REDEMPTION TRAIL

Throughout recorded history, psychics and seers have foretold countless prophecies of how the human race would supposedly meet its ultimate demise. Those who believed that they had this gift of foresight eagerly painted pictures of death and destruction, doom and despair. Some claimed that the end would come with great world wars, others cited ecological disaster, disease, or overpopulation. Each of these `gifted' prophets proudly clung to their predictions as each of their deadlines came and went without notice.
In the twentieth century, prophets claimed that nuclear holocaust would bring the fall of humankind. In the twenty-first century, AIDS was the disaster of choice for most doomsday proponents. In the twenty-second century, it was World War Three; in the twenty-third century, it was overpopulation. As long as the human race survived, there were those who avidly predicted its end.
So much for the visions of prophets: The nuclear holocaust was averted by a new world order, which eventually molded the United Nations into a single, world-governing body. The baffling mysteries of the AIDS virus was unlocked by medical science and the disease fell into extinction. World War Three claimed one billion lives, one-tenth of the world populationyet the human race survived and prospered.
In the late twenty-third century, the population swelled to fifteen billion and pushed Mother Earth to the very edge of collapse. But that too was averted; science discovered a way to break the time barrier and distant journeys to nearby stars could be accomplished in a matter of days, rather than centuries. Pilgrims from the crowded Earth ventured out to new frontiers, and the over-burdened planet gradually recovered from the pressures of overpopulation.
Despite these set-backs, prophets continued to diligently foretell of times when the human race would fall into extinction. They had plenty of crisis to point fingers at, though they consistently underestimated the strength of the human spirit. The human race was no stranger to suffering and painand no stranger to the process of rebuilding.
World War Four came and went, yet humankind persevered and the population continued to grow as the frontier expanded. Then came the war to end all warsWorld War Five. Six and a half billion people lost their lives, yet twenty-four billion survived to carry out the enduring human legacy.
In the wake of World War Five, the prophets finally gave in and archived their art of foretelling the end of the world. It was apparent that the human race was here to stay; nothing could possibly wipe out twenty-four billion people spread out over five thriving planets. The success of the human race, however, was not without consequence; it meant the death of a proud and ancient traditionit was the end of the doomsday prophet.