Short Stories

The Warmest Summer Ever On Earth

The dust fell from the sky as droplets of water transpired from all the vegetation.  All the trees were either set aflame and burnt down or dried up and shrivelled.  The marshes and swamps disappeared as their water slowly vanished into the soil and steam rose. Fish and amphibians scrambled to reach the water soaking up into the earth's surface. 

The creatures that didn't make it had died and burnt from the sun's increasing proximity and heat. Those who touched the water before it seeped into the soil were scorched from it's boiling heat and killed.  Animals roaming the forests fled from the shade of their trees as fires devoured the vast forest and wildlife. 

  Deer raced to the lakes and flailed their heads frantically to cease the fires starting to  burn their antlers.  The fur on all the animals slowly fell out as they tried to scratch it off to avoid being cooked from the inside.  The water and other fluids inside their bodies bubbled and boiled before transpiring out of their skin and drying up while the animals slowly died.  Their brains turned to mush and melted in the intense heat. 

It happened sooner than anyone has anticipated. Most humans had died back 4,000 years earlier when political power was overthrown and countries struggled. However back then, there was a cool breeze. The winter was still a nuisance and the seas still stretched far and wide, heavily unexplored.

  The small groups of human civilizations that remained had begun to dig into the earth more than a generation before now when the heat became too much. They hid under the soil in a cold cocoon. If you were to look out at the abandoned camps and forts they made you'd see a large number have resurfaced along with the earthworms and moles to escape the bubbling magma that heated the earth's core.

  Children cried, but no tears escaped. Men and women lined them up and said their goodbyes and ended their lives with a few quick jabs in the head with a spear. Then the leaders would kill the men and women who lay by the bodies of their family. They begged for the process to hurry as their sweat covered bodies began to go into heatstroke.

   Finally the leaders stalked the lands for as long as possible to end the suffering of every creature they could find. One leader, named Ontari, crossed paths with a neighboring tribe leader who she hasn't seen in decades.
"Is that you, Dante?" She managed.

  The poor man wore nothing and struggled to hold a sheet of linen over his head to block out the sun. In his right hand he clutched a broken piece of wood with a sharp edge and blood on the end. He looked at Ontari with unfocused eyes, barely understanding what she has asked, only that she had said his name.

"Yes? Hello?" He responded.

"Dante, it's Ontari." She ran to him despite the scorching heat of the ground on her bare feet. Her body was naked and so badly burnt without any protection and the lack of melanin from living under the earth for so long.

"Ontari.....?" He sputtered before collapsing under what was once a cave shrouded in forest.

"I haven't felt shade since we were forced up from the ground." Ontari commented as she painfully sat next him.

"You too, huh? Where's your people?" He asked, finally grasping the situation.

"Dead, I had to do it." She said, deadpanned and lifeless. Eyes closed to avoid blindness from the sun.

"I know... Me too."

"Is it just us?" Ontari asked him.

"Yeah, I think so." He answered.

"Will you help me...?" She turned to him, eyes on the wooden dagger he had left by his side.

"I was going to ask the same...." He tried to say without coughing.

"Here," she said taking the dagger. She broke off the other end with a massive struggle. "We can help each other."

She placed the dagger between the two of them. They were face to face, the closest they've ever been. "This is the end, are you sure about it?" She didn't need to ask, the answer was yes. There was no way Dante or Ontari could live any longer, so why not end the misery now.

"Heh..." Dante laughed as stared into her eyes.

"What is it?" She asked, nervous to push their bodies together and plunge themselves into death.

"This is the warmest summer yet..." He smiled, pushing further on the dagger. Their stomachs were both drawing blood at this point.

Onatri smiled back at him before leaning forward to embrace him. He gasped when the dagger pierced through them and he became faint once more.

She kept her arms around his neck and placed his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. They let the pain become all they could feel and let each other's presence become all the comfort they had.

"It's winter." Ontari said before they finally fell to the ground, blood spilling out as she fell slightly backwards. The dagger left her body and allowed her to bleed out quickly. She reached for him and pulled the dagger out. "Merry Christmas."