The Last Man

A candle flickered giving off a dim almost melancholy light. The quarters of the decrepit lighthouse weren't very well lit. They were furnished about as well as they were lit. Cans of nonperishables and crates of water stood in unsteady stacks. On a cot near the small table that held the candle sat a man. His hair and clothes were unkempt, his face was bearded. He stared at the flame of the candle, watching it dance in the darkness. The wind outside howled like a maddened beast. He paid no attention to the wind or the cold.

He was lost in memory. He remembered their faces. The ones he had tried to save along the way. He remembered them all. Briefly he thought of his mother and the heart shaped locket he had given her one year for Christmas with their family in it. She had cherished it while she walked this earth. When he laid her to rest, it went with her. He had watched so many of his loved ones succumb to the virus. Everyone he knew and loved had went the same way. Suffocating as their own respiratory system turned against them. He never caught the virus. He hated the fact that he somehow was immune while the rest of the planet had went the same way; Gasping and fighting to breathe. There was no dignity in death. He thought of ending his own life now more often than anything. The thought of joining his family and friends was so tempting some nights. Yet, he fought those demons of his own mind off.

He had tried looking for other survivors, but gave up after a few years. He had found none. The virus had swept through the planets populations like wild fire in dry grass. It took everyone. Everyone, but him that is. A cruel joke of the universe had left him, and him alone to wander the Earth.

He had been drawn to this lighthouse awhile ago. It had been a bright burning beacon of hope for him. Since it was burning, he thought maybe someone had survived. He found it empty of life. Like his world, empty.

It stopped burning a few months, or maybe years ago. He was unsure as to exactly how long it had been. That beacon of hope would be his coffin he thought. He briefly laughed at the thought of how no one would be there to bury him. The wind continued to howl outside, the candle danced on in the darkness.

He was lost in another of his all too real flashbacks, when a sound of pure horror pierced the night. Three knocks, each louder than the last shook the room. He turned to the door. Briefly, he thought he was going mad. No! Three more knocks came. Each louder and more pronounced than the initial three. They came with such a crash that he felt them reverberate through his body. Impossible he thought as he turned to the door. The shock of the knocks had made his heart jump with joy. Realization crept in at how impossible it was. Quickly his joy was lost and that was replaced by pure terror. How could there be a knock at the door? When he was the last man on Earth.