After the End: Prologue: Survivors

The world was warned. Ice that had covered the polar reaches of the planet was melting.

The caps began their formation billions of years into the past, an ancient past that saw a very different biological world.
Under layers once too numerous to count, a single-celled doomsday device sat and waited, biding its time. Long ago trapped, it stayed in frozen animation until the day of its untimely release.

Finally freed from its frigid prison, it multiplied rapidly, scattering itself upon the breeze and swimming in the ocean currents.
But by that time, the world was already in a state of chaos.

Huge storms formed from the inevitable climate change. The seas became unpredictable. Changing weather patterns flooded many areas...

     ...while they left other places parched.
     Farms failed year after year, the turbulent ocean was over-fished, and the world's population slowly began to starve.
     Panic ensued: first locally, then on a global scale. Seeking control over dwindling food sources, nations went to war.

So when the time came for the billions-year-old bacteria to make its appearance, it was merely the final blow to an already-suffering planet.

The wars ended; there weren't enough people left to fight them anyway.

I only know what happened because I was told the story. My friend Asa and I managed to survive everything, somehow being immune to the sickness as well. He said he found me wandering around, alone and scared. We don't know what happened to my parents. He'd had a hard time understanding my "baby talk" at first. The only thing he could comprehend was my name: Yadira, and even that was just his best guess. At any rate, the name stuck.
After that, we came across another orphaned child named Sama.

How lucky for us Sama was smart. She assembled a sort of home for us, having learned to cook somewhere along the way. She didn't like to talk about her past, and we never asked.

That was over fifteen years ago. We have no idea if there are other survivors out there. Asa supposes there are, but I'm not so sure.

However, we are on an island (that didn't used to be an island). It might be possible there are others out there, but honestly, I'm not concerned.