Last Day
I love The Sims because of all the little details. As I build, a story always happens in my head. And I decided to write it. English is not my first language but I hope this is accepable...
A playground, secluded, hidden in between shoddy apartment buildings requiring a code to enter, protected from evil adults by a concrete wall. Not a homely place, but the children who played here made it their own. Out the door from their unhappy homes of poverty, they ran down the stairs and out onto the hazardous concrete flooring under the swings, never stumbling on the toys and trinkets left all over, for they had run this way so many times.
They ran out into the unkempt shrubberies surrounding the space, where they built secret lairs of leaves and sticks, oases of tranquility in a forbidding world. They ran out and jumped over the rotten wooden fence, on which they would walk carefully, arms out, barely keeping their balance, on which they would proudly perch whatever little things were dear to them in a neat row. On this playground, many arms were broken, many scabs were picked, many boo-boos were blown on by mothers who did their best.
Now the people who made this place come to life are all dead, and it is but a museum of a now shattered civilization.
Here, a little tricycle, once ridden by a child whose mother intently watched the last news broadcasts ever made on Oranos, broadcasts that day after day reported live of the flood disaster. She would, biting her already non-existent nails, watch the ever rising death toll counter in the lower right corner of the TV screen, and she would, panicking, scrape through the entire flat for money to buy an evacuation ticket. She would cry with relief when she finally found enough, and decide that no, it was best not to wait until her abusive husband returned from work, it was best just to grab her things and go immediately. And she would run out on the balcony and scream for her little tricycle-riding darling to come up at once! The child started, turning towards her voice, “But muuum-“, stopping immediately at one look on her terrified face. The bond between mother and child informed him that this time it was serious, and he left his tricycle right where he was, running up the stairs again, instinctively fearful.
Here, an abandoned pack of cigarettes, now left in plain sight by a group of secretly smoking teenagers. Sure, they had thought that the wind shrieked a little louder than usual, but they had not been prepared for the blizzard that suddenly howled over them. Before they could react to it, one of them was abruptly hit in the head by a gigantic lump of ice, and fell bloody and lifeless to the ground. Screaming they ran inside, even the tough boys crying, for they all knew that their parents could not afford to evacuate, and that they would all end up as more frozen bodies for the news to count. If the news were still even broadcasting.
Here, a broken but ever-loved doll, left by a child who wondered why she was never called in for dinner. She played on, pretending that she did not care, but as the hours went by her play became increasingly surly, and when the sun went down she was actually afraid. Abandoning all pride, she went upstairs, thinking she would act as if it didn’t matter nobody cared whether she ate or not.
Only to find that her family had left the dying planet without her.