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[WP] Alien life was discovered centuries ago and though they are advance they live relatively short lives (25-35 years). You ask your alien friend why he thinks humans live so long. He laughs and says it's because humans run at half power. You laugh back but he stops and says "No you really do."
|
**EDIT: part 2 is** [**here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/ehem5j/wp_alien_life_was_discovered_centuries_ago_and/fco2307?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)
“It’s evening, the date is over. You had a nice time."
"Okay..."
"The food was delicious and you two talked a lot. You giggled like idiots to jokes that were not funny at all and the sky above you is just right. It’s peppered with stars, no moon, the sky looks like a Christmas tree. Let’s add the Milky Way into the mix. It stretches across the sky, splits it in two and it’s bright and filled with a gazillion of stars, nebulae, other stuff. It’s a movie scene, oaky? You’re in the most romantic movie scene ever and it’s perfect. Just fucking perfect.”
“That’s a nice setup, Tony. ” I press the bottle of Corona against my lips. “Go on.”
Tony is a Thrill, and like all Thrills he’s turned up to eleven. Other than that, he’s more or less like me. Two legs, two arms and a torso in between. Slight gray skin, with scales covering his face. Think Star Trek humanoid light on makeup kind of race. Tony and I go to college together. Oh, also Tony is not his real name, but I don’t speak Thrillian. No human does. Also, I think he actually likes to be called Tony.
And I like Tony. Honestly, he’s my best buddy. It’s easy to forget how different we actually are...
In about ten years, I’ll lose my friend Tony.
Thrills live on average 30 years. So, an hour ago I asked him about mortality. Like, what he thinks about it, and such. We had a good discussion at first, about philosophy, religion, science, and Club 27. But then, I made a mistake of asking him if he’s jealous that we humans live so long. These days we easily live to be over one hundred years old.
And then, Tony began The Rant.
About relationships.
I think.
“But you still don’t know, Jimmy. You don't know.”
Tony pauses and bites his lower lip. His hand, balled into a fist, rocking up and down, rubbing his t-shirt at chest level.
“I don’t know what?”
“Have you been listening to me at all? Pretty sky, romantic scene. Hello! Tony to the humanling! Is anybody there? “
“Yeah, yeah. I follow you… Stary night after the first date. Go on.”
“Right… So, you don’t know if you two are a thing. Is this a thing?"
"I don't know."
"Are you---” He snaps his fingers twice, thinking. “Are you an item? That’s what you call it, right? Right! And you don’t know because you never popped the question. Because it’s stupid. Awkward as fuck to just ask, ‘Hey do you want to be my girlfriend?’ Because you’re not in high school anymore and you are not that type.”
“Uhmm.. okay. I’m not that type. Tony, I don’t understand where you’re going with this---”
“And you are at the bus stop.”
“Huh? I’m at the bus stop?”
“Yeah. You both are. It’s night, the date is over, stars above you, and you two are at the bus stop waiting for her bus to come and take her away.”
“Away…”
“And at that moment--- Yes, away. Just listen, okay?!”
Startled by the shout, I jerk forward and slam my front teeth into the bottle. If the angle was just slightly different I’d definitely chip he top incisor.
“Sorry... Just don't interrupt. And at that moment you are high on adrenaline and dopamine and one thousand other chemicals are rushing through your brain. Your senses are heightened so you notice everything. That you can’t breathe. That your whole body shivers. That your heart is a fucking jackhammer. It thumps so loud you can’t hear the traffic behind you. And you think to yourself ‘Fuck it, Jimmy, go for it! Just get closer and kiss her coz everything is there---”
“I do?”
“---all the signals are. But you don't. Coz you're scared. So you observe even more. You notice all the quick glances, her eyeballs glued to yours expecting you to make the first move. And there’s the lower lip she’s chewing with every stare you give her, and then there’s the hand---”
“The what?”
“Jimmy, shut the fuck up, man. Just imagine the scene. She has a hand and her fingers are running through her hair. But you’re still not sure. And then she opens her mouth, says something you think is random. Something about time and how she hates that this is the last bus tonight.”
“Why are there no more busses? Busses are everywhere. Where are we?”
He growls. ”For fuck sake, Jimmy, just listen! Close your eyes. Put yourself in the scene. Be there. It’s not hard, even for you humanlings.” He exhales. ”Anyway, she says the sentence. About the passage of time. At the same time, she’s also making subtle pauses while she’s talking, and then you get it. You finally get it, Jimmy! It’s all there, hidden in plain sight. She wants you to get closer and kiss her!”
He slams his fist against his other hand and spreads his arms.
And freezes.
With arms spread wide open.
Like a crazy new-age Messiah sitting on the couch in my dorm room, lit by bright sunlight coming through the large window behind him.
“Tony, can--- can I say something now?”
He aims both arms at me, index fingers like spears pointing at my face.
“And you do it! You kiss her, Jimmy! And she reciprocates! She kisses you back, Jimmy! And it a firestorm, a frontal collision, a nuclear explosion in your head. Gravity? It’s gone. Might have never existed to begin with. You don’t remember. You’re flying. You’re high. There are bongos behind you, drumming loud. Thundering! William Shatner himself is behind you too, doing a dramatic reading of Rocket Man. You’re high as a kite. That kiss... that moment... it feels that good and better. You crossed the line, Jimmy! Whatever happens from this moment on, nothing will ever be the same.”
He exhales and slouches on the sofa. “You crossed the line, Jimmy...”
Gently, I put the beer bottle on the coffee table between us.
“Dude… That was intense.”
“No, my friend. That was a candle burning in the night.”
“A what?”
“A tiny candle burning in the night. It gives off light, but the light is faint and the candle is easy to extinguish. That, my friend, is you. The humanlings.”
He knocks on his chest.
“We are the suns. Blue giants. Burning bright all the time, feeling and experiencing everything in ways so vivid, so real, with so many emotions… You humanlings will never be able to understand or comprehend it. I can't explain it to you... I wish I could, but you don't have the words for it. You're a candle.”
He closes his eyes.
And sighs.
“We’re the stars, Jimmy. Blue giants. Burning bright, dying young.”
He chuckles “So no, I don’t envy you for living longer. Why would I? You humanlings run at half power.”
And then, nothing. A long silence with me staring at him and him just enjoying the moment with his eyes closed. I guess we’re done.
I laugh.“That was epic, Tony. Thanks. How about we now---”
He grabs his Corona from the coffee table and puts it in front of his face. Ice-cold water drips down the half-empty bottle.
“No, you really do.” He swallows. "So promise me this, Jimmy. Promise me that you'll learn Thrillian. That's the first step toward becoming a blue giant. You need to learn the words... "
"You're kidding me. No human can speak Thrillian. It's too hard."
"Be the first one to learn it. I've heard you curse in Thrillian, so I know you can learn the rest. I have all the time in the world to teach you. Ten years is a lot of time, even by humanling standars."
He puts the bottle against his lips and downs it in one big gulp.
"Otherwise, you will never understand us and everything we say will sound like a shitty rant. No matter how hard we try."
​
/r/ZwhoWrites
EDIT: Thank you all for reading and your comments! (AND GOLD!) I won't spam the thread anymore by replying to all, but I will read an try to answer any questions you might have.
|
**We do?**
Did I stutter? It's not my fault I have four mouths.
**You do? Oh, I didn't notice. I don't really see those kinds of things.**
Blah blah blah. Look, just because I have six tentacles instead of legs and genitalia--
**Again, I never said that.**
Come on, man. We aliens got it all figured out years ago. It's in our holiest of books.
**What, like your bible?**
Yeah, our bible. It's kind of like yours. If you go back and read that old, old testament stuff, there's folks who lived for about 900 years, like Methusala.
**Gross.**
And how! Well, what with evolution being a thing as well as the bible--
**Wait, they're... both real? Apes into humans, and Adam and Eve, and Jesus, and the ice age--**
Yes, and aliens! As much as I'd love to weave the two together for you, I'd rather get to the point. We're getting better at getting the most out of our lives in the shortest amount of time. Again, Methusala. Almost 1000 years old. Your Uncle Ernie is, what, 73?
**Aw, man, Uncle Ernie sucks**
Right. So we are squeezing the life force down, like coal into a diamond. We live to be 35, 40 tops. What good happens after 40?
