Shimmering embers were falling on the ground like it was raining gold. The beauty of this sight was lost upon the 1000 humans watching it with weary eyes in the safety of a cave.
"Worse?" A young voice croaked.
His mother whipped a finger to her mouth and shook her head.
"Hello? Anyone here, please someone be here." Everyone looked at the entrance and at each other. The oldest one of them got up and went. He saw a young lady with dry patchy skin wearing a dress of broken heat resistant cookware.
Her eyes went round as she entered, and a smile spread across her face, even though her dry lips bled.
"Is there water here?" She asked.
The elder showed a tiny spring in the middle of the cave.
"Do you all not speak or move."
The elder handed her a piece of slate where words had been scrawled with limestone.
Speak
Move
Drink
as little as possible
Conserve water
It is estimated that the asteroid that is looming on earth, causing breaks in our atmosphere, and drying up water bodies will pass through someday. If we are lucky, we might survive it.
The girl hung her head, it had been 385 days, everyone she knew or cared about was long gone. At some point when she'd been unable to find underground roots for water, she'd hallucinated that she was the only human left on earth.
Her botany degree which others had laughed at had become useful. She laid down her bag and showed them the roots she'd collected.
Looking at their puzzled faces, she picked a nearby stone and started crushing it to extract water. There were hushed exclamations as the elders nodded at her.
Her arrival led to a new hope as people started taking turns to look for progress. Inch by inch they felt the asteroid moving till only a small portion of it remained. But there was no water in the cracked earth outside. They never walked far from the base for fear of getting lost.
People started dying again and only the last 198 remained.
With dimming eyes, they would go to sleep wondering if they will see tomorrow.
When the last of them remained in the sea of dead bodies, he wondered if anyone in another part of the world was alive.
Somewhere miles to the east.
"Hey, did you hear about those inlanders in Europe who died?"
"What? from the place where we'd lost contact?"
"Yeah, apparently it was a weapon that was made to look like an asteroid and was deployed by Prussia. They literally dried them out."
"Tsk tsk."