A Collection of Short Stories

The Last Rose

A/N: This was actually the short story that won me a prize in my local short story competition. Forgive me if it's a bit crazy - I originally wrote this, at like, 10pm and I was really tired, but I really wanted to enter my story as entries would close that night -_-

"Attention everyone. Everyone is to evacuate to the hovercrafts above ground. This isn't a drill. " The silence in the bunker only lasts seconds, before everyone realised what the voice had said over the loudspeakers, and the room erupts into chaos. People screaming, loud explosions above ground and everyone scrambling to get out. My father tries to find me in the chaos, but with the crowd of people, we can't reach each other.
"Go, Kat! I'll find you afterwards!" he shouts. With my mind on autopilot, I obey him. I get carried by the crowd, and soon enough, I'm above ground.
There is debris everywhere. Smoke and ash blinds us all. Not too far away, I hear a loud boom! and screams. About a hundred metres away, I spot the hovercrafts awaiting to save us. I try to sprint there, but the crowd of panicked people is too thick. In my peripheral vision, I see someone trip over. He looks familiar. It's my father.
"Kat! Katherine!" he screams.
"Dad!" I scream, desperately trying to make my way towards him. I almost reach him, but the stampede of people stops me, leading me away from him.
"Dad!" I shout again. But he's now disappeared from my sight. With no other choice, I let the crowd push me along. But as I near the hovercraft, I catch a glimpse of him again.
He's still in the same place, but now, his body is motionless. My eyes widen and I freeze, but once again the crowd pushes me along. It feels like time has stopped. I think there has been another explosion; everyone is scrambling to get to the hovercrafts even faster. My father's body disappears from my sight again, and I choke back a sob. Finally,
I make it to a hovercraft. Just in time too, as the steel doors clang together, closing up the chamber.
"Attention everyone. Please take a seat, so we can begin liftoff. Thank you," booms a voice. I comply and take a seat in the corner next to a girl who looks around my age. When the hovercraft lifts up, the gravity of my situation hits me at once and tears start flowing down my face.
"Are you alright?" asks the girl next to me. My cheeks flush and I hastily wipe my tears.
"I'm fine," I mumble.
"It's okay to cry, y'know? Our home planet is being blown to smithereens right this moment," she states matter-of-factly. Another tear dribbles down my face as I stare at her.
"Oops, sorry," she mumbles.
"It's alright... I just didn't really realise that."
"Really? Then why are you crying?"
"I-uh- I kinda just saw my father get trampled and left behind..." I whisper. The girl's eyes widen.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realise."
"Don't worry," I mumble, averting my eyes to stare at the corner. After a few moments of silence, though it's filled with the hushed whispers of other people, she blurts out,
"I'm Kiko, and I'm twelve, but I turn thirteen in a week." I turn back to her.
"That's nice, " Kiko looks to me expectantly, and I sigh, "I'm Kat. Thirteen."
"We're practically the same age! Is Kat short for something?" She chirps. For a girl who was talking about the end of the planet just a few moments ago, she has become really  quite cheerful.
"Yeah, my full name is Katherine." For the first time, I realise she doesn't have any adults with her either.
"Where are your parents, Kiko?" I ask.
"They died when I was little. I grew up in an orphanage. "
"Oh... Do you ever miss them?" Kiko cocks her head to the side.
"No, I don't suppose I do. Kinda hard to when you never knew them," she answers sadly.
"I suppose that's right," I reply.
"I do wish I got to know them, though," Kiko continues, "At least I would have had something to hold onto,"
"Yeah..."
"Your father might not be dead, you know."
"Fat chance. You saw the bombs! He's dead," I snap. But when Kiko's face falls, I instantly feel guilty.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, it's just-"
