A bouquet of colourful short stories

100 squared kilometres

Genre: sci-fi

The only 100 square kilometres.

I live in the only 100 square kilometres on earth that is habitable.

Beyond 100 square kilometres is pure waste and remnants of war.

My great grandmother experienced the war. They called it 'The War on Waste". Apparently she called it, "a waste of time"

Where we live is not perfect, we can't eat much meat to conserve the little animals that are left other than us.

W...

"Stop writing in your stupid journal there's a meeting." My sister says with slight desperation

I run out of our shelter made of bricks and hardened mud. Ours is pretty decent due to my fathers leadership ranking.

I weave through our cluster of  houses which me, my sisters and brother used to play around when we were little. I eventually arrive at the triple story blue coloured mud structure we call our town hall.

I see Jacob our current town leader step up to the podium made of metal scraps and exclaim in his deep voice, "As you know a group of 14 went to gather information about The End in hope we can expand our walls due to our current goal of rapid population growth being a success..."

My eyes drift away from Jacob and float to his nephew Quincy, his expression says it all, not the best news. His eyes catch and lock on mine, my heart skips and I'm breathless not out of love but the power he holds over me. I focus back on the announcement.

"... radiation levels are going down at expected levels. But due to a collapse in a structure our west walls need to retreat..."

West is our water source

"...in general the waste accumulation seems to be closer to our walls than our last check and most walls have to be retreated as well."

Waste cannot be reused unless checked and sterilised. If it wasn't radiation, disease from the waste killed off all other human life than us. We don't know what diseases lie in the garbage so better safe than sorry.

The rest of the announcement is usual, recent births and recent deaths. A moment of silence for those who lost their lives to make our community possible then we go on with life.

As we disperse I bump into Quincy. Thinking nothing of it I carry on and hope he didn't notice until I feel him grab my shoulder.

He looks concerned, " Veronica I know I shouldn't tell you this, or anyone in fact but the waste isn't moving slightly forward. It has been for the past few time we've checked it. My uncle has lied up until now it progressed 10 metres in the last few months."

I frown, "Why would you tell me this?"

"You keep that journal right? Take down the following two weeks in detail. We are no longer at one hundred square kilometres. We've been sitting on about 81 since the beginning of the year. I think this is huge. Bigger than us. We're going to be the last generation of humans and possibly life before another mass extinction."

I notice that there's dark circles under his eyes now that I look at them directly. He's more than anxious but not yet at a panic. What he just said has been trying to crawl out for a while but even though he's said it, he doesn't look relieved.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath,he looks like he's about to faint, "Good thing we called the border of our 81 square kilometres The End because it might truly will be for us."