Cockroaches

Cara huddled in the basement, listening anxiously to the sounds of the battle raging nearby. She heard the crack and zing of gunfire.  She heard soldiers shouting in some foreign language, and the roar of planes.
A nearby explosion shook the house.  Cara crouched down even more, as if hiding from the monsters; those planes, those guns and bombs.  She worried about her family.  School was closed today because of energy shortage. There hadn't been enough electricity to run the lights.  Cara’s parents had already left for work, so now Cara was alone.
         There was a hiss and greedy flames crept down the walls.  Cara knew she had to stay calm to conserve oxygen, but she couldn't help it. She screamed, a desperate, primitive scream, frantically searching for a break in the flames that now engulfed the room. Cara’s panicked eyes flashed around the room until they fell on the door. Fire was already beginning to encroach on it, but the door was the only way out. She was likely to be killed by going through that fire, but sure to die if she stayed. In a few minutes this room would be a kiln. Cara took a deep breath and covered her face with her hands. She plunged through the flames.
***
         Alfonso was happily eating his lunch when he heard the shout.
         "Fire! FIRE!"
         Alfonso sniffed and smelled smoke. It wasn’t the pleasant piney smoke of a campfire.  The scent of this smoke was acrid, metallic and very alien. Alfonso scurried down the rough tunnel, all six legs pumping frantically. He turned down a smaller side tunnel and was met with a wall of flames. 
         The fire seemed to taunt him.  Alfonso whirled around knowing that time—and oxygen—were running short.  He couldn’t die like this.  Cockroaches believed that when they died, they became a flower.  But if they died in a fire, they would become a fire, always burning.  Cockroaches feared fire more than anything else.  Alfonso shuddered as he imagined his shell cracking in the heat, innards spilling out onto the cave floor to become one with the flames.  It was too awful to even think about.  So, naturally, he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.
         Alfonso turned down another path, desperate to escape the fire.  He smacked his head on a stalactite, but hardly even noticed the pain.  He needed to get out of this place.  It had been his home, his sanctuary from the humans, but now it was a trap.  Alfonso felt a cool breeze on his antennae and dashed towards its source.  He had made it!
***
         Cara gasped for breath. She rolled on the ground, frantically beating out the flames smoldering in her hair. Only when her initial panic subsided did the true horror of the situation set in.  Only now did she realize how important her house was to her, her personal space and sanctuary. But now it was gone.
         And she was alone.
Thick, oily smoke billowed from the windows and angry flames licked at the walls.  The destruction of her house was the destruction of her past life, her innocence and ignorance before the war.  Cara stood uselessly, frozen with horror.
         Cara began to feel very, very alone.  She went down the street, searching for other people, but the only life she saw was a group of cockroaches. 
It was very depressing.
***
         "Watch out!" Alfonso shouted. "There's a giant human!" The cockroaches scurried into the shadows.
         "What do we do?" one cockroach shrieked.  "All of our homes were bombed out and our food is burning!"
         "Don't worry," Alfonso replied. "The nuclear radiation from the bombs will kill all the humans. Then we can rebuild our homes."
         The cockroaches gasped.  How could he be so callous?  But no one argued.  Cockroach law gave Alfonso ultimate power
***
         He had an important mission.  Highly confidential and vital to the war effort.
The soldier’s plane carried a very advanced nuclear bomb.  It was relatively small, only ten feet long or so, but the new technology made it much more powerful than the bomb of the same size dropped on Hiroshima.  No one knew exactly how powerful the bomb was; it would be too risky to run tests.  This bomb would kill many people from the actual explosion, but also there was the nuclear radiation that would follow.
Many planes just like this one headed out on their mission.
         His radio buzzed.  “It is now 0900. We are 32 minutes from the target.  Prepare the bomb,” the metallic voice crackled.  The radio switched off with a burst of static.
         The soldier put the plane on auto and went into the back to replace the rubber plugs.  Now the bomb would go off in exactly thirty minutes. 
The countdown had already begun.
