Amelia stared at the little packet in her hands. It’s brown paper corners were bent and wrinkled. The flap looked like it may come off in her fingers if she dared attempted to open it.

“Seeds.” It said, scrawled in black in in a spidery hand. An old persons handwriting she thought. Or perhaps old fashioned handwriting… The handwriting they were forced to practice in the school unit was different, more upright and round. This was kind of beautiful in it’s own scrawling way, certainly more pretty than her own. She felt the small lumps in the packet tenderly and wistfully thought about what the seeds might grow into and who had put them in this tiny envelope.

The envelope had come from her grandfather’s special box. After he had died the previous year, her mother had taken everything in his quarters and gone through it bit by bit. Amelia had offered to help. She had mostly been rewarded with carrying heavy boxes of random things to the recycling unit for repurposing. Old clothes that Amelia’s family did not need, shoes that would not fit her brother for too many years, lamps, books and bedding. Everything that could not be used usefully straight away had to go to the recycling centre. There would always be someone who needed it right away, or something that could be melted or shredded down and remade into something else. There were fines, Amelia’s mother had explained, if you were not doing your bit for the facility.

“For our community,” her mother had worded it. Somethings though she knew her mother had kept, fine or no fine if caught. Her grandfather’s diary’s and photographs now lived under the towels and bedding in her mothers room. He had only been a small child when humanity had said good bye to the surface of the earth.

“They are worth far more to the future as they are, covered in ink and memories, than they are muched up and turned into new paper!” her mother had said defiantly, convincing herself more than her daughter Amelia thought. Amelia didn’t need convincing they should keep them. She missed her grandfather very much and suddenly wished she had asked him more about the world above and his memories. He might have remembered what the seeds were. Now she might never know.

The seeds had been in her grandfathers sock drawer.

“Always keep the most important things safe in your sock drawer,” her grandfather had often said. She’d always thought he meant socks, and was a little crazy. Now the seeds lived in her sock drawer. It felt wrong to put them anywhere else. She had shown them to her mother. She’d smiled somewhat sadly, wrapped Amelia’s outstretched hand around them and told her to keep them safe.

“One day,” she had said “One day, you will get to plant these properly, in the sunshine, where the rain will fall on them.” Amelia didn’t know what to say to that, so had held the seeds tightly. The real sunshine was incredibly dangerous and the real rain not much better. They had studied it in her class unit. The sun scorched all it touched be it leaf, skin or soil and rain was poisoned with acids and chemicals from the awful way people had treated the Earth.

They had looked at before and after style photos of rainforests turned to deserts, fields turn to cities, beaches turn to dumping grounds and life filled oceans to plastic filled waves devoid of vivid life within.

Amelia didn’t know how it was possible for so much damage to be done. Mrs Hart had shown them some video clips of factories belching out black smoke, plastic littering the land and oceans, and all kinds of dirty, damaging, harmful things. She didn’t understand why people didn’t just stop it, why didn’t they see the consequences of their actions, notice the irreversible trend in the temperature of the planet. It seemed like many people ignored it, or perhaps thought they could just move to Mars when Earth was too ruined. Mrs Hart had agreed.

“Every individual is responsible” she said. “And every government in every country. But people couldn’t work together. They felt things like money, war and politics were more important. But it isn’t those people who have to live with their bad decisions,” she had said sadly, “It is us who have to.” She had stopped short of mentioning that many people did not get the chance to live with it. Only last week there was another report in the news of another facility that had disappeared from the communication grid which keeps all the facilities connected. The last report had been that they were worried about their sea facing door, a mysterious illness and low power production since they lost their solar capacity to a storm.

The news reporter had solemnly said “It is our hope they have just lost communications due to low power generation, and not that it is, yet another facility, lost to the ever increasing sea levels and environmental damage.”

Charlie at schools dad works in communications though, and Charlie said he overhead his dad saying that all the facilities are programmed to keep communications for as long as they can support life.

“He recons they are all dead!” Charlie had revealed dramatically. Bethanillly, who’s grandparents had travelled from that facility, back when that was possible, said she didn’t believe it.

“Ma says there are probably loads of people in those places, we think they don’t have power but they probably have some. We don’t know, we are not there! Maybe their communication thingies are all broken.” The others had quickly agreed so she wouldn’t cry again. Charlie had drawn his finger dramatically across his neck as soon as Bethanilly had turned away.  

Amelia loved the idea of travel. She always had. Her bed pod walls and celieling were covered in old postcards and cut outs of fantastic places. Some were of the old word, now destroyed by wars or under leagues of water. Others were of famous facilities and the “new world landmarks” back when the facilities were new and exciting, and travel between them was organised and regular. No one except specialist workers or engineers even went outside any more. Conditions were too dangerous, that’s what everyone said. Amelia wondered if it was true.

Sometimes she dreamed that it was all a terrible mistake, they were not trapped, the formidable iron tunnel doors were thrown open and people could come and go as they pleased. She dreamed she stepped out onto rock, then grass and a breeze played with her hair and the sun shone on her face. She woke up feeling warm, and her heart pounding. She had no idea what real sunlight would feel like.

“It’d burn you black and boil your blood!” said her brother dramatically after she told him about one of her dreams. “At least that is what Timmy says, and he knows! His dad’s friend’s friend’s brother in law went mad when he was fixing the solar panels one day, and took off his work suit and full head helmet and he burnt up when the sun shone on him. All they found was a crispy black corpse he said.” Who exactly ‘they’ were, and who indeed Timmy’s dad’s friend’s friend’s brother in law was, seemed not to matter as when Amelia had asked questions of Timmy and friends no one knew any more information beyond ever more gruesome descriptions of what ‘definitely’ happened. She wanted to look it up in the computer library but that sort of topic would not be available for children’s log ins. Besides she wasn’t really sure what to search for, or if she’d be too frightened to read anything she found.

Her mind wondered frequently to the little packet of seeds at the back of her sock drawer.