Tryfield_ The last Tree / the Signal

The Signal of Aeons
"It was the year after the great moons vanished behind the sun. It was the era in which the Earth-facing galaxies had expanded so far that they merged with the distant Milky Ways of the universe.

On that day, it came to pass that a civilization crossed the threshold to Earth—a people whose entire existence had withdrawn from all human comprehension aeons ago. They knew neither the light that once surrounded the Earth, nor the air that had once enveloped it. The only existence they defined was perceived solely through their own being; our physical reality was nothing more than a small, foreign, unreadable murmur in the middle of nowhere—in the vastness of the void.

They had followed a call; a signal that this silent satellite had sent incessantly into the emptiness for hundreds of years.

In their alien mind, there was no concept of debris or ruins. The history of humanity, its wars, and its cathedrals were a book that remained forever beyond their reach. To them, the shattered domes and skeletons of steel were merely the natural, lifeless foundation of this world.

Thus, they came upon the transmitter of this signal. Knowing no other form of life but their own, they took this deep-rooted being for the undisputed ruler of the planet—and salvaged its final memories of a long-forgotten civilization."

Afterword
Story by Tryfield

"This work is an exploration of the silence that remains when the noise of civilization fades. It is a vision of a world where our greatest achievements are perceived as mere geological accidents, while life—in its simplest form—claims the final word."