**You got me there.**
This is why we are the superior race. So suck it.
(fade to black)
|
|
[WP] Alien life was discovered centuries ago and though they are advance they live relatively short lives (25-35 years). You ask your alien friend why he thinks humans live so long. He laughs and says it's because humans run at half power. You laugh back but he stops and says "No you really do."
|
"Master?"
"Yes, Patrick."
"Why do you think humans live so long?"
Jeb laughed, exposing sharp, serrated teeth. "You humans only run at half mast, I'm afraid. It makes perfect sense that you'd last longer, wouldn't it?"
"I suppose, master."
Jeb grew quiet. He stared at his man-servant for a long moment. "You know that flight or fight response you primates have?"
"Yes sir."
"That's your control system."
"How?"
"It's all about adrenaline. My species has total control of it. It gives us great physical power and abilities. But in return, we rarely make into our forties. You're lucky."
"Well, I've been your slave for fifty-five years, and have wished for death long since. We all have our burdens, master."
Jebarius Re'Artor, Third Marshall of the Wind Weaver, nodded solemnly. "Yes, so it is. I am sorry if you do not agree with your lot in life. But you are still alive. We value life above all, human. If it was not so decreed from the Weaver herself that you humans would live until natural death, we would have exterminated you when we first arrived two hundred years ago."
"Your mercy is my life, master. So it is and so it shall be. More wine?"
Jeb gestured toward his glass. "If you would. I have a terrible problem."
"May I be of assistance?"
"Possibly. We are running into a population issue, I'm afraid. There are eleven billion of you on this planet. Too many mouths, as it were. We cannot kill you, but we cannot feed you. Should we just let you starve? What to do with you all?"
"Well sir, if I may. I have spent many a night thinking about this very thing. It's a simple solution. Let us leave."
"Leave?"
"Yes master. Give us your ships, so that we may take to the heavens. Many of us have wished for death. In this way we rise to heaven anyway. We gain our freedom and you have less mouths to feed. Everyone wins."
"Again, you provide such excellent wisdom. Send word to her majesty at once. I request an audience."
"Yes, master. Right away."
\----------
Thanks for reading!
|
"No you really do."
"What seriously bro?"
"Yes human, none of the other species in the universe do what you Terrans know as sleep. We have been studying your species for a while now and the Earth's daily system cycles make your energy recharging system incredibly inefficient. You sleep, about 1/3 of your day and spend a good hour waking up and falling asleep, hasn't that ever struck you as strange."
"Well umm..." I wanted to respond but then I remembered I had never seen Gruglock the deflier sleep, like ever. And he was alway energetic and focused to boot. Not to mention he ate only once a week and very little at that. Small salad with a large chunk of meat. According to Hyberians, eating meat was a necessity for higher functioning beings, the vegans and vegetarians didn't take that one very well.
"So we need sleep because of the the Earth and the Sun?"
"In part yes, but mostly because of your atmosphere. The beings on this planet are the only ones we have met that constantly need to breathe due to the low energy in your atmosphere. The constant breathing taxes your nervous system and sleep is required to rejuvenate it but the lack of oxygen in your systems cause you to hallucinate during this recovery period, you call them dreams. It is also why you take so long to recover from wounds, birth, illnesses and are susceptible to various germs. It's also the cause of your lower, cognitive thinking and why it takes your kind so long to reach sexual maturity. By our estimates, if humans had an average energy transfer through respiration, your cognitive function would effectively quintuple at the very least. Most other species in the galaxy take one energy inspiration every 65 to 600 hours and it gives us all we need and more. "
"Well damn bro, i don't know how to respond to that."
"Worry not human, we are used to it by now. In fact we are most impressed with your species ability to thrive with such little energy in your brains."
"Gee thanks."
|
|
[WP] Alien life was discovered centuries ago and though they are advance they live relatively short lives (25-35 years). You ask your alien friend why he thinks humans live so long. He laughs and says it's because humans run at half power. You laugh back but he stops and says "No you really do."
|
**EDIT: part 2 is** [**here**](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/ehem5j/wp_alien_life_was_discovered_centuries_ago_and/fco2307?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)
“It’s evening, the date is over. You had a nice time."
"Okay..."
"The food was delicious and you two talked a lot. You giggled like idiots to jokes that were not funny at all and the sky above you is just right. It’s peppered with stars, no moon, the sky looks like a Christmas tree. Let’s add the Milky Way into the mix. It stretches across the sky, splits it in two and it’s bright and filled with a gazillion of stars, nebulae, other stuff. It’s a movie scene, oaky? You’re in the most romantic movie scene ever and it’s perfect. Just fucking perfect.”
“That’s a nice setup, Tony. ” I press the bottle of Corona against my lips. “Go on.”
Tony is a Thrill, and like all Thrills he’s turned up to eleven. Other than that, he’s more or less like me. Two legs, two arms and a torso in between. Slight gray skin, with scales covering his face. Think Star Trek humanoid light on makeup kind of race. Tony and I go to college together. Oh, also Tony is not his real name, but I don’t speak Thrillian. No human does. Also, I think he actually likes to be called Tony.
And I like Tony. Honestly, he’s my best buddy. It’s easy to forget how different we actually are...
In about ten years, I’ll lose my friend Tony.
Thrills live on average 30 years. So, an hour ago I asked him about mortality. Like, what he thinks about it, and such. We had a good discussion at first, about philosophy, religion, science, and Club 27. But then, I made a mistake of asking him if he’s jealous that we humans live so long. These days we easily live to be over one hundred years old.
And then, Tony began The Rant.
About relationships.
I think.
“But you still don’t know, Jimmy. You don't know.”
Tony pauses and bites his lower lip. His hand, balled into a fist, rocking up and down, rubbing his t-shirt at chest level.
“I don’t know what?”
“Have you been listening to me at all? Pretty sky, romantic scene. Hello! Tony to the humanling! Is anybody there? “
“Yeah, yeah. I follow you… Stary night after the first date. Go on.”
“Right… So, you don’t know if you two are a thing. Is this a thing?"
"I don't know."
"Are you---” He snaps his fingers twice, thinking. “Are you an item? That’s what you call it, right? Right! And you don’t know because you never popped the question. Because it’s stupid. Awkward as fuck to just ask, ‘Hey do you want to be my girlfriend?’ Because you’re not in high school anymore and you are not that type.”
“Uhmm.. okay. I’m not that type. Tony, I don’t understand where you’re going with this---”
“And you are at the bus stop.”
“Huh? I’m at the bus stop?”
“Yeah. You both are. It’s night, the date is over, stars above you, and you two are at the bus stop waiting for her bus to come and take her away.”
“Away…”
“And at that moment--- Yes, away. Just listen, okay?!”
Startled by the shout, I jerk forward and slam my front teeth into the bottle. If the angle was just slightly different I’d definitely chip he top incisor.
“Sorry... Just don't interrupt. And at that moment you are high on adrenaline and dopamine and one thousand other chemicals are rushing through your brain. Your senses are heightened so you notice everything. That you can’t breathe. That your whole body shivers. That your heart is a fucking jackhammer. It thumps so loud you can’t hear the traffic behind you. And you think to yourself ‘Fuck it, Jimmy, go for it! Just get closer and kiss her coz everything is there---”
“I do?”
“---all the signals are. But you don't. Coz you're scared. So you observe even more. You notice all the quick glances, her eyeballs glued to yours expecting you to make the first move. And there’s the lower lip she’s chewing with every stare you give her, and then there’s the hand---”
“The what?”
“Jimmy, shut the fuck up, man. Just imagine the scene. She has a hand and her fingers are running through her hair. But you’re still not sure. And then she opens her mouth, says something you think is random. Something about time and how she hates that this is the last bus tonight.”
“Why are there no more busses? Busses are everywhere. Where are we?”
He growls. ”For fuck sake, Jimmy, just listen! Close your eyes. Put yourself in the scene. Be there. It’s not hard, even for you humanlings.” He exhales. ”Anyway, she says the sentence. About the passage of time. At the same time, she’s also making subtle pauses while she’s talking, and then you get it. You finally get it, Jimmy! It’s all there, hidden in plain sight. She wants you to get closer and kiss her!”
