Last One Standing

The sky was a mix of mist and soot. It was dark despite it being 4 in the evening. The streetlights were doing their best to guide the way for the passing vehicles and people. A little girl holding her mother's hand was walking quietly immersed in her cellphone. With a sudden jerk, her mother stopped by a man and asked,' will you take us to KL circle ?:' The little girl looked up from her phone and saw a middle-aged man who stared back at her and gestured at them to get in his taxi. The mother and daughter duo followed. Sitting at the back seat her mother was looking outside the window in an attempt to hide her tears. 'Ma?' asked the little girl, her voice filled with innocence. 'It's alright, focus on your game Adu,' said a grief-stricken Hema to her daughter. The taxi driver kept staring at Hema from his rear-view mirror. 'Can you hurry please?' asked Hema looking distressed. 'Madam, it seems like there is some sort of jam ahead,' said the driver, 'I can also see some smoke. I guess there has been an accident.' Hema tried to peek outside the window. She got startled by a loud thud on the bonnet of the taxi. There was a man, scratches on his face, who was yelling at the peak of his voice,'Run!'

Hema grabbed her girl tightly and asked the driver, 'What is going on?'

The driver looked perplexed and with a sudden movement got out of the taxi. The whole area was jammed with vehicles. He stared hard in the direction from where the smoke was coming. A large drop of water fell on his head and startled him. He looked up and froze in his place. The sky was suddenly lit up with a bright flashing light. The grey of the sky suddenly turned yellow then red. Hema held even tighter on to her little girl and closed her eyes. The last thing they all heard was a loud thump. Everything went black.

Dhara was sitting on a large boulder atop a hillock. She was staring at the vast expanse of waste in front of her. Her nails digging deep into her flesh, an attempt to calm herself. The putrid air was filling her nostrils. She pulled out her scarf and wrapped her face thinking to herself, 'this shall not last too long now.' Dhara sat there for a long time, staring into nothingness. The smell of burning flesh and plastic was unbearable but she told herself to stay put.

'I should be sad but why do I feel a sense of satisfaction seeing them burn?' wondered Dhara.

A tear rolled down her bruised cheeks. The dirt on her face turned the drop of water brown. 'This is not what I had wanted for my children but I have no say in this. They chose to disregard me. They made terrible choices which led to their own destruction. When I faltered, none of them took care of me. These are my soils, my oceans, my forests. Just like every species, Humans belonged to me. But their arrogance made them forget how puny they were in front of the majesty of my existence. I am sorry for my children but this is beyond my control. You choked my oceans, you cut down every last of my trees, your existence threatened all the other species and your arrogance led you to your own death,' Dhara murmured.

The last meteor that hit Earth wiped the remaining of the Humans off of the face of Dhara, mother Earth. Dhara got up from the boulder with the help of her crutches. She stood up with some difficulty and exhaled due to her little feat. She could see the horizon clearer now with the almost non-existent smoke in the air.

'This breaks my heart. I wish things were different. I wish I ended with all too but unlike you, I am made to evolve. I will go on,'Dhara looked at the horizon for one last time and said,'Farewell my children.'