The Last Survivor

By Kashish

His new life begans as he hammered against the white enclosure surrounding him for as long as he could remember, which wasn't a very lengthy period. Or was it? He didn’t know. But he knew he was longing to see what was outside this white iron wall obstructing him from the world beyond. He knew there was something out there. Something much more wondrous than the plain shell around him. 

It was hard work. His muscles were still fresh and weak, and he was tiring out. But he heard the familiar squeaky chirp of something beyond the wall. He had been hearing that same call ever since his ears and brain had started functioning. It called out to him, and he wanted nothing more than to be close to its warm, encouraging embrace.

One last push, and out he was with fresh, cool air rushing into him, snatching away any of the remaining warmth his white home had left behind. His eyes refused to open, and his limbs might as well be made of water. A wave confusion and panic slammed into him. He couldn’t move, and neither could he see. Shivering in the cold and crying out panicked chirps, he fearfully thought what was out there. Was the world full of the cruel, merciless and icy darkness that surrounded him now? Where was the call that lured him out of the protective walls? Where was he?

He scrambled around against the soft patches of grass below that seemed to act like a riptide, trapping him and making it impossible for him to move with his weak limbs. He cried again, fear travelling up his throat, suffocating him, until he finally felt the gentle nudge of a smooth, solid object, coaxing him into something soft and warm, the warmth surging into him and driving away all the cold and fear he felt to replace it with a sense of calmness and protection. He heard the ever-familiar squeaky chirp again and knew he was safe at home.

Was it hours? Or days? Time was confusing for his little brain trying to grasp as much information as it could. But after what seemed like a long time in darkness, his eyelids raised, revealing a world full of colors he didn’t even know existed. His nest was deep, rich brown, cushioned with the faded browns and greens of the grass and barks picked out for him to grow in. How spiky they looked, yet how soft they felt. He turned his wonder-filled eyes around, staring at his world in awe. The branches were dark, dark brown, twisting and curling with imperfect roughages that somehow seemed immaculately beautiful to him. Was that red, the color of the richly scented flowers blooming around him? Green, the color of the leaves swaying and rustling against each other with the breeze? Blue, the color of the vast sky looming above him?

A shiny, grey surface suddenly came into his view. It was triangular in shape, divided into a top half, which gently hooked over the bottom half. Above that were shiny, black eyes, curiously looking at him. He had a yellow-green head and a yellow lower body; a full grown Kiwikiu Honeycreeper. One day, he was going to look just like him. 

He was well fed in is first few days, though he wasn’t exactly excited about the fact that he had to share with his siblings. To avoid that, he cried as loud as he could, stretching out his neck. But, to his disappointment, he still had to share in the end.

Something was wrong in the second week of his life. Food became irregular, and he started seeing only his mother. His father, the one he had looked up to so much, had disappeared. 

After a couple more days, he was the only chick left in nest. His siblings had perished. In fact, the whole forest had emptied out. There were no more of the lively chirps and songs he heard every morning, filling the early sky with melodious tunes. They were all gone. All that was left were the trees and plants thriving with fresh greens and reds of the leaves and flowers, but for no one to live in them. The once lively home of his kind had now turned into a ghost town. 

It was time to leave his nest. He was fully grown now, with handsome colors of the grey-green covering the top of his head and his back, and the yellow covering his belly and the bottom of his head he had inherited from his father, who was long gone. He didn’t know what had happened to him and his siblings, and that…terrified him. Their death was so sudden, and no one could do anything about it. Who was to say he wouldn’t share the same fate?

But now he couldn’t ponder on that. He had to focus on his independent life. Food should be easy to find because of the lack of competition here. He spread his fully grown wings and took off, exploring his world for the first time.

He was always surrounded by a canopy of trees which filtered the sunlight into a warm, summer green shower over the deep browns and greens of the tall trees, which stood over the lively ground covered with bushes and shrubs. He zoomed out of the canopy, breaking free from it for the first time. What he saw made him gape in wonder.

Tall, tall mountains loomed ahead with deep green streaks over the rich browns of the mountain ground. Sharp ridges cut through the soft, but dense clouds hovering like a thick blanket over the range. Trees bigger than anything he had seen shot up the mountains, branching out and spreading their rich greens over the darker ones from below. Such massive and high elevations were not known to him before. The world was much bigger than he thought it was.

He zoomed back down. Time for his first meal.

He landed on a sturdy branch, full of roughages and its bark peeling off. It was the perfect spot for little pests and worms to hide. He dug into the bark, using his hooked beak to dig out all those hiding from him. One last scratch and…Bingo. Out came a fat, juicy worm squirming in his beak. A wondrous first meal.

After a couple of weeks of feeding himself, he was now a healthy, full grown, male Kiwikiu Honeycreeper. Surely no one could resist his lovely figure and colors. But after days of calling out, days of revising and singing his complex songs and chirps, days of waiting for someone to answer them, no one arrived.

All of this confused him, sending him on a travelling scheme, fluttering from once place to another. Where was everyone else? 

A short, annoying bzzzzzzzzz wandered around his ear. Again. Everywhere he went, there was that same, agitating noise buzzing all around him. A buzz that was so loud and numerous, it seemed to be reaching all the way into his bones, shaking them in perturbation. He hated it. Perhaps that was why the rest of his kind had abandoned this place. But the amount of fresh, juicy food he found over here discouraged the thought of him doing the same.

He continued his search for a mate, flying from one end of the forest to the other. Disappointingly, he found no other female but instead found another male. The first other honeycreeper he had seen in his life. This one had a sharper beak without a hook and had a grey upper body with a white belly. An Akikiki Honeycreeper. 

He cocked his head to the side, studying his new grey friend and decided to call him Grey. Was he someone he could trust? Was he an enemy, or a friend? Or was he just someone to ignore? 

After a long standoff between the two, Grey hopped closer. Kiwikiu panicked, unsure of what to make out of this ghostlike, mysterious stranger, and chirped loudly as a warning, hopping backwards. Grey just cocked his head in response, clearly curious. The younger Kiwikiu only then realized Grey was much older than him. One of the last of the remaining Honeycreepers in this region.  

Grey gave out a gentle chirp, then gave a violent shudder. Out came a buzzing little black thing from Grey’s neck. That same despicable things that buzzed everywhere. The Kiwikiu chirped in disgust. Grey responded with another of the same, clearly feeling the same agitation when it came to those mosquitos.

Both Honeycreepers were still for a while, unsure of what to do, until the elder one gave a farewell chirp and flew off into the wilderness like a grey ghost vanishing just as it comes into sight.

He kept seeing him again and again, every day at the same spot. He was glad to finally find someone of his kind and was even more excited when Grey showed him how to actually dig for food and where to find them. 

He hadn’t realized how much he had been looking forward to his daily meetings until the inevitable happened. 

As usual, he zoomed to their rendezvous spot to spend some time with his one and only companion. But when he arrived, the calming ghost presence was nowhere to be seen. He waited for what seemed like hours, but Grey never came back.

It was like a sharp blow to his guts. All his life, all those near him abandoned him one by one with no word. At last, he found someone who would stick with him forever. At least, that was what he thought. But in just a flash, he was gone too, leaving him alone in the vast region he occupied. The Last Survivor. That was what he was. What had he done to deserve this painfully lonely life?

From the corner of his eyes, he saw a grey fluff on the forest floor. A wave of panic slammed into him. He surged down, desperately praying it wasn’t what he thought it was. But luck was not on his side today. Was it ever?

Grey lay stiff, frozen, and dead with his thin, scrawny legs sticking out. His feathers were ruffled with shadowy dirt infiltrating his pure angel-white feathers. His eyes were shut closed. He was long gone.

A low buzz snapped him out of it is trance. It was that small black mosquito again, buzzing around his friend’s body, surrounded by many more of its companions. Slowly, it flew its way to Grey’s body, landing on his head like it was claiming itself as the new king of this body. 

A sharp shiver ran down his spine. In that small moment, he realized it all. There were no more of his kind, but plenty of the black-buzz’s one. When everyone around him disappeared, that was when they came to fill in the spot. No. Not to fill in the spot. They took it. They stormed in and raided his home, kicking everyone out of the region, or earth itself. Terror spread through his veins. This was what happened to his father, to his siblings, to Grey. It was only a matter of time before they took on him. 

He squawked in panic, scrambling up into the air. He had to get away. He had to flee. Up. That was the only way. Up the vast mountains he saw on his first day on independence. Up. Never, ever, down.

Everything was fine. That was what he kept telling himself. He was away, high up where it was much too cold for those tiny black devils. After five years, he had a family now, with countless of others of his kind thriving here. He was safe. His family was safe.

He spoke too soon. 

His mate had started to weaken. She couldn’t fly for long, and many a times she returned empty handed to the nest. His chicks have lost weight and were developing a painfully slow rate because of the lack of food. He couldn’t take the burden. Not when he had no one else. 

He didn’t get it. He was away from danger now. He had a peaceful last five years. None of the mosquitos should be able to enter this haven. So, what was going on now?

He returned to his nest with his beak full of larvae, but he was too late. His chicks, who had barely had their feathers grow out, lay lifeless in his nest. He desperately nudged them gently with his beak, begging them to get up, to not leave him alone. 

From the corner of his eye, he slowly registered something flutter out of his nest. The larvae slipped out his beak. There it was. The black, buzzing form of death itself. It had come to conquer its new territory. 

Their numbers increased, day after day after day, until at last his mate was also taken away. The buzzing grew louder until it reached a bone rattling volume. He had to flee. 

Up. He had to go up. But after around a year or two, more of the mosquitos appeared. They were always lurking behind, like a dark, dark shadow, never leaving his side. Everywhere he went, the mosquitos stormed in, conquering his home. 

He was 11 years old now, a very respectable age. By now, he was one of the last few hundreds of his kind, cautiously hovering over the highest peak there was. Everyone else had been unforgivably taken. Perhaps this is what his life was meant to be. A life of fear, misery, and loneliness. Death was always close by, no matter how hard he tried to flee from it. But he was safe now. No one could go higher than him. He told himself again and again that he was safe. At such a high altitude, that dark shadow could never touch him. It was impossible. It had to be. He could have normal life for the short time span of the remaining of his days. Surely nature wasn’t cruel enough to snatch that freedom from him, too.

But what he didn’t know was the fact that nature wasn’t in control. Not anymore. She sat helpless as the temperatures continued to rise throughout the years, weakening the barriers between him and his enemies.

Soon, the last of the mighty mountains of Hawaii had been swallowed by the thick black veil, engulfing everything inside of it. 

Up. Up. Up! He took off, speeding higher and higher up the terrain. He had to go higher. He had to escape. He so desperately wanted to live. He surged ahead, going higher, away from Them.

Suddenly, he shot out the thick green leaves into the plain blue sky. He blinked, circling around. The vast mountains calmly floated on the deep blue ocean below him. The mountains that once used to be his home. This was it. He had been kicked out of his home. He had nowhere else to go to. Perhaps he was right when he had just hatched. The world really was full of cruel, merciless and icy darkness. The lurking shadow had finally taken over.

By Kashish