***
         
         At 9:31 a.m. Cara heard the roar of a plane's engines in the distance. She ducked back into a doorway in case this was an enemy. She didn't know what they would do if they saw…survivors.  She didn’t even want to think about it.  Cara couldn’t be a “survivor”—that would mean that…that her family might not be.  She shook her head, disgusted, trying to get the thought out of her mind.  Everything she heard about survival had said to always keep a Positive Mental Attitude.   
         But it didn’t work.
         After a few moments the sound went away, so Cara thought it was safe to go out again to look for other…no, not other survivors.  Other people.  She stepped outside.
There was a blinding flash of light and a deafening explosion.  The last thing Cara remembered before she blacked out was searing heat—and a mushroom cloud.
***
         "Yes!”  Alfonso cheered.  "All humans will be gone...FOREVER!"
         “Don’t they have as much right to live as we do?”  Luna said quietly.  “Just because they are big, freaky monsters doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings.”
         Alfonso glared, antennae twitching.  “They poisoned my parents!  Saying things like that is treasonous.  Say it again and I will have you put to death!”
         Luna was silent.
***
         Cara was just glad to be alive.  Her arms and legs were covered with burns and her hair was singed. A man kneeled beside her putting bandages on the wounds.
"What happened?”  Cara asked groggily, aching all over.
          "The bomb," he said.  "You blacked out."
         "Do you know anyone else?" Cara asked desperately. "My family…?"
         "I don't know," he replied gently, knowing the pain Cara felt, the anguish of losing everything.  “I hope you will get to see them again.”
         Radiation.  Neither spoke of it, but both knew.  They couldn’t say it, couldn’t even really think about it, but they knew.  Everyone knew.  The bombs had poisoned the air, the water.  A pleasant, warm breeze carried death.
***
         Cara gradually grew weaker and weaker. There was very little food. Cara thought that was the reason, hoped frantically, but always, in the back of her mind, she knew she was breathing poison.  The very thing keeping her alive was, slowly but very surely, killing her.  This could be her last day, her last breath, her last view of the beautiful world.  Even the charred, crumbling buildings seemed beautiful to Cara, with the thought that she might leave it any time.  Still, she had a reasonable life under the circumstances.
Under the circumstances.  Nothing could be normal after this.
         The bomb.  It was painful for Cara to walk down the street where her house used to be.  She remembered everything she had done there, but it seemed so long ago.  Cara had grown years in just days.  Just a few days ago, Cara thought, she was only a child.  The house, like her past life, was now only a burnt and shattered remnant.
         One day, Cara was so sick she could barely stand up.  The world spun, undulating beneath her feet.  The man who had helped her earlier helped her get to one of the hospitals.  Overwhelmed with the sick and injured, the hospital was barely functional.  The doctors and nursed cared for her, but really, there was no hope. Very few medicines were left. More doctors left every day, and some fell sick themselves.  The few remaining doctors labored almost around the clock.
          Cara continued to grow sicker, but she clung to the faint hope that her family would be found.  That thought was really the only thing keeping her alive.  Days went past with no news, and Cara began to lose hope.  Until one day, a nurse came into her room, with the news that her mother was also a patient at the hospital. "I need to see her," Cara croaked.
         Cara's mother looked so horribly frail.  Her face was a sickly grey. "I'm going to miss you," she whispered.
         "What are you talking about? You can’t leave! You’ll live, you have to live!" Cara was frenzied.  She knew her mother was right, but she couldn’t believe it.  Cara’s mother had always been there for her, she would always be there for her.  It was unfathomable that anything could happen.
         Cara’s mother died the next day. Cara heart continued to beat and she still breathed, but she wasn’t really alive.  Her soul was gone.  Cara was a rag doll, a robot.  There was no more life for her, even if she lived.  Cara slept most of the day, sometimes hallucinating.  She cried out, saying she saw her mother, shrieking that the house was on fire.  Cara tossed and turned, boiling with fever, but there was nothing the doctors could do.  There wasn’t even any ice to make her more comfortable. 