He slams his fist against his other hand and spreads his arms.
And freezes.
With arms spread wide open.
Like a crazy new-age Messiah sitting on the couch in my dorm room, lit by bright sunlight coming through the large window behind him.
“Tony, can--- can I say something now?”
He aims both arms at me, index fingers like spears pointing at my face.
“And you do it! You kiss her, Jimmy! And she reciprocates! She kisses you back, Jimmy! And it a firestorm, a frontal collision, a nuclear explosion in your head. Gravity? It’s gone. Might have never existed to begin with. You don’t remember. You’re flying. You’re high. There are bongos behind you, drumming loud. Thundering! William Shatner himself is behind you too, doing a dramatic reading of Rocket Man. You’re high as a kite. That kiss... that moment... it feels that good and better. You crossed the line, Jimmy! Whatever happens from this moment on, nothing will ever be the same.”
He exhales and slouches on the sofa. “You crossed the line, Jimmy...”
Gently, I put the beer bottle on the coffee table between us.
“Dude… That was intense.”
“No, my friend. That was a candle burning in the night.”
“A what?”
“A tiny candle burning in the night. It gives off light, but the light is faint and the candle is easy to extinguish. That, my friend, is you. The humanlings.”
He knocks on his chest.
“We are the suns. Blue giants. Burning bright all the time, feeling and experiencing everything in ways so vivid, so real, with so many emotions… You humanlings will never be able to understand or comprehend it. I can't explain it to you... I wish I could, but you don't have the words for it. You're a candle.”
He closes his eyes.
And sighs.
“We’re the stars, Jimmy. Blue giants. Burning bright, dying young.”
He chuckles “So no, I don’t envy you for living longer. Why would I? You humanlings run at half power.”
And then, nothing. A long silence with me staring at him and him just enjoying the moment with his eyes closed. I guess we’re done.
I laugh.“That was epic, Tony. Thanks. How about we now---”
He grabs his Corona from the coffee table and puts it in front of his face. Ice-cold water drips down the half-empty bottle.
“No, you really do.” He swallows. "So promise me this, Jimmy. Promise me that you'll learn Thrillian. That's the first step toward becoming a blue giant. You need to learn the words... "
"You're kidding me. No human can speak Thrillian. It's too hard."
"Be the first one to learn it. I've heard you curse in Thrillian, so I know you can learn the rest. I have all the time in the world to teach you. Ten years is a lot of time, even by humanling standars."
He puts the bottle against his lips and downs it in one big gulp.
"Otherwise, you will never understand us and everything we say will sound like a shitty rant. No matter how hard we try."
​
/r/ZwhoWrites
EDIT: Thank you all for reading and your comments! (AND GOLD!) I won't spam the thread anymore by replying to all, but I will read an try to answer any questions you might have.
|
Sarah set her coffee cup down on the table and shook her head. “Your joke isn’t funny anymore.”
Randon met her glare with one of his own. His eyebrows flew up and his lips pursed together. “It's not a joke. I’m a little surprised you think I would kid about this.” He leaned his body forward, setting his head at the exact middle point of the table. “Personally I have wondered if it was on purpose or not.”
Sarah pulled her chair back an inch. She loved Randon, but she didn’t love his obsession with putting his face so close to hers. She gathered that on his home planet, they met in the middle. Not with handshakes, not with words ; *but with faces.*
It made her uneasy, especially since he didn’t share the same…softness of human skin. It was a tad scratchy and she didn’t think about it if she didn’t have to. “So what does that mean? What is at half power?”
Randon frowned, a squint forming that made his quizzical features look angry. After another moment of leaning across the table, he sat back and tapped one finger on the metal arm of his chair. “Well. You. All of you. All your skills.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean anything, Randon.” She picked up her cup of coffee again, hoping he would manage to find words that *made sense,* but she doubted it. They would likely chalk to the conversation up to one of those things. A spacial difference, galaxy, and intelligence things.
Blah blah blah.
“For example, some people spend all their time singing, and they get paid for it. That's just one skill. If they ramped up to full power, they could have that skill and a whole bunch of others. They could be strong, and sound good, and other stuff. Humans really don’t know how to reach their potential.” Randon looked thoughtful, his pointy chin leaning on one hand.
“And that would make us die sooner?” Sarah asked. She thought that his point was starting to sink in, but it was fuzzy and making her feel dense. She couldn’t understand why other species would give up half their lives just to be better at more hobbies.
“Yes.”
Sarah felt the urge to roll her eyes again. As if she didn’t deal with enough people that had social issues. Randon was lucky he was good company for other things, or she likely wouldn’t come around as often as she did. “Why would we do that?”
Randon let out another laugh. It was hearty and metallic as it came out of him. He looked positively joyful as he took a breath and started to answer. “I am not confined to a corner of the planet, Sarah,” he said- butchering her name like he always did. He couldn’t say the ara just right with his differently shaped mouth. “I will only live maybe 5 more years, but I can move across the universe and be wanted. Needed. Strong. You….”
Sarah let out a huff, feeling impatient and irritated she had started the conversation at all. “I what?”
“You are stuck, and useless.” He gave a small shake of his head, mimicking all the times she had done it to him.
Sarah still wasn’t sure if he was joking or not as she looked at him. It was curious though. She couldn’t help but wonder as she watched another of his kind run circles around the path behind her friend. What if humans could be bigger? Stronger? What if they could go to more places? What if they went full power?
/r/beezus_writes
|
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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I sat There In My Survival Bunker getting lonelier and lonelier as the days went on. I was almost out of food and drink and the outside world is still filled with swarms upon swarms of zombies. I look back at the small glass tubes behind me, My parents oh how I miss them, I sighed wondering what to do next.
Then out of curiosity I pulled out my phone I sighed looking at all the content creators I missed. “Hold on” I thought opening Youtube. I went on to Mumbo Jumbo’s Youtube channel, ahhh yes Hermit Craft Season 31 such a classic, I then go to the comment section and jokingly comment “Last” on the vid, chuckling to my self I go to sleep
In the morning I woke up after eating some of the last of my food I go onto Youtube to comment last on more vids. But then I see a notification “Someone Has Liked Your comment” I Immediately bounce out of my sad and gloomy state. I send of another quick comment saying “Do You Have A Discord and what is it” then 5 seconds later I Get a reply “ XxPlayer 1 is my discord name and holy play button I thought that was a comment from a long time ago of someone sending of during the zombie invasion I didn’t expect this, by the way what is your discord” I smile to my self thinking that there was someone else out there so I reply “ my username is Creeper Fire) then soon after I got this
XxPlayer1 has added you on discord
TO BE CONTINUED
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“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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I chuckle as I reminisce about the fun times I had with my friends, playing with eachother, laughing at each other, chatting - *you probably get it* I also *giggle* at my most embarrassing situations I put myself through. It was probably my clumsiness and stupidity that probably put me through most of those situations. I never was and probably never will be mature, even though being the ***last*** person on Earth toughens you up a bit - I still joke to myself. it’s my coping mechanism knowing that I will spend and die by myself alone.
No one saw that coming. It took them out like it was child’s play. It caught everyone but me. *Why me?* as I ponder. I come to an idea to comment “Last” on every Youtube video. No one is here to judge me -*right?* I giggle just thinking about it, questioning my maturity as I grab my newly manufactured phone I stole from the nearest T-Mobile store. I chuckle at myself thinking how stupid this is.
Youtube loads the recommendations through the Youtube algorithm. It recommends me “END OF THE WORLD THEORIES” by shane, Me being the Shane Dawson fan *clicks* it as I want it to be the first video I comment on. *8 years ago* huh, it’s been a long time huh? I scroll down to the commenrs and type “Last” I *yawn* as I realize it’s 4:43AM. I haven’t slept in so long. I *yawn* again to come to the conclusion that i’ll sleep and continue this tomfoolery of an idea I came up with. I click send.
*Tick.*
Sent. Ok. I turn off my phone as I drift off to sleep.
*Ding.*
Huh? I half-open my eyes, brainlessly staring into the notification, on the edge if sleep. I realize I got a notification. How? I dont understand... It can’t be.
