They were throwing trash at us.
“Why am I still here? I thought HQ told us that it would ‘only last a few days.’” I grumbled, holding up my shield made out of greenery. Mine was wrapped around the freshest vine I’ve ever seen. It had violet flowers intertwined around them and they were the only few flowers left on Earth because we were using all of them to block CLICH.
CLICH was the main reason that over half of the human population was out on the battlefield no matter the gender, location, or age. We were all one against CLICH. CLICH was short for CLImate CHange. Honestly, CLICHE would’ve been a better name in my opinion. But whatever, CLICH obviously doesn’t have the brains to think of that since they were doing something out of the world like shooting acid rain at us. I sighed at the shriveling flowers on my shield. It was almost time for a renewal.
“Apparently, they were wrong,” Xiye, my best friend, replied as she ducked from a blast of pollution, coughing from the polluted air in the process.
“You good?” I asked, as I chose not to inhale. These thin masks weren’t enough for protecting us against pollution.
Xiye waved me off and continued on talking, clearing her throat, “Headquarters thought that CLICH wouldn’t be a big deal at first so they just kept on going on releasing harmful chemicals in the air, destroying marine habitats, and so much more damage.”
I shared an eye roll with Xiye as I shielded a tree from a robotic chainsaw that was about to chop it down. Xiye Bastida Patrick was like the beacon of hope in the battlefield. She was one of the Climate Heroes and she was 21 years old but a huge climate change activist. She was one of the organizers of Fridays for Future New York City which was a big deal. She had a positive and bubbly personality that made her a great social butterfly. She had about 78K followers on Instagram already! That was so much compared to my two followers.
And they were my mom and some middle-aged-man halfway across the world.
I crouched down to plant a seed in the fresh soil that we were protecting. It was a maple tree seed because HQ reported that they helped the environment by releasing oxygen the most. I genuinely hoped that the tree would make it to its full adulthood. Most saplings were killed by CLICH before even reaching the age of 1.
“Ah, no, darling,” a soothing voice said piercing the blasts around me. “That’s not the proper way to plant a seed. Do not rush. That’s always the key.”
I turned around to find my grandmother standing in front of me, looking benevolently at me with her soft brown eyes. My grandmother was the first one to teach me how to plant which is one of the reasons why she was on the battlefield with me. She was appointed as one of the expert planters by HQ.
“I know,” I heaved tiredly, “But they’re shooting burning fossil fuels at us, Grandmother. How can I not rush?”
Grandmother smiled sweetly and crouched down beside me to help plant. “Look, darling. I’ll show you the proper way to plant so the tree can become a strong, majestic tree.”
I was watching Grandmother plant the seed when Leonardo DiCaprio ran up to me, holding out a letter. Leonardo had started a nonprofit when he was 24 to support projects fighting climate change and advocating for environmental issues.
“Who is it from?” I asked, taking the green colored letter sealed with a yellow stamp.
“Linda. They’re putting up a real struggle at the sea too,” Leonardo replied.
I nodded grimly and opened the letter. It enclosed a short letter and a photograph of Linda steering a ship onward. I grinned at that picture. Her expression was determined. She was going to fight until the end against climate change. We all were.
The letter was about the situation on the sea. Linda was a Global Changemaker Honoree by helping restore the ocean’s ecosystems. She also founded a contest for future heroes and warriors of climate change to sign up for called “Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs.”
I looked down at my soil-covered hands and asked Leonardo, “Can you quickly jot down a letter to send back to Linda for me?
“Yeah, of course,” Leonardo flashed me a grin as he posed his pen over the blank piece of paper, ready to write down what I told him to.
“Write this down, ‘Hi Linda, I want to thank you for your amazing work at sea. We’re currently struggling to retain our healthy soil here at the mainland but it’s still so encouraging to see you working hard too. I’ll keep you updated.’”
“Good job, I love the conciseness of the letter,” my 6th grade Language Arts teacher appeared in front of me, blocking me from a metallic piece of trash. My teacher was on the battlefield because she was also assigned as a type of Climate Hero. She used to make us reuse the back of a sheet of paper as scrap paper in order to contribute to saving the environment years ago. I smiled at her, grateful that she was there with me.
“Anyways, Paul, the UN climate change ambassador, told me he doesn’t know when this war will end. It could be in a few weeks or a few years,” my teacher informed me. As she finished her sentence, more loud gunshots rang out.
I agreed with Paul. We didn’t know when this war was going to finish or will make society return to normal. However, I did know one impactful thing.
We humans polluted Earth in the first place, birthing CLICH.

But we are also the ones on the battlefield to combat CLICH. We can fix the problem that we’ve created as long as we work together to make a positive change.