From the voice journal of Emily B, New Era 437

This is it, the last piece. This small piece of jewelry resting on my palm is the last remnant. It’s shaped like a heart and made from sterling silver, though the metal is now encrusted with rust. When you click on the tiny button in the corner, a small mechanism opens it up to reveal a photograph. I don’t want to talk about the photograph. I’d rather forget about it, but I can’t, no more than I can bring myself to throw the locket away, no more than I can fully let go of the past.

How many days have gone by? I’ve lost count. When I was born the skies were black as smoke. Now they are thin and grey, and occasionally the sunlight will filter through them, like pieces of gold filtered through a sieve. That makes me smile. It takes away some of the pain, brings me comfort that I made the right choice. But it cannot take away the loneliness, nor can it take away the memories contained within the locket.

Just the other day, I spotted a little green bud sprouting from the ground. Can you believe that? Just like in the picture books and the movies. Today is going to be the day I finally leave the shelter behind for good. The rations are all gone, so there’s nothing left to tether me to this place any longer. There are too many ghosts here, too many memories. I know I’m going to die. I’d rather do it wandering around the ruined glories of God’s creation than rotting away in a grave built by men. If only I could leave the locket behind too, then I would be totally free, pure as Eve before the fruit. But I can’t. I hope that soon that the whole earth will be full of life again, the way that it used to be…

I don’t regret what I’ve done, despite the sadness I feel. When I look upon this world being born anew, I can’t help but be entranced by the possibilities. What new forms of life will emerge to cover the planet? Whoever they are, perhaps they will find this journal, and wonder in awe of its tremendous antiquity. Most of all I hope they learn from us, learn to avoid the mistakes that we made.

My name is Emily B- and I’m the girl who ended the world.

The Golden Era of mankind was far in the rearview by the time I was born. Degradation of the atmosphere, toxic chemicals and pollution poisoning the soil and water, catastrophic floods and earthquakes… in the face of unrelenting disaster society collapsed, and mankind fragmented apart. Then came the desperate, brutal wars; brothers killing each other to claim the last of the dwindling resources. Billions died, and they kept dying until the majority of mankind had been exterminated, along with most other life on earth.

This shelter facility, nestled in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, was built by my father. He was a general in the U.S. military, back when that was still a thing. By the end, all that it meant was that you had access to bigger guns than the next guy. Thirty-six people in total lived here. I watched as we turned away all other comers, lone stragglers looking for shelter and food, or even entire families. I’ll never forget the look in my father’s eyes as he sentenced them to a slow, painful death of starvation in the wilderness. There was a feral anger inside him, the single-minded desire to survive at any cost. And for what? What’s the point of going on when all the joy is gone from your life, when you kill women and children just to survive? None of the others objected. They were afraid too. Somehow, I was the only one who wasn’t afraid, who wanted to help these people no matter the cost. When I told my father, he slapped me across the face. He screamed and said that he was doing this for me, that I should be grateful, that he bloodied his hands so that I could keep on living. But I could hear the terror in his voice, feel the shaking in his hand. At the end of the day, we’re all just animals, aren’t we? Just trying to survive…

The radio kept us in touch with the outside world, what was left of it. But soon the transmissions became less frequent, and then stopped entirely. As far as we could tell, we were the last ones left alive. With our food sources beginning to dwindle, and no contact from the outside world, we were left with one final option- cryostasis.

That’s right, we all decided to freeze ourselves like a bunch of human popsicles. They estimated that the energy supply could keep the units going for around five hundred years and proposed that we take advantage of the maximum duration, as that would increase the probability that during this period, we would either be discovered and saved by another group, or that if we awoke, that the atmosphere and planetary conditions would be repaired to the highest extent possible.

I remember the frigidity of the cryostasis room as we all went in, one by one, and were placed inside our pods. My father was watching me as I went inside; our eyes met just as the doors began to close. There was so much sorrow in his eyes. I remember that my hands were holding this locket, and I was thinking of the picture inside, the last memory I had of happiness, when suddenly I gasped as a wave of utter cold enveloped me, and then everything went blank.

