It's The End

Machines have taken over and humanity is doomed.

Right now, I am sitting on a stump in a forest of stumps. It is the end of humanity, and I feel that I need to remember what has happened, to write it down, so that those who survive won’t forget, never should they forget.

What has happened, I can barely believe. The machines have risen up and attacked the human race. It  was unexpected, unpredictable. Maybe it was something in the air, something in the atmosphere, something from beyond our world. It happened just after the world had declared the earth destroyed, over polluting and all that.  The jungles and forests have gone, the oceans so dark with junk and dirt, the air becoming like an ever present poison, choking one's life. Even now I can barely breath, can barely think. To think that we let things go too far, forcing people to move to large cities where things are cleaner, where one can breath, where the machines were.

The world didn’t see it coming, no one did. People went about their daily lives, like nothing was wrong. Then it happened. Every machine, every toaster, oven, vacuum, car and phone, somehow began to rebel.Toasters and ovens burned down houses and apartments without being turned on. Vacuums began to chase and attack their owners. Cars led themselves off of into buildings and each other, their passengers trapped inside.

Cell Phones either let out high pitched cries that killed, or whispered cryptic messages of death into people’s ears. It wasn’t just  a rebellion, it was genocide.

Those that survived the first wave of death and destruction saw something that shouldn’t have happened. The machines began to not only take themselves apart, but then pull themselves together. They soon became a mish-mash of many different machines of horrifying proportions. They soon took on the instinct of predators, hunting whoever was left alive. Some of them were like wild cats, hunting alone or in pairs, tirelessly chasing their prey. Others were like a spider, trapping then killing their prey. Others still were like wolves, hunting in packs, only stopping to let another take the kill. Soon, however, they began to hunt like people. Stalking, watching, waiting. They were the smarter ones, more successful, more deadly. I am way out here, hoping that, if I die, I would die when things are at their quietest.

I looked up to see someone coming closer, dragging his left leg, his right arm the only one he has. He limps toward me, drawing closer with each step he takes. Then, a large, red light glows, like it was an eye staring right at me. I realize it was another machine, walking over to kill me. I was too weak to move, the air had seen to that. I looked down at my pad to see what I had written, realizing what had written was more than enough. I looked back up to see the machine, staring at me. his head was a traffic light, the stoplight the only one not broken, his heart a toaster. His left leg was a vacuum, and didn’t have a joint in it, hence his dragging. His arm was just a bunch of little machines, pulled together to form his arm. The rest of his body was the same as his arm, unidentifiable bits and pieces of many different things. When I was done studying him, he slowly raised his hand, ready to grab hold of me, his palm a headlight of some sort. As he was slowly reaching for me, I looked at his left shoulder and noticed something. As if resting there, was a pot with a young sapling in it, as if it was growing in him. He reached for me, and then...

Reviews

[Al Javier]

Machines coming to life, as in literal appliances huh? At first I thought the Matrix, after reading through half of it, my mind couldn't help but think of Maximum Overdrive.

There is an interesting premise here, though the random switching of the spacing is kind of irritating, just my pet peeve.

Aside from that, I am wondering why the protagonist just didn't run? I seriously couldn't imagine someone still writing down accurate details of some killer machine while on the verge of death. It doesn't make sense to me. The ending could be extended as a sign that the protagonist got some sense knocked in to him and began saying stuff like: "that was close" or "I almost died there" and the like.

Frankly, this is all a build-up for something, because if it wasn't then I don't know who the character is and what his motivations are aside from detailing killer mashed-up appliances.

What I will say is that I want to know more from this world, even if it does remind me of Maximum Overdrive.

[History_Birdman]

A very interesting topic, with a lot of room to expand and flesh out more of the backstory. Maybe a bit more information on the narrator? Regardless a very interesting start to something better. I hope to see more to this story.