THE END

When I opened my eyes, I could see what was in front of me with difficulty. Everything looked blurred and translucent. My head was also giving me nauseating effect as if I was having a hangover. It took me some time to get back to my senses and it was then I figured out that the blurred vision was due to all the smog and not because I was losing my eyesight as I thought previously. I looked around and found the place to be totally unknown to me.

 It was a shed house, like a place of hiding with lots of injured and grieving voices. People with scratches on their body, people with lost limbs, drenched in blood, lying on their beloved’s arms. Their beloveds, shedding unending tears, incapable of doing anything. Helpless, for the medical facility was no longer at their service, watched family and friends dying in their arms. They themselves were in no condition for mobility. Badly injured as if the survivors of war. Their faces spoke a volume of intense fear and guilt, repenting for their sins, looking for salvation. They no more showed any sign of hope. Waiting for their end to grab their hands and drag them to any place but this.

The room was covered in smog as if it was an effect of intense pollution and I could hardly breathe in the air. The air quality was very much poor and oxygen level had gone down. The room was covered with a myriad of plastic waste producing an obnoxious smell. Traces of oil spills and gunpowder here and there, pungent smelling acid waste filled the room, unsuitable for human survival.

At some distance, although with some difficulty, I could see some familiar faces. These were the faces of my friends, what I thought. To confirm that I got up to get closer to them, only to be shocked by their appearance. They were all in rags and had their pollution masks on. There were guns in their hands as if they were up to some fight, maybe more like a war or rebellion against one. I shifted my gaze towards a nearby half-broken glass window pane, that hardly reflected my image, only to realize that I was too in the same tattered and equipped appearance. I was loaded with grenades, a gun hanging by its belt around my shoulder and a pollution mask hanging around my neck.

One of my friends spotted me standing there amazed and shocked with trembling weak feet and rushed towards me. “Are you alright? How are you feeling now?” he asked with concern. “I don’t know, my head hurts. Where the hell are we and what is this place all about? Why are we dressed like this and….” My friend stopped me instantly and said. “Calm down and keep your voice low for good. What we feared has happened.” He called our other friends and they all gathered around me with few of them standing guard as if they were waiting for some invasion.

They talked something among themselves in a sign and another of my friend approached me. “Do you remember anything?” he asked me with curiosity. “What do you mean by anything? First tell me what is this all about and why does my head hurt so much?” I interrogated with irritation. He told me to calm down and asked me which year was it. With confidence and confusion, I replied “It is 2018. Why do you ask me about it?” I saw his face turn into disappointment and so did the others. He told me it was the year 2035 and waited for my response. I looked at his face with dismay and disbelief. He understood that I don’t believe him and thus asked me to drink some water and listen to him carefully.

Before he could tell me anything, we heard the sound of footsteps coming towards us. The sound could be heard coming from all direction as if they were surrounding the shed-house. The cries of injured people began to be heard louder and got scarier. People were scared as if death has finally come to do them apart from the ones they loved. My friend lifted me by my arm and accompanied hastily towards the gate. I could see the fear in their eyes too. Their face turning pale and reason getting blurred they somehow wanted to get out of the room. I heard other people in the room who were able to walk or run, behind us as if they were trying to escape too. With great difficulty and effort, we managed to reach the gate only to find out few guarded men aiming their guns at us. We were completely surrounded by armed men and there was no possibility of escape.

I saw the world outside the room to be exactly its bigger version. Humongous dumps of plastic and nuclear waste, rotten bodies of people lying here and there the air covered with smog and the sound of dropping bombs at distance. The armed men pointed their gun at us in a gesture of arresting us for any rebellion we might be up to against them. My friends began surrendering their weapons and put their hands behind their head. I followed them and joined the group with other people who were behind us trying to escape too.

Apparently, we were being accompanied somewhere for our fates to be decided by the powers controlling the armed forces. We followed their lead and began walking with them. Not far had we traveled that I heard a sound of extreme intensity that came with eye-hurting light. When the light dimmed enough to be able to see, I saw a huge cloud of smoke taking the shape of a mushroom which reminded me of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I woke up drenched with my own sweat in my bed with my heart beating fast with fear and concern and saw my television switched on to a news channel flashing the headlines, ’The Earth is dying with rising heat’.