Chapter 1
There are 3 main rules you must follow when you’re the last person on earth.
Keep a routine
Don’t think about being the last person on earth.
And last, and in my opinion, most important
Don’t die
Truly inspiring and totally not obvious I know. I’ve found and kept track of these rules and others throughout the long time I’ve been alone. How do I know I’m the last person on earth? I don’t, but I do know I’ve been alone for a while.
These rules are one of the things I’ve used to keep myself from going completely bonkers. Those and the physical labor I’ve got to do, so I don’t starve, freeze or die some other way before I’ve completed my goal.
A robot that I named D
Not just any robot though, I was told that it holds all the knowledge that people before the end of the world held, and that’s one of the rules.
7. Have a goal
If I didn’t have a goal I wouldn’t have even attempted to survive this long. What’s great about this one is that it’s almost unattainable. I’m only saying that because I’ve got no idea how I’m supposed to fix this thing. I know where to get the tools and parts to fix it, but apparently people back then didn’t put a lot of things on paper, so I’ve got no clue what wires go where.
So basically, my schedule to not go insane looks like this.
Wake up and eat some fruit from the tiny garden I set up a couple of years ago (there were some seeds in the Vault)
Tend to my garden
Take care of the small fields
Check the traps in the forest
Lunch consisting of whatever was hunted, fruits and vegetables.
Work on D
Check the vault for parts
Dinner
Sleep
Repeat
Right now, I’m on step 6, and I have definitely hit a roadblock. I was trying to connect one piece to another, and it looked right, but then I turned it on and there was a familiar loud “SNAP!” And a small stream of smoke rose from the open back of D.
“Fuuuuuuucckkkkkk.”
I grabbed my face and leaned my head back in frustration. I was almost tempted to just skip step 7 and 8 and just go to sleep. The sky was already starting to turn orange on the horizon, so it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, right?
____
Inside the vault has always scared me, it’s dark, and would be pitch-black if my dad didn’t leave behind a flashlight from his days of trying to fix D. Even so, a small cone of light isn’t all that great either. I still manage to find my way though, to a huge room with massive piles of boxes where I find the parts I might be able to use.
Usually, I find a box or two and head back up and then head to what I lovingly call, the statue room. It’s a room of these pods, most of them are broken open with skeletons falling out and the scent of old death that I had been slowly airing out with my visits here. Why would I keep coming here? Because there’s one pod that is fully intact. There was an almost ultramarine light shining down from the top onto a person.
This person looks like he’s deep in sleep, not like he’s dead, just dreaming. There’s this frost coating his body, lacing in between his eyelashes, enveloping his porcelain chest and preserving this stunning person. Sometimes I caught myself wondering if he was just a doll they decided to freeze. His body was smooth and slender with slim hands folded up as if praying to wake up in a better world. I’ve visited this place many times over the years, and yet he hasn’t moved. The ice on him has never shifted its patterns and the light hasn’t changed its brightness. It’s like this person is completely exempt from time itself.
Each time I come here I get just a little closer. Trying to imagine what his dreams are like. Making up what kind of person he was before he was hidden from everything. Although, I think I got a bit too close that time, because when my hand reached up to the glass and I tried to touch it, the room was filled with a white dead sort of light, and then I relied on rule 4.
If you don’t know what’s happening, run.
Immediately I looked for the exit, but the door I pried into to get in there was shut just as tight as I first found it. I scrambled, looking for a place to hide, so I could have the upper hand if need be. I buried myself between a pod and the wall. I patted myself down looking for the knife my mom had given me long ago. Then the room spoke.
“Revitalizing subject 31”
The voice was cold and sharp and so very not human, and when it spoke the sound of hissing air filled the room. After I poked my head out to see what was going on, the light started blinking green. The noise was coming from the top of the mechanism where the air was spilling out fast and hard.
I gripped the knife I had in my hand, just hoping it would be just enough to protect myself from whatever was happening right now. Especially since the chamber, which hadn’t moved since before I was born, slowly folded itself down with something stumbling out. When the smoke cleared, I almost made a noise when I realized what, or who had stepped out.
There right in front of me now, and this time not peacefully dreaming, was the person I had stared at for hours, even days on end. Once he had gained his balance, the room spoke again.
“Date 5/12/4578, 567210 days since last input. Vital signs of subject 31 confirmed to be stable. Good morning, Neo.”
I had no idea what was going on. As of right now there was no way I could get to the door without Neo noticing me and possibly ending my life. So, I continued to hide, worst come to worst, I have a knife, and he seems...
“Hey, Eileithyia, where are my clothes stored?”
Yeah, that was certainly influencing my processing power at that moment. He was every bit as beautiful as he was in the pod. He looked around and approached the nearest broken pod. I couldn’t get a look at his face, but I could imagine what he was feeling right then. Again, the room started to speak.
“In the back compartment of your chrysalis.”
“Ah, thank you.”
He sounded disconnected from what he was seeing. I would have expected him to react similarly to when I had lost my dad, but I suppose I don’t have much reference for this stuff.
Neo looked back at what he came out of and started to turn, before something caught his eye, and he looked directly in my direction. His eyes were piercing, just like the ice he was frozen in. I noticed he wasn’t just looking in my direction, but directly at me.
I stood so fast I heard my knees crack just a bit. I pulled my knife forward right in front of me, fear pulsing through my veins and ready to strike given the slightest provocation. At least that’s what it felt like, in truth I was shaking head to toe, and I could barely shake out a slightly louder than a whisper.
“Wh-who are you?”
Rule 76. Don’t trust strangers
