Here's a short story that I typed up. I guess it has a sort of hippy feel to it, but I think it's okay for realistic fiction.
~*~
September 28, 2042. The day a baby seagull was born. He was irregularly small for his breed, but he was still persistent. The mother bird left for countless hours each day to find food at the tiny beach that was close to ceasing to exist. Food was scarce, and the water was murky with pollution. The baby bird never protested; he soon adjusted to the dietary change. The mother bird stopped eating altogether after a month or so. The brothers and sisters of the baby bird died of starvation days after. But that baby bird stayed strong.
November 5, 2042. The mother bird left that day, and never came back. The baby bird never lost faith. He slept through the chilling November days.
November 13, 2042. An oil spill occurred near the baby bird's location. That terrible substance spread across the waters, while that baby bird slept and slept. He didn't know about the oil, and what the effects of it were. When he awoke hours after the accident, he found the courage to try to imitate the other birds' flying techniques. He spread his wings and jumped. No lucky air current picked up the baby bird. He fell right into the icy, oily water with no warning. The oil entered the inside of his beak, his lungs, and his feathers too. The baby bird was sure to drown. But then the humans came along. The same day, they washed that baby bird until they thought he was clean. Unintelligent humans. They never even opened his beak, nor did they check if his lungs were working okay. The bird was still alert and positive; unknowing of the danger of the oil. The alien hands on his feathers were frightening at first for the bird, but he soon adjusted. The humans held the baby bird in a small cage with many other strange birds that also had oil in their lungs, mouths, and even traces on their skin. The baby bird had watched as one of the birds failed to stand one day, and it dropped dead. The silly humans had thought that the bird was just aged. It was really the oil - their fault entirely. So what? It was only one bird.
November 30, 2042. All of the other birds died in that cage; other than the baby bird. So what? It was only a few birds. The humans assumed that there was a disease of some sorts in the cage, so they hastily released the baby bird. They didn't send him to his old beach, because that had been turned into another trash heap. The baby bird had grown slightly more mature. He thought that maybe his wings were larger, and easier to fly with; his beak sharper to kill the fish with.
February 11, 2042. The baby bird struggled for three painstaking months. He barely lived on the low shortage of prey in the beach, but even starvation couldn't stop him from being stubborn. Everything that he ate was soon vomited back out, because a thin layer of oil still existed in his mouth. His lungs slowed down each day, making every breath of air stressful on the baby bird. One day, he limped to the shore to see a plastic bag flailing in the breeze. He hopped over to what he thought was a fish, and poked at it with his beak instinctively. The baby bird swallowed that plastic halfway, before he started choking. The plastic bag killed him that day.
So what? It was only a bird.
Only the last bird on Earth.