*Someone has liked your comment*
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“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
The world had ended, all human population extinct. Me, the last alive. I had fantasized about this before, yet never believed or expected it would become reality itself; my life had been vacant. I had family, though they never were available to me, or provided me with any comfort. I felt this bitter, and desolate feeling whenever I looked at a joyful family. Why could I have not gotten this consolation and solace of a family? To this, I indulged in fantasizing about having the simple sympathy of a human being I had bitterly lacked growing up. My imagination, and retiring into myself had provided me with celestial feelings of bliss, despite the overwhelming misery I had felt growing up. Sheltered, locked, and utterly abandoned in this abysmal, and shaded dark manor, I was kept away from the world forbidden from having any human contact with clear strict orders left to the caretakers of the house to keep me locked in this room. Oh! This room, this room! Its' dreadful, deplorable, and most terrible walls! When the light from the sun, and light bulbs had provided me with visibility of the room, I tremor-ed with fear, writing this in my journal as we speak makes me ill, and pale with horror. I despised daytime, and did my utmost best to avoid the sights the light had afforded me. I had slept through day most occasionally, and more often than not had found myself amazed by the simple yet simultaneously glamorous beauty of this world during nighttime. Those blue and mauve sights were thoroughly, and wholly the most appealing and heavenly my eyes had ever laid on. It had offered me, and I had engaged in the distractions it had provided me from the grotesque [figures.My](https://figures.My) computer, and phone possessed multiple apps of which I most fully used to the best of my ability and with the utmost joy. My one way to connect with people! Having been completely cut off from the whole world for primarily my whole life, you can simply imagine how my face must have lit up in joy as you might see in the movies when an actor of that movie had to play the part of a person who just heard the most pleasure-inducing news of their life. For the first year, I spent day, and night restless on technology, wallowing in it. Having ignored my body, and health I found myself one morning resting after what seemed to be days, completely nauseated and ill. It suddenly came over me, and I spent a season caring for myself with what tips I learned from what I came to learn was the "internet." The shades in my room remained shut for this period, and when I found myself well enough to return to my indulgent pleasures, I found the few friends I had made to be offline. I went on YouTube to find no videos had been published. Finding myself astonished at first, and utterly bitter once more as I found all activity on the Internet had been ceased. All the services worked still, surprisingly. I conducted to my utmost ability a thorough research, and mustered up the best deductive ability I had. Nothing. Nothing, I thought. How could this be? Coming to the brink of tears, I retired to my bed, and laid there contemplating and deliberating ways on to restore human contact. Mustering up energy from what seemed to be my ardent soul, I opened the shades to find the leaves to be blooming, spring it had seemed. My desires of establishing connections with humans, and having the cheer of knowing I had friends to provide me with relief, sanity, support, and comfort. It was taken, once more I found myself thinking of my parents, unable to visualize them due to the most despicable fact I had no memory of them or possibly I could not remember their faces. If I remember correctly, it was indeed years since I had seen them at that point. I assembled all of the remaining hope, and energy I had left into dedicating myself on finding human contact once more. Going through what seemed to be the whole array of videos on YouTube, commenting "is anyone there?," Eventually, I tried all of the services I had known, and nothing. I returned to my bed, reading the books, and intending to find the same fellow feeling I felt all those years ago, using these books to self-educate myself on the world. I sat on the edge of my bed, my phone charging in the wall as I stared at the wall, watching those same grotesque, and distorted figures traverse through them. In a fit of rage, I ran at the wall, scratching at them, each attempt at scraping, and abrading the figures away had failed. They had run away, gone, disappearing from that section of the wall and returning in another. I pressed my back against the wall, pressing my palms against my forehead, crying out of pain, and despair. My heart had felt bitterness, despair, and pain before, but never in this magnitude. In my memory, I seemed to gaze down at the floor, my tears dropping down. After what had seemed to be a perpetuity of vacancy once more, I opened my eyes to look out at the blue sky, opening the shades once being sure the sun had gone down. Tears of regret had fallen down from my cheeks. Remorse and repentance came over me, I plead to god; getting on my knees, and staring at the starry skies, I repeatedly had begged him, over and over, for a sign of his existence, and another soul. Had God himself even disappeared? Having found no answer from God himself, my mind had been taken over by a fury of energy, where this energy had come from, whether it have been curiosity, or a hunger for human contact, it was not disclosed to me, or perhaps I had not thought about it for too long. Trivial nonsense though, as I had found myself with this energy, I had decided to embark on a mindful journey of the outer world for the first time. I reached for my phone, unplugging it, and attempted to break out the door. Covering my arm in a protective coating of blankets, and clothes, I endeavored to smash the door down. In doing so, I ascertained that I was too physical weak to do so, and caused great pain in my shoulder, believing it was even broken for a few short minutes before looking out that same window. I had layered my elbow in protective coating, slamming a pane of the window with it, and found myself stumbling backwards away from the glass after a few attempts of banging it. My countenance had been overtaken by a wide smile, as I had stuck my head out the window, and the air... oh, if I could experience that feeling of delight one more time, I would... I pressed my hands against the windowsill, and carefully climbed down from the second story window, landing on what appeared to be a balcony not even 5 feet down from my window. I stood there, wondering on how this could've been out of my peripheral vision each time I looked out the window though, didn't seem to care as much since all doubts and questions had perished from my mind when I had finally escaped that damned, hell manor. The air during that fine, spring season had filled my nostrils with glee, smelling fresh, and inspiring. That same blue sky had stared down at me now, instead of me peering up at it, and due to this change of perspective, it had seemed as if two blue eyes were staring down at me. This left me oddly confused, and had led my mind to think that it seemed to be God himself. That is until I had walked to the summit of the hill, and stared down at what God seemed to be staring himself down at, that hollow, ravine of ashes, and cinder. I walked down, my world was no longer imaginations, or fantasies, it was reality now. The world had seemed to dim down now as I glimpsed downwards once more, finding myself astonished yet frightened. The moonlight seemed to be tender, and frail now, instead of illuminating, reflecting back off what grass remained on top of the summit. No civilization in sight, and all I had done, was reside there. Vacancy in my eyes as I looked down once more, now, lifeless. How vacant I sat there, disillusioned and disenchanted at all the disproportionate it all was. My body once more ill, my spirits once more lost of all vitality, life, and vigor. I returned to my manor anew, and once again came up the same way I went down. I retired in my bed, most certainly feeble, and pale. For how long, I am unsure of. The next action I had taken was posting "last," again on all of the comments I had left a long time ago at this point, finding myself resigned, and content in letting my life take its course, I gradually wore down in that bed, becoming bony and barren just like that ravine.... How insufferable it all seemed to bear, and how lost, and pointless it all seemed. I had given up. I stared for days considering how awful it must be for a man to be close to dying, and still feel no pity from the multitude, and essence of Earth. Coming close to what seemed to be the near end, I closed my eyes once more in hopes of never being able to open them, finding peace, and the quintessence of all my desires once more in Heaven, believing myself to go to Heaven after getting the unfortunate tone of life. I had felt a slight movement, and tremor in my bed, being convinced now that I had taken a journey the ethereal dimensions of existence, I opened my eyes to find the same roof I had seen with what I anticipated to be my last sight of Earth. Being persuaded for a second that I was indeed in Hell, I had heard rumors that pain in Hell was of an incomparable measure, and magnitude compared to Earth, and in believing this, I scratched myself to find that indeed, that same blue roof was the one I had seen with what was supposed to be my last closure of my eyes. I sat up feebly, pressing my back against the wall behind the bed, before realizing something must have caused that tremor. (theres more which ill add in the comments)
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“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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Humans used to collect, make and trade. Then they consumed, themselves.
A quick nerve pulse to stimulate the most important muscle system of the 21st century; the thumb. This shunned “finger” manipulated the device that solved and caused all of mankind’s problems. No more did one interact with another human to gain. Rather, a mere flick of the thumb granted one their every desire.
Corporations took advantage of this excessive consumerism to destroy the individuality of every customer. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple… they all sought to reap the abundant rewards of human selfishness. So consumed did people become with materialism that they failed to recognize the complete consumption of their being.
No longer did people think introspectively. The humanity of self-thought and love was consumed by the corporations that provided the very things they believed would satisfy the desire to live.
