Vera Ze-The Last Ones, a short story… Time for a teenager to save the day…

Vera Ze

The Last Ones

FortunaImage  Press

London 2014

Silence. All I hear, all day, everyday. Apart from my sister: she never stops screaming. Everything has changed since the ‘incident’. What used to be streets thriving with life, are empty. I’ m at my wounded mother’s side to fulfil her every need. It’ s hard to believe but all this pain and destruction happened in only one day. I would do anything to change this awful fate…

You must be wondering by now what brought me to this position. I’ m comfortable with talking about it. It only wiped out the human race including my dad. And no one is even left to tell the tale. Thanks to two rivalling businessmen, arguing over money and land, six nuclear bombs exploded together and murdered every living creature on earth. All but three. Mentally insane, but alive at least. However, what truly shocked us all was the fact that the two men were twins. They went from arguing over toys to girls to inheritance. Their quarrelling began to involve everyone. Their fights are the reason why we are the last ones.

As I drifted asleep on the cold earth, I dreamt an awkward dream.

“Sup, bro.”

“What? ” I replied, confused.

“I’m the time dude, here to make you save the day.”

He was a badly dressed hippy with long, dark hair and sunglasses. All in front of a spiral of blurry colours.

“Dude, you are the only one left to save everyone alive, well… last week.”

“So I can just explain to my family that some weird hippy from my dream told me to travel back in time and fix the past.”

“Hurtful. Moving on, I’ ll leave you some fancy, old people watch so you say ‘bye bye now’ and be in last week. See ya!”

I then woke and found the not so ancient watch beside me. We weren’t likely to survive much longer without food so I decided to depart. I just asked myself:

“Could it really get any worse than this?”

One minute later, I was exactly where I was last week: my bed! It was amazing! Spectacular! Fantastical! But that was nothing compared to what I saw next: Dad! Alive! Mum perfectly healthy and my sister actually sane! I ran to them and hugged and kissed them like never before. They were confused but I didn’t care – I would never let those despicable events ever happen again.

Instead of going to school that day, I went to the library and discovered the locations of the brothers. School was the only thing I didn’t miss.

I visited the laboratory owned by their family only to find the argument that could end all arguments and lives. The two then parted and began to develop their similar deadly weapons.

The next day I, once again, skipped school to find a new solution to my problem: trust. If I worked for the nearest brother, John Davies, to gain his trust and respect, he will consider my ideas and possibly act upon them.

 So, with a completely fake resumé, I applied and succeeded with my challenge to become Mr Davies’ advisor. In this role I was required to follow him around and (obviously) advise him. John was acting fast; he had already completed his weapon and was heading for Africa to plant it. However, Davies was unaware of his brother’ s location and planted two more bombs in South America and Australia. His brother, Jack Davies, was doing a similar procedure on the northern hemisphere.

During my trip to the airport, I read ‘John Davies: the autobiography’. I learned loads about his hate for his brother, fear of his mother and love of himself. This pathetic display of honesty helped me devise a great plan…

 At the airport the two brother’s caught sight of one another with hate in their eyes. I took advantage of this slightly fortunate event and decided to give a very informal, heroic speech:

“Before you all, today you see a strange 16 year old girl standing on a check in desk. Before me I see a pair of idiots who shared their mother’s stomach for nine months. Now they are trying to kill each other! And by trying they could potentially kill everyone alive.

Thank you for listening.”

As I  planned, their little old mother appeared with her walking stick and began to hit her sons. They cried and moaned but they learned their lesson. They were then arrested for attempted murder. I just stood there and smiled!

As for me, when I get back I’ ll be grounded until I’m thirty. But at least I’ll have my parents to ground me, right? Right.

My Comment

The Last Ones is a short story written by a 11 year old London teen. Since Year 1 she and her school mates were encouraged by their teachers to read and comment stories and to write their own ones, as homework.

This story is a sort of trip inside the protagonist’s interests and values: parents, family, trust, school, need for justice and love. What I appreciate most is the narrator’s  love for family and her deep respect for human beings and values.

The protagonist is a brave and clever teenager who knows how to capitalise on reading books. She is able to find some useful clues for her plan in John Davies: The Autobiography, where the author writes about very interesting aspects of his life and personality…

The twins are true and perfect realistic idiots playing the villains.

The twins’ mother is so cute! Her walking stick, a brilliant technical device, on the  idiot twins’  shoulders is great! She’s the only person who can control the two criminals and help the girl save the world. Mothers’power!

The style is informal. Some characters use colloquialisms  as a touch of everyday communication.

The Last ones is really amazing! It’s interesting, ironical, half fantastic-half realistic.

Thank you, Vera. We are looking forward to  reading your next one!