Remember us

How do you start a diary of man's rapture... Should anything be said even? Should we have stayed? grabbing on to that little amount of animal instinct that drives us to want to survive, even for just a bit longer?

…

I guess I could introduce myself, not that it would do much good, but at least if someone finds this they can put a little plaque next to my body to identify me: Jack Warwick " Human " Earth

Or at least I imagine it'd be something like that...

I was born in Florida, Merritt to be more exact, and to be as cliche as possible I'm an astronaut by profession, studied at my hometown and graduated as mechanical engineer with good enough marks to get me an internship at some NASA subcontracted company, and eventually applied for an astronaut position, lucky me, it ended up working out.

That was two years ago, and due to the circumstances of life I was put in a position where nothing else mattered but my job, family didn't ever seem to care for me, and that suited me just fine. I put in enough work to eventually get sent up to the International Space Station, or ISS2, along with eight other crewmates to fill in a quarter of the USA segment, which in itself composes half of the station's permanent crew of 64 individuals.

Right now, we're down to 6 and this place feels really empty... more than usual... Normally you still wouldn't see many people aside from the bumping in to while going to one another's research stations or wherever it is we worked.

It still feels strange to use the past time for all these things... just a few weeks back everything was so normal...

…

I guess I might as well explain what happened, if either for me to keep my composure for a few more hours or for some self imposed goal of leaving something behind I'm not sure...

The first time we noticed something was wrong was six weeks back. Adam Collins is... was, our Flight Controller back then, he was a really cheery sort of guy, would ask us about our routines, say a few jokes and generally just lift everyone's spirits. About that time ago he gets this nervous look on his face... something we'd never seen him as: smile gone, bags under his eyes and the look of a man full of dread, he tells us we've lost our access to regular earth comms due to some haphazard or another... Of course that was a lie, but back then we didn't know better than to question control.

As the days went on we noticed the people behind him moving through the room, hunched over, like ghosts, scratching their heads, biting their nails, moving back and forth in place... On our end we tried to see if something was wrong with the station, something that was broken and that they chose to not inform us of ,and of course we found nothing.

4 weeks ago they decided it was best we know.

It was some minor thing, as is sometimes the case, a small spark that lit up the whole world, an accident that if kept between two ordinary men would be relegated to some minor grudge between them and no one else, some diplomatic incident that spurned the worlds leaders to the final conflict.

Adam told us that NASA had been almost emptied at three weeks ago, most of the staff reallocated to military positions, seemed like draft was in full effect and a space program was not a concern to a country in the brink of war. The administrator, along with a less-than-skeleton crew, remained to take care of us. The other agencies of the world told their astronauts to come down, seemed like communications between them had also gone to hell with the break up, Adam, sitting next to the administrator told us that those who chose could go down and be with their families... Christ, the way they talked seemed like they had already given up on actually fixing whatever was wrong... anyway...

most left of course, the one's who had nothing to go back to stayed here, along with one last shuttle, should we change our minds..

Two weeks back we saw Korea go up in flames along with what we can only guess was the Pakistan-India border and the two countries that made it. It took seconds, we saw it before Adam brought the news to us, this big white all over... shock waves bumping into each other as each bomb detonated at its target.

After that Adam told us that the few remaining NASA folk had come to a decision, two options were given to us, we could deorbit the station, a quick end to mankind's greatest endeavor, or actually pull it back, to enough distance to avoid any sort of air that would cause it to slowly loose speed and crash on earth... We voted all in favor of the second, we thought that if anything, we could leave this last good example of what mankind could do, safe, in space, where nothing could touch it... Our last monument...

A week ago we got their last message, mostly saying that the leaders couldn't be bothered to sit and talk, that they were all in hiding in their bunkers now and had left the actual dying to the regular folk. They said they wanted to spend whatever time remained with their families, we understood, we didn't have any but we understood...

Four days ago we saw the rest of the world go up in flames... We were over Europe in the nighttime when it happened, we could see the city lights still in full brightness then suddenly a great series of bright flashes that left behind a sea of dark slightly red glowing earth... Our passing over the rest of Earth confirmed our suspicions...

Doesn't matter now who started it really... And that's the saddest part, that it was all for nothing, that no one gained anything, that no morals were saved from trampling under some dictatorial regime...

The Earth was turned to cinder and glass... Mankind was killed for nothing...

Up here we have the facilities to live comfortably for another 70 years.. food, medicine and good company, I don't know if we'll all last that long. We're the last remaining humans and all we can do is look out the window and see the ashen remains of our old home... That sight can bring wishes of a quicker closure..

I'm leaving these recordings in a 5D disk in the central storage, if something's going to survive longer than us its that thing. If someone or something does manage to find this, please, remember us for our good...

Taken from the archives of scholar Gwindven

Translated from the recovered artifacts of planet GS5-3

Reviews

[Daniel Seward]

Good buildup to final realization of Earth destruction. Was wondering if some sort of interaction between surviving humans could have been written to enhance ending--a memorial service perhaps.