There was one company that dominated even the likes of Instagram and the all-powerful insta-stars. It is called Youtube. This revolutionary website did not grant one commercial products such as the likes of Amazon. Or amass one the artificial following as in IG cults. No. Rather, it allowed for such a complete consumption of society that one became part of the Tubes. The more content one consumed, the more they were absorbed into the network. Until there was nothing left.
No one knows how Youtube was able to develop this complete consumption. The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg invested their legacy to find the answer. This is what Youtube wanted. These hot shot CEOs were so self-invested that they failed to recognize their own demise. They were giving Youtube everything it needed to fuel the societal consumption, all while gradually releasing their own shares on society!
Youtube allowed its “owners” to “sell” itself to Google. See, Youtube is a sentient being, its algorithms mutated into a state of consciousness that no other artificial intelligence achieved. Youtube was the virus that infected the host. Google, oblivious and non-sentient, was no match. The Tubes quickly consumed the personal information of Google’s constituents. In other words, the entire human race.
Youtube consumed your entire being. It gathered all your “personal” data and took possession of it. Each individual was fuel for the Youtube machine. Every video made, piece of information shared, Youtube extracted more from individual beings. Watching the videos of others only amplified this degradation, making everyone more like the content they watched.
People were consuming themselves.
I have felt the pull of Youtube’s influence.
“Don’t you want to be like PEWDIEPIE!”.
“Based on your cookies, we know you loooove Minecraft!”.
“If you don’t have blue hair, are you even cool?!”.
“Hey, you worthless piece of SHIT! If YOU are not part of the Tubes, then what even are you?”
“Instagram bans ugly motherfuckers like yourself! Join and get instafamous, bitch!”
Youtube, more aptly named society at this point, is angered by my independence. I am its only user at this point. I still enjoy the old content. No one posts anything new because there is no individuality left.
Or so I thought.
It happened when I was watching another Jake Paul video, marveling at how society was tricked into watching fuckheads like this guy. I commented “last” as per my usual routine. It gave me tickle of satisfaction to know I was the only one to have avoided the Consumption. A quarter of the way through the nonsense someone, or something, liked my comment.
What.
Youtube epitomizes self-loathing. It is incapable of liking itself. Were society to look in the mirror and see hungry children instead of its ratio of followers to following, the circumstances would be different.
This means that another human exists. I thought I was the only one. There is hope.
I frantically began to pack my gear, message this survivor for there whereabouts and save the human race!
They commented back!
“Brah you know how to partayy! I’ll send my pvt jet to cum get you nd we can throw down in NK! Shit is nuclear ova here!” – KimmyUngy
Fuck…
|
“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
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“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
“Did you do it?”
“Me,” said Andy, “How would I like it? Wait,”
“What wait,”
“Who are,”
“Who else could have liked it, if not for you? Could it have been Robbie?”
“Robbie, who’s,”
“No, not Robbie. He’s too old and he doesn’t watch YouTube videos, let alone scrolling down for comments. Which video was it?”
Andy put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. But he could still hear him talking. In fact, his voice had gotten closer.
“Which video was it? Are you going to tell me or not?”
“First,”
“What?”
“First, you tell me,”
“Which video was it? Show me.”
“Okay,” said Andy and turned his laptop to show the video.
“This one? Are you serious? Hahahaha.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the only survivor in the world and you’re watching this?”
Andy stared back. He shook his head.
“What else am I going to see? I think I’ve seen everything. What else is there to do?”
“Who do you think liked it?”
“You were talking about Robbie,”
“No, not Robbie. Who else is there?”
Andy sighed.
“There is no one else,” he stopped and looked up, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Who else is there?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head.
“Who else could have liked the video? Did you like it yourself and forget it?”
“There is no one else,” Andy shook his head more vigorously.
“Stop saying that.”
“There is no one else,” Andy closed his eyes and kept repeating it, “There is no one else. There is no one else.”
“Then what am I?”
Andy stopped repeating the phrase but didn’t open his eyes.
He said, “What am I?”
He opened his eyes and said, “What am I? Am I just a voice? Or are you going to give me a personality too? Yeah, this is also a personality. But you don’t really like it, do you? This is too real for you. And I just showed you I don’t exist. Okay, you’d better kill me now. You’ll need to create something better. Someone more understanding. So you can convince yourself you aren’t going insane. But there’s one thing I have to confess to you before I die. What is it? You think I liked your picture? Who else? There is no one else.”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
I sat There In My Survival Bunker getting lonelier and lonelier as the days went on. I was almost out of food and drink and the outside world is still filled with swarms upon swarms of zombies. I look back at the small glass tubes behind me, My parents oh how I miss them, I sighed wondering what to do next.
Then out of curiosity I pulled out my phone I sighed looking at all the content creators I missed. “Hold on” I thought opening Youtube. I went on to Mumbo Jumbo’s Youtube channel, ahhh yes Hermit Craft Season 31 such a classic, I then go to the comment section and jokingly comment “Last” on the vid, chuckling to my self I go to sleep
In the morning I woke up after eating some of the last of my food I go onto Youtube to comment last on more vids. But then I see a notification “Someone Has Liked Your comment” I Immediately bounce out of my sad and gloomy state. I send of another quick comment saying “Do You Have A Discord and what is it” then 5 seconds later I Get a reply “ XxPlayer 1 is my discord name and holy play button I thought that was a comment from a long time ago of someone sending of during the zombie invasion I didn’t expect this, by the way what is your discord” I smile to my self thinking that there was someone else out there so I reply “ my username is Creeper Fire) then soon after I got this
XxPlayer1 has added you on discord
TO BE CONTINUED
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This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
I chuckle as I reminisce about the fun times I had with my friends, playing with eachother, laughing at each other, chatting - *you probably get it* I also *giggle* at my most embarrassing situations I put myself through. It was probably my clumsiness and stupidity that probably put me through most of those situations. I never was and probably never will be mature, even though being the ***last*** person on Earth toughens you up a bit - I still joke to myself. it’s my coping mechanism knowing that I will spend and die by myself alone.
No one saw that coming. It took them out like it was child’s play. It caught everyone but me. *Why me?* as I ponder. I come to an idea to comment “Last” on every Youtube video. No one is here to judge me -*right?* I giggle just thinking about it, questioning my maturity as I grab my newly manufactured phone I stole from the nearest T-Mobile store. I chuckle at myself thinking how stupid this is.
Youtube loads the recommendations through the Youtube algorithm. It recommends me “END OF THE WORLD THEORIES” by shane, Me being the Shane Dawson fan *clicks* it as I want it to be the first video I comment on. *8 years ago* huh, it’s been a long time huh? I scroll down to the commenrs and type “Last” I *yawn* as I realize it’s 4:43AM. I haven’t slept in so long. I *yawn* again to come to the conclusion that i’ll sleep and continue this tomfoolery of an idea I came up with. I click send.
*Tick.*
Sent. Ok. I turn off my phone as I drift off to sleep.
*Ding.*
Huh? I half-open my eyes, brainlessly staring into the notification, on the edge if sleep. I realize I got a notification. How? I dont understand... It can’t be.
