The War That Almost Ended Humanity

I woke up; it's 6:30am, at least I think it was. Looking around at the cold leaded walls encasing me in this metal egg, I slowly puttered over to the ladder and make my way up. I pushed the lid away and emerged out of the ground in time to watch the last segment of the sunrise. The horizon seemed a million miles away and there was nothing between except a graveyard of trees and carcasses.

I was all alone.

The decade after COVID-19 was a tumultuous rollercoaster. Every nation was able to see its respective scientific potential while in the race to eradicate that dreaded disease. The need for development in COVID-19 began to die with herd immunity, but the research and political fervour was still afoot. At the time, I was a physics graduate and found myself working alongside other innovators which is when the end was first foreshadowed to me and, apparently, only me.

I was all alone.

The E-bomb. It was like every country found it at the same time so no one country could take sole credit for its creation. A small, tetris-cube lookalike that could harness free energy from its surroundings and transform it into useful electricity seemed like it had endless positive applications for a world so dependent on power. But with such limitless possibility came a darker reality, as has always been true of humankind. Such an innocuous looking piece of technology would soon terrorize citizens across the world.

See, the key was that it had to be connected to a piece of machinery or a power bank in order to use or store the electricity that was garnered. If it was loose, it became a menacing ball of overpowered lightning until the current was grounded. That's what one rogue militia found out as they dropped one onto enemy territory. The spread of electricity through the city caused pandemonium as retaliatory attacks meant that more and more bombs were dropped and more and more humans were killed. The war was no longer about protecting their own people because it was the innocent people who were getting hurt, getting killed the most.

I built my underground bunker when this all started. I remember researching where the safest place to be was and ended up finding myself in the middle of the rainforests in South America, where the ground has electricity-dampening soils. I remember telling my friends and family to come with me, to protect themselves from the inevitable, but they all shrugged it off as me sounding like a Doomsday preacher. Making the choice to leave them all behind is a choice that I question to this day, two years later. I sat in my bunker and listened to the news on the radio day-in and day-out, hearing about the next nation that was hit. Eventually, some of the stations stopped working and it took me a while to understand why and when I did, I realized then that eventually, the only voice I would hear could be my own.

I was all alone.

The sight of the new plants I sowed was one for sore eyes. The young, fresh growth added a glorious touch of colour to the grays and browns of the detritus around me. The green liveliness exuded by the plants that would soon become my food storage for the coming months was what I looked forward to every year since this became my reality. I am tethered to my capsule bunker and this piece of land because it is all that seems to exist now. Before, I would walk as far as possible each day, hoping, praying to the God I don't believe in, that there is someone or even something else out there; searching to no avail. Each night, I would make the same trek back to my bunker and then repeat the process in a different direction and this would continue for the first eight weeks until I just gave up. I couldn't leave my bunker because then I would have nothing. As I sat and stared out into the landscape, this abysmal landscape that I've called home for two years, I realized that I already have nothing.

I was all alone.

I started to pack all the essentials: my Swiss Army knife, water canteen, food, and the effects for camping and growing vegetables. As I climbed back out of my bunker for what could be the last time, I absorbed one last look at the landscape and shed a tear. What if there is no place to grow food? What if there's no source of water where I'm going? What if I pick the wrong direction? What even is the right direction? What if I'm really the only one left? It became apparent that I could die on this trek if I didn't find a sustainable place. This bunker was a haven compared to what I imagined the world was like now. In a weird way, death didn't scare me, it was more the thought of what the world would become if noone is left. But I had to go. I've spent two years like this, not moving forward, not moving back. Stagnant. Alone.

I was all alone.

I decided to walk north by northwest. From the southern rainforests, it seemed like the best chance of finding other life. The warm winds blew across and as I distanced myself from my home, every sound it created seemed more amplified the more isolated I became. The dry, greyish brown ground underneath me was embellished by the remnants of blackened tree trunks that turned into dust as I stepped on them. I continued my journey in a sort of autopilot, just one foot in front of another. Everything around looked the same, a repeat of the same sights over and over, an eerie sort of Truman Show-esque feeling. The sun was already beating down on my right side and I finally passed by the line I drew indicating the end of the last time I walked this way, some 22 months ago. The line I drew before I turned around and went back to safety. This time I wasn't turning back.

