The End is Here

Adam Smith has a problem. He's awakened to find himself in a dead world; a world in which there seems to be no life. Now he has to find out what has happened and, if he can, keep it from happening to him as well.

            Hello. My name is Adam Smith. I am the last living human being on Earth.

The first thing that I can remember is the howling, scorching wind. It brought me to my senses and made me realize that something was wrong. The world around me was gone. Barren rock and cracked earth filled my vision, lit by a moonless night. Behind me was some sort of ruined elevator shaft, and it seemed as if it was about to fall.

            The heat was unbearable, really. At first, I was just uncomfortable, with sweat beading at my hairline and neck. I thought this was bad enough. But it’s all gotten worse from there. 

            I had no choice but to wander, looking for some semblance of civilization. It was sad to think that I would prefer insects to nothing, but my mood would have been uplifted to hear the simple buzzing of a fly. 

            Of course, it was quite lonely. I chatted with myself as I walked, giving and receiving the company I so longed for. I must have looked a fool, wandering aimlessly, my clothes in tatters, my shoes nearly melted through… talking to myself. But it was the best I had, and I made do with it.

            I’m not sure how I walked for two hours without stopping. My mind continually told my feet to stop, but they refused. I was weary, and my body ached, but it kept moving, as if something was coming, just out of reach. After those two hours, I came upon what was left of a town. The buildings were standing, which surprised me. Everything I’d seen up until that moment had led me to believe some sort of extreme fire had destroyed the entire world.

            When I say that the buildings were standing, that should be taken with a grain of salt. A few of the older buildings had burned to the ground, and still smoldered. Those that were standing seemed to have been affected almost as badly as those that weren’t. They were blackened and seemed charred. I couldn’t see any glass, and all wood was gone. 

            Even though there was no visible way to identify the buildings before me, I could sense what they had been. A hotel stood in front of me. It sprawled over a large area and reached a good three stories into the sky. My intuition told me that something in that hotel would reveal the story, but my entrance was blocked by debris. I circled the building, and entered through the rear.

            This roundabout entrance led to the hotel’s kitchen. A lot of the utilities in the room were advanced technology, and had survived the heat. They were made of some sort of plastic material; the same material that the standing buildings seemed to be made of. I knew, however, that whatever I was looking for was not in here.

            I exited the kitchen, walked through an impressively large dining room and made my way into the lobby. It was possible that there was information in here, but as I looked for it, I saw that all the magazines and newspapers had caught fire. I had a feeling that what I was looking for was intact. It would be logical to search through the rooms next.

            The second floor of the building was inaccessible. Anything past the cement staircase I had walked up was burned. It looked very unstable, and I suspected it could fall through at any moment. The third floor wasn’t much better, but I decided that I had to do something. If I could get one step on the floor, I could probably jump to the first door. I did so.

            The inside of the room was dark, except for that little bit of light streaming in from the windows. I remember wishing I had brought some sort of light. Nevertheless, I began searching through the room. After a moment, a voice called out to me. It was odd and metallic, and the words (“Please provide identification”) didn’t make sense until a light began to glow. It was on the side of a box, and was in the shape of a hand.

            I placed my hand against the side of the box, but I never expected it to open for me. “Subject identified: Adam Smith. Access approved.”

            When the front opened, revealing that it was some sort of safe, light from inside spilled out onto the floor and walls. Inside were two sheets of paper… a newspaper article and what looked like a letter. Somehow, this white, plastic-looking safe kept the two documents from whatever had burned the rest of the world.

            First, I picked up the newspaper article.

 

The End is Near

November 16, 3159

 

MONTREAL (AP)-- Over the past two centuries, political revolutions, military coup d'états, and countless wars have changed not only the way we view the world, but also its political borders and outlines. Nobody is safe to voice their opinions, and it seems that there is a new group in power every day. Rising temperatures have reached dangerous levels. People are fleeing the central countries and making their way north or south to cooler areas. It truly does seem that all hope is lost.

   One man vows not to give up. Adam Smith, world-renowned architect and engineer, claims to have found a way to ‘save the world’, and it resides three miles below Quebec. 

   This structure, which has been named ‘Oasis’, has taken Smith and his team fifteen years to construct. It takes up 15 cubic miles of space. “It wasn’t easy,” says Smith, “but seeing it now makes the entire project worth the trouble.”

   A high-powered elevator will speed the refugees down to an airlock that Smith claims will be able to keep the cool air in and keep the superheated air out. “The exterior airlock doors are made of a plastic alloy that we’ve been developing for years. In fact, the elevator is made of the same material. That way, once the sun recedes outside, hundreds of years from now, our descendants can make their way back up, and terra-form the surface back to some semblance of what it had been.”

   Oasis boasts ten square miles of living space and another five on which the rest is dependent. An immense generator, powered by the heat rising from the Earth’s core, powers the structure, and forests are scattered through the entire 15 square miles to provide oxygen.