The next moment I recall was the hissing sound of the pod opening up to admit me back into the world. Panic was seething in my brain. Why was I alone? Why was I awake? My vision was blurred; my breaths came in gelid gasps as my hands reached feebly out, grasping for the warmth of human touch and connection. Shuddering, I rose to my feet and took my first steps, shambling in the grey metallic darkness of the room. The lights had not turned on; there was only the faint luminescence of the various dials on the machines. The dials indicated that there were still sixty-seven years of cryostasis left before the others would awaken.

In my distress my first instinct was to scramble to figure out the mechanism to wake up the others, but I fortunately I came to my senses enough to realize I should not do such a thing rashly. Eventually I thought to turn on the florescent lights, and I winced at the sudden brightness. The illumination of the room brought home to me the harsh reality of the situation, as I looked upon the dozens of pods containing all the people I had ever known and realized that right now, I was the only conscious human on the planet.

The next thing I did was check the environmental conditions outside the shelter. Though I was no expert at operating the systems, I felt confident I could do it. The real challenge was a psychological one. My hands trembled as I began the startup process. What did I expect to see? All of the hopes of humanity depended on these readings. Would I see a new world, full of hope and promise, a world that had healed from the wounds which mankind had inflicted upon it? Or would I look upon a world of desolation, the certain extinction of mankind?

I held my breath as the first data points began to appear on the screen, and images from the video surveillance systems began to flicker to life. What I saw was a dead and lifeless landscape. The skies were still coal black, and the surface temperature readings were in the hundreds of degrees. Despair washed over me. Nothing had changed. The environment was still inimical to human life. I fought to keep myself from fainting. This knowledge was not a burden which I was ever meant to bear. Sixteen going on five hundred years old, and here I was looking at my own doom on the video screen.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, slumped over the monitoring machines with my head buried in my arms. But eventually I rose back up and got to working.

I knew to wake the others up from their cryostasis now would mean certain death by starvation. An impossible scenario confronted me. Did I live on alone, consuming the supplies meant for others in order to survive, placing all my hopes on the unlikely possibility that salvation would arrive? Or did I wake the others from cryostasis and hope that within the few months our supplies would last, we would find a new source of food? Both prospects seemed hopeless.

Unable to make a choice, I passed the days in a stupor. Before long, a frantic claustrophobia welled up within me. The guilt, the burden, the horror of being the only living thing on the planet tolled like a grim bell inside of me, and in my agony, I decided to take a desperate risk. I would venture outside the shelter and set my feet once more upon the soil of the earth.

As the shelter doors swung open and I took my first steps outside, the sight of the open sky above me felt like God speaking directly to my soul. All the sins of men replayed before my eyes, and I watched the world burn, consumed in holy fire, the corruption of civilization extinguished as thoroughly as the ashen city of Sodom and Gomorrah. I had never been a religious person. I’d lived my whole life believing that God had forsaken us. But in that moment, I knew that it was us all along, we were the ones who had turned away from the verdant, joyous earth that God had gifted us, we who had poisoned its waters and brought a holocaust upon its creatures. I wept and kissed the ground and prayed, begging for forgiveness.

It took a long time for me to come to terms with the reality of what I had to do. There would be no salvation here on Earth. Mankind had strayed from the path, and the true children of God had already been called up to Heaven long ago. There was now only His creation, and no longer would mankind live on to mar its perfection with sin. In time, the Earth would heal and be restored to glory, and that was the greatest gift, the worthiest sacrifice that I still had in my power to make.

It was with those thoughts in my head that I wrenched out the power cables connecting the cryostasis chambers to the energy source. I said a prayer for the eternal soul of each one of them. Even my father, who had sinned so, could be redeemed through this ultimate sacrifice.

Despite the decision I made, I never could bring myself to throw away my heart-shaped locket, or forget the bittersweet memories hidden inside. It was the only object I took out from the shelter as I prepared to leave it forever, to journey alone amidst the ruins that mankind had left behind. I hope that God will forgive me for this when judgement day finally comes, that He will take mercy on me, his last disciple, for the unforgivable sin of being human.

My question for you, whoever or whatever you are that has found this record- what would you have done? Would you have had the strength to end the suffering of the world? I often wonder… but when I see the tiny signs of the earth healing around me, I feel at peace with the choice that I have made.