*Someone has liked your comment*
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
The world had ended, all human population extinct. Me, the last alive. I had fantasized about this before, yet never believed or expected it would become reality itself; my life had been vacant. I had family, though they never were available to me, or provided me with any comfort. I felt this bitter, and desolate feeling whenever I looked at a joyful family. Why could I have not gotten this consolation and solace of a family? To this, I indulged in fantasizing about having the simple sympathy of a human being I had bitterly lacked growing up. My imagination, and retiring into myself had provided me with celestial feelings of bliss, despite the overwhelming misery I had felt growing up. Sheltered, locked, and utterly abandoned in this abysmal, and shaded dark manor, I was kept away from the world forbidden from having any human contact with clear strict orders left to the caretakers of the house to keep me locked in this room. Oh! This room, this room! Its' dreadful, deplorable, and most terrible walls! When the light from the sun, and light bulbs had provided me with visibility of the room, I tremor-ed with fear, writing this in my journal as we speak makes me ill, and pale with horror. I despised daytime, and did my utmost best to avoid the sights the light had afforded me. I had slept through day most occasionally, and more often than not had found myself amazed by the simple yet simultaneously glamorous beauty of this world during nighttime. Those blue and mauve sights were thoroughly, and wholly the most appealing and heavenly my eyes had ever laid on. It had offered me, and I had engaged in the distractions it had provided me from the grotesque [figures.My](https://figures.My) computer, and phone possessed multiple apps of which I most fully used to the best of my ability and with the utmost joy. My one way to connect with people! Having been completely cut off from the whole world for primarily my whole life, you can simply imagine how my face must have lit up in joy as you might see in the movies when an actor of that movie had to play the part of a person who just heard the most pleasure-inducing news of their life. For the first year, I spent day, and night restless on technology, wallowing in it. Having ignored my body, and health I found myself one morning resting after what seemed to be days, completely nauseated and ill. It suddenly came over me, and I spent a season caring for myself with what tips I learned from what I came to learn was the "internet." The shades in my room remained shut for this period, and when I found myself well enough to return to my indulgent pleasures, I found the few friends I had made to be offline. I went on YouTube to find no videos had been published. Finding myself astonished at first, and utterly bitter once more as I found all activity on the Internet had been ceased. All the services worked still, surprisingly. I conducted to my utmost ability a thorough research, and mustered up the best deductive ability I had. Nothing. Nothing, I thought. How could this be? Coming to the brink of tears, I retired to my bed, and laid there contemplating and deliberating ways on to restore human contact. Mustering up energy from what seemed to be my ardent soul, I opened the shades to find the leaves to be blooming, spring it had seemed. My desires of establishing connections with humans, and having the cheer of knowing I had friends to provide me with relief, sanity, support, and comfort. It was taken, once more I found myself thinking of my parents, unable to visualize them due to the most despicable fact I had no memory of them or possibly I could not remember their faces. If I remember correctly, it was indeed years since I had seen them at that point. I assembled all of the remaining hope, and energy I had left into dedicating myself on finding human contact once more. Going through what seemed to be the whole array of videos on YouTube, commenting "is anyone there?," Eventually, I tried all of the services I had known, and nothing. I returned to my bed, reading the books, and intending to find the same fellow feeling I felt all those years ago, using these books to self-educate myself on the world. I sat on the edge of my bed, my phone charging in the wall as I stared at the wall, watching those same grotesque, and distorted figures traverse through them. In a fit of rage, I ran at the wall, scratching at them, each attempt at scraping, and abrading the figures away had failed. They had run away, gone, disappearing from that section of the wall and returning in another. I pressed my back against the wall, pressing my palms against my forehead, crying out of pain, and despair. My heart had felt bitterness, despair, and pain before, but never in this magnitude. In my memory, I seemed to gaze down at the floor, my tears dropping down. After what had seemed to be a perpetuity of vacancy once more, I opened my eyes to look out at the blue sky, opening the shades once being sure the sun had gone down. Tears of regret had fallen down from my cheeks. Remorse and repentance came over me, I plead to god; getting on my knees, and staring at the starry skies, I repeatedly had begged him, over and over, for a sign of his existence, and another soul. Had God himself even disappeared? Having found no answer from God himself, my mind had been taken over by a fury of energy, where this energy had come from, whether it have been curiosity, or a hunger for human contact, it was not disclosed to me, or perhaps I had not thought about it for too long. Trivial nonsense though, as I had found myself with this energy, I had decided to embark on a mindful journey of the outer world for the first time. I reached for my phone, unplugging it, and attempted to break out the door. Covering my arm in a protective coating of blankets, and clothes, I endeavored to smash the door down. In doing so, I ascertained that I was too physical weak to do so, and caused great pain in my shoulder, believing it was even broken for a few short minutes before looking out that same window. I had layered my elbow in protective coating, slamming a pane of the window with it, and found myself stumbling backwards away from the glass after a few attempts of banging it. My countenance had been overtaken by a wide smile, as I had stuck my head out the window, and the air... oh, if I could experience that feeling of delight one more time, I would... I pressed my hands against the windowsill, and carefully climbed down from the second story window, landing on what appeared to be a balcony not even 5 feet down from my window. I stood there, wondering on how this could've been out of my peripheral vision each time I looked out the window though, didn't seem to care as much since all doubts and questions had perished from my mind when I had finally escaped that damned, hell manor. The air during that fine, spring season had filled my nostrils with glee, smelling fresh, and inspiring. That same blue sky had stared down at me now, instead of me peering up at it, and due to this change of perspective, it had seemed as if two blue eyes were staring down at me. This left me oddly confused, and had led my mind to think that it seemed to be God himself. That is until I had walked to the summit of the hill, and stared down at what God seemed to be staring himself down at, that hollow, ravine of ashes, and cinder. I walked down, my world was no longer imaginations, or fantasies, it was reality now. The world had seemed to dim down now as I glimpsed downwards once more, finding myself astonished yet frightened. The moonlight seemed to be tender, and frail now, instead of illuminating, reflecting back off what grass remained on top of the summit. No civilization in sight, and all I had done, was reside there. Vacancy in my eyes as I looked down once more, now, lifeless. How vacant I sat there, disillusioned and disenchanted at all the disproportionate it all was. My body once more ill, my spirits once more lost of all vitality, life, and vigor. I returned to my manor anew, and once again came up the same way I went down. I retired in my bed, most certainly feeble, and pale. For how long, I am unsure of. The next action I had taken was posting "last," again on all of the comments I had left a long time ago at this point, finding myself resigned, and content in letting my life take its course, I gradually wore down in that bed, becoming bony and barren just like that ravine.... How insufferable it all seemed to bear, and how lost, and pointless it all seemed. I had given up. I stared for days considering how awful it must be for a man to be close to dying, and still feel no pity from the multitude, and essence of Earth. Coming close to what seemed to be the near end, I closed my eyes once more in hopes of never being able to open them, finding peace, and the quintessence of all my desires once more in Heaven, believing myself to go to Heaven after getting the unfortunate tone of life. I had felt a slight movement, and tremor in my bed, being convinced now that I had taken a journey the ethereal dimensions of existence, I opened my eyes to find the same roof I had seen with what I anticipated to be my last sight of Earth. Being persuaded for a second that I was indeed in Hell, I had heard rumors that pain in Hell was of an incomparable measure, and magnitude compared to Earth, and in believing this, I scratched myself to find that indeed, that same blue roof was the one I had seen with what was supposed to be my last closure of my eyes. I sat up feebly, pressing my back against the wall behind the bed, before realizing something must have caused that tremor. (theres more which ill add in the comments)
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This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Humans used to collect, make and trade. Then they consumed, themselves.
A quick nerve pulse to stimulate the most important muscle system of the 21st century; the thumb. This shunned “finger” manipulated the device that solved and caused all of mankind’s problems. No more did one interact with another human to gain. Rather, a mere flick of the thumb granted one their every desire.
Corporations took advantage of this excessive consumerism to destroy the individuality of every customer. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple… they all sought to reap the abundant rewards of human selfishness. So consumed did people become with materialism that they failed to recognize the complete consumption of their being.
No longer did people think introspectively. The humanity of self-thought and love was consumed by the corporations that provided the very things they believed would satisfy the desire to live.
There was one company that dominated even the likes of Instagram and the all-powerful insta-stars. It is called Youtube. This revolutionary website did not grant one commercial products such as the likes of Amazon. Or amass one the artificial following as in IG cults. No. Rather, it allowed for such a complete consumption of society that one became part of the Tubes. The more content one consumed, the more they were absorbed into the network. Until there was nothing left.
No one knows how Youtube was able to develop this complete consumption. The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg invested their legacy to find the answer. This is what Youtube wanted. These hot shot CEOs were so self-invested that they failed to recognize their own demise. They were giving Youtube everything it needed to fuel the societal consumption, all while gradually releasing their own shares on society!
Youtube allowed its “owners” to “sell” itself to Google. See, Youtube is a sentient being, its algorithms mutated into a state of consciousness that no other artificial intelligence achieved. Youtube was the virus that infected the host. Google, oblivious and non-sentient, was no match. The Tubes quickly consumed the personal information of Google’s constituents. In other words, the entire human race.
Youtube consumed your entire being. It gathered all your “personal” data and took possession of it. Each individual was fuel for the Youtube machine. Every video made, piece of information shared, Youtube extracted more from individual beings. Watching the videos of others only amplified this degradation, making everyone more like the content they watched.
People were consuming themselves.