   Vast storages of food, livestock, and water are held in those five square miles and will take care of the structure until farms are established and can produce for themselves. Laboratories have been built, where scientists will create things from the elements around them, such as producing water once the supply has run dry. Large sun-lamps dot the top, giving the structure illumination from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. [Eastern Standard Time] 

Unfortunately, there is the issue of space. “We’ve tried things,” Smith says, “such as adding an extra level. Since the ceiling is a mile high, it’s plausible to think that there could be two levels of living space. But we wouldn’t be able to put any farmland on the upper level, and we need a lot of farmland to supply so many people. Still, we were able to have a second level in certain areas.”

   The biggest problem with Oasis is that it can’t support everyone. “As much as we’d love to save everyone on Earth, there’s just no way we could build a structure large enough in time. We have a crucial deadline coming up, and if we don’t make it, we won’t finish before we die.” That deadline is February 29^th, 3160. After that date, scientists say that direct sunlight will kill a person within hours.

   “The optimum population for Oasis is 2000. I’m afraid there’s just no way to increase it. What we have will be cramped. Also, people have been calling me and asking for favors. I’m going to do this as fairly as possible. To decide who will get to go in, we’re having a lottery. We’ll be sending a ticket to everyone registered as a citizen of any country in the Alliance. Again, I’m sorry, but we can’t have languages outside of English inside. It would be too complicated.”

   On January 15^th of next year, 1,950 tickets will be drawn from the millions passed out. Fifty technicians from Smith’s crew, including himself and his wife, Evelyn, will be taken immediately to keep the structure running from inside. The other 1,950 will have one month to report to the structure, which will be completed. On February 20^th, the airlock will be shut and will not open again.

   Maybe, just maybe, hope isn’t lost yet.

 

            Of course, the article was more than astounding to read, but I certainly couldn’t place what was going on with it. According to this Canadian newsprint, I was a renowned architect and had built a structure that would save the world. I wasn’t in an underground utopia –a look at the sky discredited that—and I didn’t remember anything written in front of me. Then again, I don’t remember anything.

            Something terrible happened to the world outside. I can see that. The world has been destroyed, and it seems that there is no moisture left anywhere. It’s more than obvious that rising heats caused fires, which burned everything not made of this amazing plastic material to the ground. I can only wish I remembered what that force was.

            The news-clipping was large, and I picked it up to see if anything was underneath. There was; a letter, written on fancy stationery, resided underneath the article. I placed it on top of the small pile, and once more relied on the light of the safe to read. The letterhead said ‘From the Desk of Adam Smith’, and the handwriting was neat.

           

To Adam Smith:

    There are sure to be many questions running through your mind right now. No doubt, you are very confused about what happened to the world, what happened to Oasis (assuming that you read the article before this letter), and what happened to you.

    First of all, as I’m sure you have figured out, we are the same person. One of us is pre-Revelation, and one is post-Revelation. Revelation is the name we have given to a disease that I will explain at length later. First of all, though, I will explain the plight of Oasis.

    I (you) had hoped that Oasis would save the world. 2000 people would be able to survive the Sun’s exponential growth and ride it out. Over time, once the sun receded, our descendants could make their way back to the surface, and repopulate a new Earth, which they would adapt to their own wishes. With them would be new, advanced technology that would allow them to live in the extreme cold. 

    Unfortunately, this was not to be the case.

    For five years, Oasis was a complete success. The Earth itself protected us from the sun and her great power to destroy. Two twelve-inch-thick metal airlocks kept the heats out, and great air-conditioners recycled our own air and cooled it to send it back to us. Electrical generators that ran not only from solar heat, but also from the nuclear reactions in Earth’s core, powered the complex. Oasis was truly a marvel to behold.

    After five years, all the water on Earth was gone. Ours was constantly recycled, created, and pulled from anything underneath the Earth’s crust, and was still in good supply. We were confident in our ability to play God and create our own living habitat. Overconfident, really.

    It came slowly, this new disease. Two farmers, outside of Utopia (the capital), lost their memories, then died twelve hours later. Then it spread into Utopia itself, and I couldn’t write it off as some freak accident. Our scientists said it was a new disease, one they had never seen before, and it was coming from our water supply. Our indispensable, precious water was killing us off. 

    It was odd, though. The disease would erase your memory, but anything you were consciously thinking about doing would be completed. You didn’t know you were doing something previously planned. And there was no cure.

    Finally, Evelyn caught it. She’s about to lose her memory, and that’s why I’m writing this letter to you… us. I’ve just now caught the disease. Isn’t the chain of events ironic? I was the last human in this structure to catch the Revelation. The first in and the last out, so to speak. Evelyn’s last command is going to be to plant this letter, along with a newspaper article I’ve had tacked up in my office for years. She was to plant it in the hotel room where we spent our honeymoon, in the ruined city of Montreal.

    I knew that, in the final years, the hotel had been rebuilt with ‘plasteel’, which is a heat-resistant plastic stronger than any metal. There was also a safe made of this material in every room. It wasn’t hard to reprogram those computers to fit any handprint, especially if a person had been there before. 

