it wasn't in a book bought some 20 years before, and published long before that. Slapping the last of the books shut, he eyed the pot again.
"What are you?" He murmured.
The sound of the door upstairs opening nearly made him fall out of his chair. Darlene was here.
He steadied himself as he got up, not realising how long he had just spent down there.
With one last look at the plant in the pot he shook his head. Something about it was so odd, but there was something about it he couldn't put his finger on. It was like it could see right through him, see his deepest desires.
He took one last deep breath in preparation, his lungs soaking up that sweet scent, and walked upstairs. The plant in the pot stirred a little. Its thick, pillowy lips curled into an unmistakable grin. A deep, malicious grin. It had no eyes, yet it could see what was to come.
It liked what it saw.