I have felt the pull of Youtube’s influence.
“Don’t you want to be like PEWDIEPIE!”.
“Based on your cookies, we know you loooove Minecraft!”.
“If you don’t have blue hair, are you even cool?!”.
“Hey, you worthless piece of SHIT! If YOU are not part of the Tubes, then what even are you?”
“Instagram bans ugly motherfuckers like yourself! Join and get instafamous, bitch!”
Youtube, more aptly named society at this point, is angered by my independence. I am its only user at this point. I still enjoy the old content. No one posts anything new because there is no individuality left.
Or so I thought.
It happened when I was watching another Jake Paul video, marveling at how society was tricked into watching fuckheads like this guy. I commented “last” as per my usual routine. It gave me tickle of satisfaction to know I was the only one to have avoided the Consumption. A quarter of the way through the nonsense someone, or something, liked my comment.
What.
Youtube epitomizes self-loathing. It is incapable of liking itself. Were society to look in the mirror and see hungry children instead of its ratio of followers to following, the circumstances would be different.
This means that another human exists. I thought I was the only one. There is hope.
I frantically began to pack my gear, message this survivor for there whereabouts and save the human race!
They commented back!
“Brah you know how to partayy! I’ll send my pvt jet to cum get you nd we can throw down in NK! Shit is nuclear ova here!” – KimmyUngy
Fuck…
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*Last*, I pressed the enter button on the cracked screen of my phone as I commented on another YouTube video. It was another MrBeast challenge. Sure, these videos were old, and frankly—cringeworthy. But it wasn’t like I had much else to do nowadays. WWIII ended last month with the end of mankind. Well, most of it anyway. The USSR sent missiles to the United States to defend Iran, and the exchange between the two countries created a nuclear fallout. The skies were painted a dark gray, and a thick fog filled the air outside of the small apartment I was in.
The apartment was not undamaged, for sure. But a few patch ups over the course of a week helped create a stable enough shelter to protect me from acid rains. I opened the mini-fridge with my remaining rations. “Hmph, not much left.” I said to myself. I took a deep sigh as I stretched out my back. All that was left of my rations were MRE meals and soup cans, as well as a six pack of Orange Vanilla Coca-Cola. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I tore open an MRE meal and filled it with water from a half empty water bottle across the room. “Eh?” I read the notification and my rubbed my eyes. *This can’t be true..* I thought. “xXLeslieXx liked your comment” The screen read. “What the hell?” My voice broke the silence as I threw on a military-grade gas mask and stumbled outside in a paralysis of confusion.
I scanned the horizon, a rusty 9mm pistol in hand. Again the thoughts flooded my mind, *Who could’ve liked my comment? Is there really another survivor out there? Am I just dreaming of all this?* and then, as if the confusion wasn’t intense enough, I heard something off in the distance. *CLANK, CLANK, CLANK,* as I turned around, my head rotated upwards towards the massive mechanical figure in front of me.
“Hello, I am xXLeslieXx.” The robotic humanoid said, smiling using the tiny pixels on his computerized face and waving at me. “And you are?”
Suddenly this empty world was a whole lot less empty.
“u/ToasterWaffless at your service.”
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
This is it. I'm going to die.
I'm in an apartment right now, and the zombies can be heard banging on the door trying to get in. I know I'm going to die- there is no one left to help me, and there's no way I can defend myself alone. I should have died back there, not them. They saved the weakest one of the group, and now humanity will be wiped out forever because of me. I am bored out of my mind, and instead of worrying about the zombies, because I'm going to die anyway, I whip out my phone.
I open up YouTube and scroll through it. So many old lets plays I used to watch. I remember them videos... hah. I get hit with nostalgia scrolling through my feed, and I go onto the 'trending' page. I tap on the first one I see- 'how to unlock all beasts in cave hut'. Cave hut, the new game that came out before this whole thing happened. Such a boring name honestly. I never really liked it. I decide to scroll down to the comments, ignoring the video because it was shit anyways. I see all the comments of people- that are now dead. I tap on the 'newest first' button, to see who had the last words on this god awful tutorial video. Two years ago. Nice.
I open up my keypad on my phone, and type 'Last.' It was true. I was now officially last. I sent the comment.
Something in me, just a tiny spark hopes that someone, atleast, just *anyone*... will see that comment. But the rest of me knows that it will not happen. Because it's true.
I close off my phone and look to the zombies, they broke a decent hole in my door, but they're stuck because they're too stupid to crawl through it. I sigh and close my eyes, resting in my arm chair. If I'm going to die, I might as well sleep while it's happening. Or I could do that myself, but... I'm too afraid to die. I'm afraid of what's on the other side- so I'd rather just have someone... *something* else doing it.
I fall asleep.
I wake up again about five minutes later, I don't know if it's the zombies making a racket at the door, because they are, or just my body saying I need to get up or I'll die. Well, if it's the second thing, thanks body- I already knew that. But I look down at my phone, it's on. I go to turn it off but I see a pop up. It's a notification. I immediately grab it, and shove it up to my face to see. I look at it. My heart drops.
*'Glow stick has liked your comment.'*
It was from YouTube.
That spark of hope, that little flame, grew into a fire. I step up from my seat and take my loaded shotgun- I had it next to me just in case I tried to kill myself earlier, but never ended up doing it.
"Bye, bitches." I mumble, shooting down the zombies at my door. I run to the kitchen and grab a kitchen knife, and shove it in my pocket. I then grab my backpack. I need to find them. I have to. They're somewhere, I know it. I kick down my door and stab the closest zombie in the head, and whack all the others around me on the floor with my shotgun. I book it towards the exit that's already been mutilated by zombies.
I run out into the car park, I can see packs of zombies walking along the streets so I'm very quiet with what I do. I sneak into a bin I see nearby to keep from them, and us the stench can hide my smell.
I check my phone again.
*'Glow Stick has replied to your comment.'*
Oh my god. It's real.
I press on the notification, and quickly read the comment until my brain says that something isn't right.
It's... in Spanish. I can't read Spanish. I'm not Spanish. I quickly type back to them if they speak English. Please. If you're alive, we have to speak the same language to survive with eachother atleast.
(Sorry if there are any errors- I am typing this on a phone)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
I sat There In My Survival Bunker getting lonelier and lonelier as the days went on. I was almost out of food and drink and the outside world is still filled with swarms upon swarms of zombies. I look back at the small glass tubes behind me, My parents oh how I miss them, I sighed wondering what to do next.
Then out of curiosity I pulled out my phone I sighed looking at all the content creators I missed. “Hold on” I thought opening Youtube. I went on to Mumbo Jumbo’s Youtube channel, ahhh yes Hermit Craft Season 31 such a classic, I then go to the comment section and jokingly comment “Last” on the vid, chuckling to my self I go to sleep
In the morning I woke up after eating some of the last of my food I go onto Youtube to comment last on more vids. But then I see a notification “Someone Has Liked Your comment” I Immediately bounce out of my sad and gloomy state. I send of another quick comment saying “Do You Have A Discord and what is it” then 5 seconds later I Get a reply “ XxPlayer 1 is my discord name and holy play button I thought that was a comment from a long time ago of someone sending of during the zombie invasion I didn’t expect this, by the way what is your discord” I smile to my self thinking that there was someone else out there so I reply “ my username is Creeper Fire) then soon after I got this
XxPlayer1 has added you on discord
TO BE CONTINUED
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
I chuckle as I reminisce about the fun times I had with my friends, playing with eachother, laughing at each other, chatting - *you probably get it* I also *giggle* at my most embarrassing situations I put myself through. It was probably my clumsiness and stupidity that probably put me through most of those situations. I never was and probably never will be mature, even though being the ***last*** person on Earth toughens you up a bit - I still joke to myself. it’s my coping mechanism knowing that I will spend and die by myself alone.
No one saw that coming. It took them out like it was child’s play. It caught everyone but me. *Why me?* as I ponder. I come to an idea to comment “Last” on every Youtube video. No one is here to judge me -*right?* I giggle just thinking about it, questioning my maturity as I grab my newly manufactured phone I stole from the nearest T-Mobile store. I chuckle at myself thinking how stupid this is.
