The Last Refuge
This is a short oneshot I wrote one day. Strange, but I was inspired to write it after reading a Ray Bradbury book. It's completely original, and I hope whoever reads this will like it!
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The cold, stale air seeped into my nose, like a million small snowflakes, cooling me. We had been running for the past hour, trying to make it to the last refuge. There were few of us, very few. We knew we would find more of us there, but our numbers made our spirits weaken. We stood on the last hill of the earth, the only place saved by the few who understood the reason of living. It was completely surrounded by old, deserted factories of TVs and mobile phones. No one needed them anymore. Not after the big breakthrough of the teleportation and vision-watches. Everything, the whole world, was now in the hands of a bitter man. Everything had a part to play. Everything was just pretending.
"So this is it?" Geoffrey's voice rang out through the cold night air. "They chased us the whole evening, almost killing Carmen along the way, for us to reach this place? We have two injured people, the rest too tired to walk and our only refuge is this? I mean, I know we have only this left, but I was hoping for something a little more rewarding. You can't even…"
"Don't tell me you expected something better after all we went through." I didn't mean to be angry. I was just tired of his complaints and frowns. He would always bring the whole team spirit down." You can complain all you want, but keep it somewhere away from me. None of us ever felt good about the situation, but at least were doing what we believe in, living life with hardships and happiness. You joined this group, because you believe in these things. Now stop frowning and help us get Josh and Carmen down."
"Down where? All I can see is an old hill that somehow escaped the death from pollution and some old godforsaken factories that could never have lived up to this time. You told us that this was the place, so where is everybody?" I knew he was just tired and bossy, but he could afford to shut up and keep quiet for a few seconds.
"I told you, I know this place. I had to go around carrying messages and packages from and to this place my whole life, ever since humanity went crazy with the technology frenzy. The entrance is on the other side of the hill. We live under the ground in secret." a very stupid plan, I think. Fighters against technology living under the last natural place of the earth. I'm surprised the P.C.A. hasn't found this place yet, but once again, they are very wrong about what humans like.
We continued around the hill, each step made me feel more like giving up and falling asleep. I could feel the sweat trickling down the back of my neck. I was beginning to lose hope, but I knew I had to continue. Finally, I saw it.
Standing alone on small hump of dirt, withered and old, stood the last tree of the earth. The rest were destroyed by pollution, making us humans invent another machine to supply oxygen. I still remember how hard it had been to breathe with ¾ of the trees dying out. Strange how everything changed so quickly, I was only 10 back then.
With Geoffrey still mumbling behind me, I scraped the dirt from where the tree was planted. The dirt revealed a small metallic switch, about the size of a fingernail. Feeling the same terrible feeling gripping me, I slowly switched it on. Then I lowered my lips to the ground and spoke into the receiver:
"Kitty Bell, reporting with team 10. We are in grave need of medical care. I repeat, we have two injured people in need of medical attention."
It seemed as though my heart froze. There was no answer, no person or guard waiting by the door.
We waited a few seconds and then I tried again:
"Please, we are in great hurry! One of our commanders is injured very seriously!" My voice started pitching higher notes. I can't explain the bewilderment and fear I felt at that moment.
Silence. We held our breaths, listening for the faintest sound. Then we heard it.
A small scrabbling. I could hear it faintly coming out of the receiver. The sound reminded me of a flurry of rats, running around on a marble floor. It was nothing I could recognize.
"What the…"
"Shhh." I could hear it, louder and louder. Like the rumbling of thunder, it was growing. I could now feel it almost like a vibration moving up my spine.
Something was definitely wrong. The sound now seemed to be tearing me apart.
"What's wrong?" Josh's voice, though weak, but very alarmed and trembling sounded from somewhere. "I think we should go. I would rather sleep in one of those factories!"
But I couldn't listen. The sound had transfixed me into place. I wasn't able to move a muscle. Suddenly, my eye caught something. Something that terrified me even more than the sound. For the reason of the sound, was the whole hill and tree moving downwards into the ground. Taking us with them!
I scrambled to the edge of the hole, trying not to imagine what was happening behind me. I heard screams, which my ears failed to block. I slipped for just a moment, but that was enough to see my comrades being pulled down as though the gravity had been magnified by a hundred times.
Somehow the police had found our hide out. Everything was lost, me, my family, friends and now, the world itself. I felt a turf of grass somewhere above me and clung on to it as tightly as my frozen fingers could. It turned out that it was actually quite a strong tree root, which saved my life as I pulled up, panting.
When I stood up, my whole body shaking as though a leaf about to fall off a branch. I felt so stiff, that the whole world might have stopped just before me. I tried looking behind me at the destruction, but could not bring myself to turn. I knew that there was nothing left to save. They were probably crushed already.
As the thought came to me, I had a sudden urge to cry, for my tears to clean my mind of all the evil I had experienced through life, but they would not come. My eyes were too dry. I curled up on the grass, surrounded by shards of glass and small stones which fell from the buildings from the earthquake. I closed my eyes, and my lips parted to release a soft, almost impossible to hear sound. I was singing, the song that my mother used to sing to me when she was alive.
And there I lay singing, until even when I stopped, I could hear the wind whistling it around me. It felt almost like home, undamaged and filled with laughter. I was finally happy.
Two days later, the small body lay curled up on the ground, just as it had lay when it was still breathing. Although you could not see the girl animate, she seemed so alive.
A distant explosion echoed through the field and a huge fireball shot into the sky somewhere behind the ruins. Soon, there were many more around, and the air became impossible to breathe.
If someone would have looked at the small body then, they might have though that something like a smile appeared on the inanimate face of the young woman. The last breath of humanity seemed to be taken in that little piece of the past, as the earth reached its end. The atomic war had started.
Well, what do you think? Please review!