Extinct - Flash Fiction ( #AtoZChallenge )

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Extinct

by Jessica Marcarelli

The winds of the future blow through the scattered remains of yesteryear.

Gray wastelands cough up the bones of dead cities beneath a sky no longer blue. Trees bend stark black branches where birds sang beneath the blossoms of spring. Where once were golden fields pregnant with the sweetness of a ripe harvest, now there are only swirls of putrid ashes. The parched earth cries out for water that will never fall.

What fauna remains is twisted, vicious, and always ravenous. The hovels of the survivors huddle in the shadow of dark caves and ruined canyons. Bands of the insane feast on their own humanity.

Our desolate present is the direct result of our own hubris. Our meddling in the facts of life we thought we knew brought us to our knees. Not as a society, not as nation, but as a world. A race.

We destroyed ourselves, man versus man.

The next generation does not yet know this. A sparse handful of young faces, found amidst the hovels, hidden away in the recesses of ancient fortresses, protected against the cruel whims of this broken world.

But we will teach them.We will show them what came before. In these young minds lies our world’s only hope of salvation. We are no more but they…they may yet live.

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This is a post for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, one post (and letter) for each day in April. I hope to see you tomorrow for the letter F!