    I chose this area because it was close to the dawn line. See, I’m afraid of wandering around mindlessly, and I’d prefer a quick, beautiful death. Unfortunately, you will be the one that suffers that death, my friend. My final command to myself will be to make my way back to that hotel. I apologize to you.

                 Adam Smith

 

            I’d be lying if I said that didn’t surprise me. Not only was this a letter from me to me – an ingenious idea, to tell the truth-- but I had been subconsciously led to it. And now… now I would die. Whatever had happened to the sun caused it to kill every human on the planet except for those that were miles under the ground. I, the one that cheated the pandemic in the first place, would be its next victim.

            Even looking upon my own death, I wasn’t scared. I was angry; I was angry that I had led myself to this fate and didn’t know until just now. There’s something about being tricked into doing something that immediately makes a person mad. There was nothing I could do except accept it, for I can’t run faster than the Earth turns.

            I must have set in that hotel room for a half hour, rereading the letter. It’s funny how, after a while, I merely felt numb. I made my way out into the middle of the ruined street outside, and that’s where I stand now, reflecting. My only real regret is that I can’t remember Evelyn. The name springs forth such emotion, but I cannot remember a single detail about her: her face, her smell, the color of her hair… nothing. 

            I can hear my fate coming. The sunrise is bringing with it the cleansing fire… the fire that wiped out an entire planet. I was a fool, I realize. Nobody can escape fate. Whether it be God above waiting for me or Satan below, I’m ready. It was inevitable that the human race die out, but we are stubborn creatures, trying to postpone anything that we can’t accept.

            The temperature has risen a lot. It’s hard to breathe with the oppressive heat all around you, but I’m managing somehow. I want to see it; I want to see the sun rising over that distant horizon. I want to see what will kill me.

            And then I do. Pain erupts from every nerve in my body as the fire catches me, but I feel oddly… detached from it. I can barely feel the pain, as if something is protecting me from the agony of death.

            My attention is on the massive celestial body that has returned to bring a new day of hell to this barren land. It encompasses the entire horizon, and I know I haven’t seen a fraction of it yet. There’s no word I can think of to describe the size of the sun at this point, nor the feeling of wonder I gained from this sight. 

            There is something beautiful, in a primal way, about those things that can kill us. Seeing them gives us a nervous excitement. Looking at certain death does not cause fear – fear means that there is the hope of escape. When there’s nothing you can do, your mind merely enjoys the view, and that is what I find mine doing. 

The rising of the sun has been trivialized by authors and poets as something romantic, something to be viewed with a lover. But I can truly tell you now that this one, my last sunrise, is more beautiful than any painting I can remember seeing and more poetic than even the greatest master can produce.

I know that I’m dead. If I didn’t accept the fact, it would still come. But that’s neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is this. My name is Adam Smith, and I am no longer the last living human being on Earth.

Reviews

[Jamie Fantasy]

Incredible story! I am so in love with this! I've seen movies (28 Days/Weeks Later, I Am Legend) that have ideas of annihilation but I was so happily surprised to see that this story was different! Your ideas are smart and come together perfectly. I think you should write a book with this concept. I would read it for sure!

[FGFRANKLIN]

This is really an exceptional piece of writing, it's clean, concise, descriptive and intelligently written. I felt like I was reading a James Patterson novel. Great work. F.

[Alphachad]

I read the whole thing with my mouth open. And i didn't even notice until i read the last word.

You are a god.

[Heretic]

This is an extraordinary piece. Your way with words makes me envious. The ending, I was not expecting that and feel that it was done wonderfully. The news article and letter to himself were a very nice touch. You truly are a creative person.

Very nice job.

[Alexanne Dauntless]

This is just downright incredible. I absolutely love it. I can't even think of anything to criticize, because I wasn't able to focus on anything but the flow of the story. It's literally captivating. Excellent job. VERY interesting. I love the idea!

[Kirsty Lee]

This had to be the most beautiful piece of writing I have read in a long time. The way you combined..so many creative aspects and..wow. All I have to say was the entire concept brought tears to my eyes in the end.

[Legion]

Brilliant piece. Love that last line exceptionally. :) You've told a tale worth reading. One piece of advice though, get rid of this line - "devoid of all buildings" - for it doesn't fit the story. This would be an interesting short film as well.

[C. Johnson]

I will say this! I did find this piece fantastic, and even more so, the name just stuck with me. Adam being, biblically, the first man upon the planet, with his wife Evelyn. Beautiful that the irony strikes as them being the last ones. Truly wonderful. Kudos to you.

[A J Allan]

I really liked the POV switch in the last two paragraphs - going from a sort of 'written' first-person into his thoughts. One thing that I think would make it better is focusing more on Adam's confusion leading up to the letter; it just seems a little picturesque that he follows these intuitions without very many questions. [sorry if that didn't make any sense, I'm tired!]