I dropped my stuff and chose to set up camp for the night. Setting up was much easier because I never had to worry about the natural dangers of camping unlike before the world ended. I just needed my sleeping bag, tent, and firepit. Roasting my vegetables and drinking a much-needed half-cup of water, I wound up my flashlight to glance around my surroundings, mostly in search of any reflection of light, likely from a source of water. Nothing in sight. I lay down in my sleeping bag and stared up at the only eyes staring back at me: the stars of the night sky. As I observed the celestial quilt, reminiscing the time before this, I went through a recurring mental and existential rabbit hole. If I'm the only one here on Earth, am I the only one in the Universe? Could there be another place where they made scientific advancements that actually better their world unlike what we did? Maybe their society is a placid, civil one unlike ours. Everyone on Earth thought that with our laws and rules and social norms, we were so sophisticated and intelligent, "the most intelligent beings", but maybe that was all just bullshit to make us feel better. Now I can just lie here and sleep, completely naked, without a care or regard in the world as to my actions.

I was all alone.

Seven days pass, making it the 739th day since the last known sign of E-bomb drops and radio signals was detected. Each day with the same routine as the last, walk until my legs get sore, sit, continue, camp, eat, sleep. On the fourth day, I found a place to refill my canteen and used that opportunity to wash my clothes and gear and take a long soak to clean off all the sweaty salinity off my body. I could feel myself slowly shedding weight from all the trekking and traversing and could see that I was noticeably darkened by the sun. I continued to march on as the sun begins to set and for the first time, I notice something new. A crater-like hole in the earth, one that was scorched to oblivion. The crater i
wasn't the most striking discovery though, it was the scratch marks in it. I did a double take before realizing that they are words and not only words, but Spanish words. I didn't know what they meant, but they were significant. I built my bunker in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, where people spoke Portuguese, least they did. This could mean that I made it all the way up to Venezuela or Colombia. But more importantly, that could mean there is someone else that survived this whole ordeal. Or at least, was someone who survived.

I may not be alone.

This find gave me new energy in my trek. Even if the person is dead, it is still worth knowing I didn't survive everyone else after the E-bomb apocalypse. I set up my camp in the crater; I didn't want to move away from this sign of life. Tears rolled down my face as I read and reread the words like it was the holy grail: "caminé 37823 pasos el día 739". I finished eating and fell asleep shortly after. The next morning arrived like a blink of an eye and the sun was shining brighter than ever, except this time, it wasn't just the usual yellowish-orange hue. There was a pinch of green shimmering from the same direction in the horizon. A small green light. I pulled out my binoculars and looked basically directly into the sun, ill-advised but worth it because I saw a clear green dot, a heaven-sent green light, slightly bobbing into the sunrise. It was time to move.

I was not alone.

I yelled like a hysterical person. "Hey! I'm here! Come here! I don't want to be alone!" My knees gave out for a split second and I slumped down and sobbed. When I finally looked back up, the green light was nothing but a blip in the distance. I started to walk quickly, I was too weak to run. I just kept going and checking where the light was. As long as I could see it, adrenaline was just coursing through my veins and I was just going. I made sure to take more steps than the light was bobbing, my best guess and only indication that I was travelling faster than they were.

I didn't want to be left alone.

The sun was setting and I took out the binoculars again. Now I could see the green light and it was motionless. Maybe they've finally stopped moving. This was my time to cover ground. I downed some more water and kept trucking along. The night sky arrived and I would up my flashlight and shone it towards the direction of the green light. I gave it a few blinks to make sure they knew it wasn't just a reflection of their own light, but instead something deliberate. Then, the answer came. The same three blinked back at me. I had no energy to move, no energy to do anything but cry. One last look at the beautiful light and I see it bobbing again. I sat and watched and flashed my light. The green light was growing, getting closer.

I was finally not alone.