"Don't worry. I feel like that sometimes too. I just... I just hate the WSPP so much. If those stupid lunatics never had the idea... Well, we'd still have a family, " Kiko admits. WSPP. The association that everyone who's still sane hates. They call themselves, or rather, their intentions, the World Sun Prevention Plan. Their goal? To wipe out the Earth quickly as they can before the sun does. Most of us call it the World Suicide Plan. I suppose they succeeded, because they just bombed the whole planet. They've been around since I was three. I still remember the first time they bombed my town. But soon after that they realised that we weren't getting killed fast enough, so after gaining many members, planned a mass bombing. Bombs in every habitable place on Earth, there was. Luckily there was a back-up plan, from the government. To send us all to Mars. Half of us are dead though. I'm about to reply to Kiko, but a voice booms over the intercoms, cutting me off.
"Attention everyone. We've now arrived on Mars. Please wait patiently while our team helps organise everyone."
After that, everything seems to happen in a blur. We wait for a while, until we're let off and herded into groups. Full families, people with no one, adults, children, so on. I go to the people with no family section. Specifically, children. I stand with Kiko, until we get taken to a building and are separated from the boys. We get taken to a room with clothes laid down on the beds.
"Get changed!" Barks the lady. We all obey, but when I take off my jacket, I feel a small remote in it and take it out.
"Oh, cool! I always wished I had one of those," exclaims Kiko, looking over my shoulder. It's my bot camera, the craze of 9394. It's a small robot which comes with a camera so you can monitor what it is seeing through its eyes. I had started using it to see what was going on above the bunkers and had completely forgotten it was in my pocket.
"Well, now we can see Earth," I comment. From the camera, all you can see is ash, debris and corpses. But I don't want to look at it, so place it in my pocket. We later learn that we've been taken to an orphanage. orphanage. After we eat, we are to go straight to bed. Every girl is silent. The next day, we are taken to school. Nobody talks at school, much unlike back home. Everyone's still in shock. And everyday repeats as the same. We eat, got to school, eat, sleep. Slowly, we become more talkative, but the only thing we have in common, us girls, is that we're orphans. On the weekends, we clean outside. Not much to do. Kiko even said the orphanage back home was better than this hell.
But we get used to it. Two years pass. The hate for WSPP never dims. Then one afternoon, Kiko and me are told,
"Come. You two are getting adopted." I look to my friend in disbelief, but she just shrugs. It wasn't a lie. We are going to be taken to a home, just like every pair before us. While we're packing, I find a small remote and a sense of deja vü washes over me.
"Hey, isn't that the robot thingy?" Asks Kiko.
"Yeah..." I turn it over and see the view of Earth. It's still barren and empty, but now,
there's a budding rose right in front of the camera.
"Is that...?"
"Yup." We look at it in disbelief, before I slip it into my pocket, and we leave. Over the next few months, we monitor it. Until one day, we find the rose has wilted.
"There wasn't any chance of going back anyways."
More years pass. We are now adults, and leave our foster home to find jobs. Yet again, I forget about the camera. Until one day, Kiko asks me,
"Remember the robot camera? We should check it again." And we do.
"No way," I breathe. There's a whole forest, thriving. Birds and bugs, even rabbits surround my little robot. And right in front, stands proud a red rose. After much discussion, we decide that we should notify the council, which essentially the government.
"Miss Faintree, Miss Tanaka, we understand your desire to go back. But unfortunately, we have limited resources, and cannot afford to go back down. No, we won't invest in this cause."
"But-"
"Our decision is final. Thank you. You're dismissed." I sigh, but we leave. It's disappointing, to say the least. But we've been disappointed before. Like how we never got the childhood our parents got, because of WSPP. Like how we could have still had our families. How we thought Mars would be like Earth. But it's just how things are. Yes, the last rose bloomed into a whole ecosystem. But we can't go back. But I do hope, one day, someone will be able to go back, to have life on Earth again just like before, the life Kiko and I and so many others never got to enjoy. But for now, we will just have to be happy with what we still have. Especially after losing so much.
Because we just have to be happy with what we have, that we're still here.