The Watcher

A Flash Fiction Story

Jul 12, 2026

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This story was written in response to a photo prompt by Labyrinthia Mythweaver of a watchtower with a giant eye on the bottom of it.

After the nukes fell, she couldn’t trust them anymore. She’d never nurtured a species that had caused such devastating destruction before. So many of her children had perished. The birds and the bees, most of the larger things that crawled, and even some of the sea life was affected by the radiation, although the water helped shield them from the worst of it.

And then there were humans.

Somehow, with their intelligence, they outsmarted their own self inflicted extinction.

They sheltered beneath the Earth for years and years, she thought they’d all died off at one point.

But then one appeared, and another. They resurrected themselves from icy plains of Greenland of all places.

They sailed across the oceans once more, like they had in their youth when she was still delighted in their intelligent curiosity.

As soon as she saw them she was filled with a miserable dread.

She watched them spread across the globe again, spied on them from forgotten and abandoned aspects of their own industry; water towers, decrepit skyscrapers, anywhere high enough for a view.

The eternal blanket of clouds that maintained a morose darkness upon her face ensured that despite her presence above, the humans rarely looked up these days.

Sadness reigned her thoughts for years as she anticipated their return to technology and their self-destructive instincts.

But something was different in the humans. They worked together more cohesively, there was less violence in their interactions.

Despite the ever clouded sky, the challenges of survival seemed to unite the species once again and reminded her of when they’d been young.

When they had needed each other just to live.

As she silently watched she couldn’t help but hope that this time, with a more desolate planet that was less forgiving to self-righteous independence, this time might be different.

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