There was no electricity to run the freezer.
         Cara was so disturbed that the doctors decided that they should let her die, to finally have peace.  But when they came into her room to check on her, she was smiling.  “It’s all so pretty,” she murmured, gazing around the room with closed eyes.  “Mom…  We’ll live together forever.  I’ll never leave you.” 
Cara sighed, finally content. 
***
         Crops withered and people starved. Many people developed cancer from the radiation, but no one could help them. Soon, there was no one left...
***
         "EXCEPT US!" the cockroaches shouted. "We have survived! THE WORLD IS OURS!" A few million years passed. The cockroaches were happy as the dominant species.
         Gradually, they evolved...
***
         Quartz examined the satellite pictures in her image-viewing cubicle. The satellite images created a 3-D picture so it seemed as though you were really there. Well almost. It wasn't like the high-tech ones that allowed you to hear and smell what was pictured.  Oh well, this was good enough.
         Quartz walked through what appeared to be a...terrorist camp! She hit zoom out. Quartz ‘flew’ into the air and saw that this was just a little camp. No need to worry, just a few soldiers could finish them off.  Quartz decided to keep it in mind, but this was really rather insignificant.  Many cockroaches were rebelling against the government.  There were numerous more important targets to deal with. 
         Quartz switched to x-ray and the ground fell away. Tunnels! The ground under this little camp was a huge maze of tunnels full of soldiers and powerful weapons.
         Two soldiers seemed to be having a conversation of some sort, obviously important by the serious expressions on their faces. Quartz wished that this were one of the cubicles with sound capabilities. One of the soldiers appeared to shout something and the others came closer, as if waiting for instructions.  The soldier, a leader of some sort, drew a diagram which was, unfortunately, not visible from this angle.  He held a picture in his left hand, while pointing at the diagram with his right.  As the soldier lifted the picture to put on the table, it slipped out of his hand.  The picture landed right in front of Quartz.  She was horrified to see that it was a…nuclear bomb!  Quartz gasped, but of course the terrorists didn’t hear her.  The soldier picked up the picture and placed it on the table in place of the diagram.  Now Quartz could clearly see it.  It was a disarrayed knot of arrows and circles, but the meaning was clear.  Everything pointed toward the spot marked KIA. Quartz had seen enough.
         She slammed the off button on the image viewer. Quartz leapt out, antennae quivering. “A terrorist base had been spotted! They are preparing bombs to attack our headquarters!" she shouted into the microphone. Every soldier had a computer chip implant that sent messages directly to their brains, so there was no chance of the enemy overhearing important messages. "Prepare the planes. We're going to invade their base."
         As the leader of Kingroach Intelligence Agency (kia), Quartz knew that the mission was ultimately her responsibility. Quartz climbed into the plane. This one was the big secret, the one that only Quartz and a few trusted others knew about.
This plane held a very advanced nuclear bomb.  It was relatively small, only about ten feet long or so, but new technology made it much more powerful than others that were even larger.  No one knew exactly how powerful the bomb was; it would be too risky to run tests. This bomb would kill many people from the actual explosion, but also there was the nuclear radiation that would follow.
         Quartz took off and flew to her target. It only took a few minutes in the super-sonic plane. The camp was in her sights. Quartz pushed the button. 5...4...3...2...1...
***
         The camp and surrounding area erupted in light and heat.  Quartz’s plane was tumbled around from the force of the explosion.  Nothing seemed real anymore, just a jumbled confusion of sound.  Everything was ablaze, so bright she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t think anything, just tumble in the plane, waiting for it to end.  More explosions.  They seemed to crack Quartz’s exoskeleton in half.  All the bombs hidden away in the tunnels were going off now.  Clouds of dust and dirt were thrust into the air, clouds of darkness broken by more blinding flashes.  The plane broke apart, screeching and tearing, rent by the sheer power of this fiend that Quartz herself had unleashed.  Quartz was slammed to the ground, smashing apart with a sound very much like a cockroach being crushed under someone’s shoe.




Word Count: 2387