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The sky was a clear blue, cleansed after the centuries of smog, gas clouds, acid rain and debris. The pure smell of pine and nature embraced it. A whiff of summer flowers and the elated songs of a charm of goldfinches came with the slight breeze. It was a characteristic the world had long forgotten about. The people had been blamed for that. How long had it been? How had it begun?
The summerï'½s flowers, whose scent was stolen by the wind, stood tall and proud, their yellow, pollen-covered faces pointed up to the warm sun. Their vivid colours sang out to the earth, letting it know they had survived. These delicate symbols of freedom and youth, which had been so cherished by the very thing that threatened to destroy them, had outlasted the raw inhumanity of men.

The large clumps of trees, their youthful greenness beginning to fade as they neared adulthood, were taller than anything else visible, barring the large precipices scarring the land. The canopy of the trees offered shelter for the creature woods creatures to rent, asking for nothing in return except equilibrium. They had all asked one another at some time, their branches reaching towards the sky and each other, clasping their sturdy branches in a collective prayer. No, not even the oldest tree on the earth could remember. It had long begun even before Him.

The trees roots reached deep into the ground, burrowing into the damp, cool soil. Past beetles, earth worms and moles. Searching for food. They stretched down and around rock and hard lumps of clay soil and came across a clear pool of water supplied by the mountains. The unconquerable effervescence of the waterfall gave the earth a sight of hope. Their clear, lively water, meandering down to join its brethren in the sea was a sight of wonder for the earth. Its smell of nothing was a welcome change to the usual stench of poison. That the very thing that sustained life had survived held faith for the world.

The water had come down from the heavens, trickling down the mountains and joining with others to form larger pools. The sky was barely visible as the giant mountain tore through the horizon and towered upwards to the sky. The top was shrouded in a pillow of clouds. They cushioned it from the harsher climate up there. The deep indentations in the mountain were battle wounds from when the rockets flew. Many had missed the targets and hit the old mountain instead, chipping large chunks out of it. These scars now were homes to convocations of eagles. Many of them fled from far off lands when the fighting had broken out.

Where some had fled, others hadnâ''t had the chance. Many brothers and sisters had died off and been forgotten. Large animals had been totally wiped out. Too slow to run from the destruction they had been caught in the middle of. Elephants some of them had been known as. Yes, was that what they were known as? It had been so long since any had been seen or heard of that the very memory of them was all but gone. Small stories passed on through-out the ages were all that remained of many of the animals. Members of the cat family, ancestors of the dog and much aquatic life had died too. Most water was too corrupted by toxins from the bombs to drink. Vegetation near the ocean had all died off quickly with no pure water to feed from. Only the plants furthest from the sea had flourished and survived, leaving the land barren except for the small pockets of life near the mountains. The only things that remained in the desert were the things belonging to men.
Their once proud, reinforced buildings had trampled the wildlife. They had laid concrete over the land, savagely destroying the homes of the animals. They had cut the trees, ripped up undergrowth and puffed out vast skyfuls of ominous black clouds. They had torn down the earth as they had known it. They had replaced the sky with tower blocks of stone and shining metal, blocking out the air and the sun. They had killed the wildlife that had been there before them, the wildlife that they had once lived in harmony with.

However, there was one building the men had not destroyed. The roof had rotted and crumbled long ago, leaving broken bricks and shattered glass. An empty shell of what it had once been. Before the war, before the death and chaos, this building had been used to talk to the angels, to ask for good health and good fortune. But now there was no one left to pray in it. The ivy that had once been pulled and torn out of the ground at the base of the church now clawed its way up. Sprouting mandibles into every crack and crevice it could fit into. Slowly caressing away the loose bits of rubble from between the bricks, overpowering the cold brick and mortar the humans had put down to suppress and conquer it. These buildings were rare to find in the land. Most had been destroyed in the fighting. Most common was to find the piles of rocks. Some heaped to form a cross and others just piled to mark the spot. All the animals knew what they were; the knowledge had been passed down the generations. The men had buried their dead in rows and rows, stretching back into the horizon. It had been in vain though. They would all die soon.

As far as the creatures knew they were all that was left. Only they remained in their small pocket in the world. They were living in blissful harmony without the ever present fear of man.
It was strange. Looking from above, high up in the sky, above the feathery clouds and freezing atmosphere, staring down on the world, did it always look the way it does now? It was a sphere of deep blue spinning in the middle of darkness, large chunks of it now hollow with deep dents tunnelling deeper into the world. Little land remained now. The north and south where once large pillars of ice dominated the landscape were no longer there and nothing but noxious water covered the world. How long ago had this all happened? Why did it happen? This was not their world to destroy. The very earth itself trembled with rage at what it had been reduced to. Had the humans survived it would have sprouted up mountains of volcanoes, laying siege to their towns and cities, burying them in its molten rock for the rest of time. Capturing and holding them in its revenge. It would have sent rainstorms of piranha-infested waters onto their lands, engulfing them and holding them under as they struggled against the Earthâ''s current. It would call Zeus from the sky to reign down an onslaught of thunder upon their homes and villages, lighting them ablaze with its fury, burning them to the ground and blowing away their ashes in dismissal as they lay to rest with the ceasing of the wind, dissolving back into the earth and helping heal that which it had destroyed. It would have called Hades up from the fiery pits of its belly to raise the hell fire and swallow them up, leaving them to plummet downwards in a tunnel of darkness before they staked themselves on the gates of hell.
But they had not survived, and the world would not take its justice out on the animals now living. There had already been enough destruction and death. So the world settled to heal itself and care for its creatures.
A pitying of newborn doves soared across the skies in a cloud of white ruffles, as though mankind had released them as a sign of surrender and peace. A last grasp at forgiveness as the earth turned its back and left them, once again, alone.