[WP] In 2015, with a pop. of 8b, food is scarce in Eden. Starving, you eat the forbidden fruit.

Madness. Everywhere madness. Our great family, our tribe, had long since turned on each other. Once the most beautiful place in all of creation is now a horrid landscape. The ground a tapestry of bodies writhing in blood. My children, their children, and on and on for eons. Most had given up and simply fallen, never to rise again. Their minds destroyed after realizing what this place is.

No one could understand why He did this. We did everything He asked and this... nightmare, is what we received in turn. Our one rule, the one we stuck to for all these generations was that no one, No One, NO ONE!!! could eat from the forbidden tree. Eve was first to try.

She was my gift from Him. She was my partner, my only companion, created just for me... and I broke her. For HIM. She couldn't take this place anymore. She remembered it like I did, remembered paradise. We had done what He asked, lived simply, obeyed his rules. We made a family, and that family grew. And grew. And grew... It never stopped. Never moving on. Always here.

And here I sit, under the tree. Eve is next to me, silent since my betrayal. She was right all along and she knew it. When she had reached for the fruit the first time, in front of all, I broke her neck. I thought she had fallen to madness, wanting to end the world, wanting to destroy everyone and everything... I was so wrong.

She stares at me from the ground. Her head the only uneaten remains of her, sits upon mounds of flesh. Everywhere is red, except for this tree... and her eyes. For the first time since the beginning, not filled with hate. She knows why I'm here.

In my hand I hold the fruit and stare at the setting sun. The last one of Eden, so different from the first. I reach down and brush her hair, an unspoken apology between immortals, the only one I can manage without succumbing to the guilt and pain I wrought on us both. You were right, Eve... Love. I am the betrayer, the serpent, the stubborn hold out... for Him. All to follow his rules.

I don't know what will happen, but this world has to stop. This sick betrayal has to stop. For us, life must have an ending. Goodbye, love. Finally, goodbye.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread