Heedless

No matter how loud, some chose not to hear.

The speakers throughout the city blasted out thier message, the same message it had blasted for two hundred years. "This is your last warning! Shelters will seal in one minute! God bless; and God save our souls. ... ... This is your last warning..."

The war was over, of course. As with so many wars, nobody had won. Earth-shattering explosives, chemicals, gasses, helictical modifiers, psy-botomy: anything was used, and nothing was off the table.

Except civilization. Of civilization, the table has been swept clean.

@-----@-----@

The man stood on a grassy path that was very hard. A crusty sign, though he could not read it, stated he was on Maple Lane. He stood in near-hypnosis, enthralled by the voices, voices he could not understand, save that they sounded so sad.

He was illiterate, like everyone else, but he knew he had a name: Onwon. He had a name, and he had a role. Onwon, like his neanderthal ancestors, led a tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers. The tribe itself did not have a name. Onwon's current mate was Deia; what passed for a shaman was a scrawny old man called Ith.

Onwon finally turned away from the blaring city and returned to the tribe, who had waited as he searched for forage. In his gutteral language, he told the tribe there was nothing to gather here; there was nothing but death.

Deia broke angrily from the camp, striding willfully toward the city. Onwon called after her: there would never be anything but death in the Tall Place!

"This is your last warning..."

She heeded no warning, and was seen no more. Onwon choose a new mate the next morning, and no one spoke of Deia. Why would they mourn? After all, she had been warned.

By midday, the tribe was moving west...

NOTES: ▼

Word Count: 297
Submitted for "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" 
Prompt: Use the phrase "This is your last warning."