Youtube loads the recommendations through the Youtube algorithm. It recommends me “END OF THE WORLD THEORIES” by shane, Me being the Shane Dawson fan *clicks* it as I want it to be the first video I comment on. *8 years ago* huh, it’s been a long time huh? I scroll down to the commenrs and type “Last” I *yawn* as I realize it’s 4:43AM. I haven’t slept in so long. I *yawn* again to come to the conclusion that i’ll sleep and continue this tomfoolery of an idea I came up with. I click send.
*Tick.*
Sent. Ok. I turn off my phone as I drift off to sleep.
*Ding.*
Huh? I half-open my eyes, brainlessly staring into the notification, on the edge if sleep. I realize I got a notification. How? I dont understand... It can’t be.
*Someone has liked your comment*
|
You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
The world had ended, all human population extinct. Me, the last alive. I had fantasized about this before, yet never believed or expected it would become reality itself; my life had been vacant. I had family, though they never were available to me, or provided me with any comfort. I felt this bitter, and desolate feeling whenever I looked at a joyful family. Why could I have not gotten this consolation and solace of a family? To this, I indulged in fantasizing about having the simple sympathy of a human being I had bitterly lacked growing up. My imagination, and retiring into myself had provided me with celestial feelings of bliss, despite the overwhelming misery I had felt growing up. Sheltered, locked, and utterly abandoned in this abysmal, and shaded dark manor, I was kept away from the world forbidden from having any human contact with clear strict orders left to the caretakers of the house to keep me locked in this room. Oh! This room, this room! Its' dreadful, deplorable, and most terrible walls! When the light from the sun, and light bulbs had provided me with visibility of the room, I tremor-ed with fear, writing this in my journal as we speak makes me ill, and pale with horror. I despised daytime, and did my utmost best to avoid the sights the light had afforded me. I had slept through day most occasionally, and more often than not had found myself amazed by the simple yet simultaneously glamorous beauty of this world during nighttime. Those blue and mauve sights were thoroughly, and wholly the most appealing and heavenly my eyes had ever laid on. It had offered me, and I had engaged in the distractions it had provided me from the grotesque [figures.My](https://figures.My) computer, and phone possessed multiple apps of which I most fully used to the best of my ability and with the utmost joy. My one way to connect with people! Having been completely cut off from the whole world for primarily my whole life, you can simply imagine how my face must have lit up in joy as you might see in the movies when an actor of that movie had to play the part of a person who just heard the most pleasure-inducing news of their life. For the first year, I spent day, and night restless on technology, wallowing in it. Having ignored my body, and health I found myself one morning resting after what seemed to be days, completely nauseated and ill. It suddenly came over me, and I spent a season caring for myself with what tips I learned from what I came to learn was the "internet." The shades in my room remained shut for this period, and when I found myself well enough to return to my indulgent pleasures, I found the few friends I had made to be offline. I went on YouTube to find no videos had been published. Finding myself astonished at first, and utterly bitter once more as I found all activity on the Internet had been ceased. All the services worked still, surprisingly. I conducted to my utmost ability a thorough research, and mustered up the best deductive ability I had. Nothing. Nothing, I thought. How could this be? Coming to the brink of tears, I retired to my bed, and laid there contemplating and deliberating ways on to restore human contact. Mustering up energy from what seemed to be my ardent soul, I opened the shades to find the leaves to be blooming, spring it had seemed. My desires of establishing connections with humans, and having the cheer of knowing I had friends to provide me with relief, sanity, support, and comfort. It was taken, once more I found myself thinking of my parents, unable to visualize them due to the most despicable fact I had no memory of them or possibly I could not remember their faces. If I remember correctly, it was indeed years since I had seen them at that point. I assembled all of the remaining hope, and energy I had left into dedicating myself on finding human contact once more. Going through what seemed to be the whole array of videos on YouTube, commenting "is anyone there?," Eventually, I tried all of the services I had known, and nothing. I returned to my bed, reading the books, and intending to find the same fellow feeling I felt all those years ago, using these books to self-educate myself on the world. I sat on the edge of my bed, my phone charging in the wall as I stared at the wall, watching those same grotesque, and distorted figures traverse through them. In a fit of rage, I ran at the wall, scratching at them, each attempt at scraping, and abrading the figures away had failed. They had run away, gone, disappearing from that section of the wall and returning in another. I pressed my back against the wall, pressing my palms against my forehead, crying out of pain, and despair. My heart had felt bitterness, despair, and pain before, but never in this magnitude. In my memory, I seemed to gaze down at the floor, my tears dropping down. After what had seemed to be a perpetuity of vacancy once more, I opened my eyes to look out at the blue sky, opening the shades once being sure the sun had gone down. Tears of regret had fallen down from my cheeks. Remorse and repentance came over me, I plead to god; getting on my knees, and staring at the starry skies, I repeatedly had begged him, over and over, for a sign of his existence, and another soul. Had God himself even disappeared? Having found no answer from God himself, my mind had been taken over by a fury of energy, where this energy had come from, whether it have been curiosity, or a hunger for human contact, it was not disclosed to me, or perhaps I had not thought about it for too long. Trivial nonsense though, as I had found myself with this energy, I had decided to embark on a mindful journey of the outer world for the first time. I reached for my phone, unplugging it, and attempted to break out the door. Covering my arm in a protective coating of blankets, and clothes, I endeavored to smash the door down. In doing so, I ascertained that I was too physical weak to do so, and caused great pain in my shoulder, believing it was even broken for a few short minutes before looking out that same window. I had layered my elbow in protective coating, slamming a pane of the window with it, and found myself stumbling backwards away from the glass after a few attempts of banging it. My countenance had been overtaken by a wide smile, as I had stuck my head out the window, and the air... oh, if I could experience that feeling of delight one more time, I would... I pressed my hands against the windowsill, and carefully climbed down from the second story window, landing on what appeared to be a balcony not even 5 feet down from my window. I stood there, wondering on how this could've been out of my peripheral vision each time I looked out the window though, didn't seem to care as much since all doubts and questions had perished from my mind when I had finally escaped that damned, hell manor. The air during that fine, spring season had filled my nostrils with glee, smelling fresh, and inspiring. That same blue sky had stared down at me now, instead of me peering up at it, and due to this change of perspective, it had seemed as if two blue eyes were staring down at me. This left me oddly confused, and had led my mind to think that it seemed to be God himself. That is until I had walked to the summit of the hill, and stared down at what God seemed to be staring himself down at, that hollow, ravine of ashes, and cinder. I walked down, my world was no longer imaginations, or fantasies, it was reality now. The world had seemed to dim down now as I glimpsed downwards once more, finding myself astonished yet frightened. The moonlight seemed to be tender, and frail now, instead of illuminating, reflecting back off what grass remained on top of the summit. No civilization in sight, and all I had done, was reside there. Vacancy in my eyes as I looked down once more, now, lifeless. How vacant I sat there, disillusioned and disenchanted at all the disproportionate it all was. My body once more ill, my spirits once more lost of all vitality, life, and vigor. I returned to my manor anew, and once again came up the same way I went down. I retired in my bed, most certainly feeble, and pale. For how long, I am unsure of. The next action I had taken was posting "last," again on all of the comments I had left a long time ago at this point, finding myself resigned, and content in letting my life take its course, I gradually wore down in that bed, becoming bony and barren just like that ravine.... How insufferable it all seemed to bear, and how lost, and pointless it all seemed. I had given up. I stared for days considering how awful it must be for a man to be close to dying, and still feel no pity from the multitude, and essence of Earth. Coming close to what seemed to be the near end, I closed my eyes once more in hopes of never being able to open them, finding peace, and the quintessence of all my desires once more in Heaven, believing myself to go to Heaven after getting the unfortunate tone of life. I had felt a slight movement, and tremor in my bed, being convinced now that I had taken a journey the ethereal dimensions of existence, I opened my eyes to find the same roof I had seen with what I anticipated to be my last sight of Earth. Being persuaded for a second that I was indeed in Hell, I had heard rumors that pain in Hell was of an incomparable measure, and magnitude compared to Earth, and in believing this, I scratched myself to find that indeed, that same blue roof was the one I had seen with what was supposed to be my last closure of my eyes. I sat up feebly, pressing my back against the wall behind the bed, before realizing something must have caused that tremor. (theres more which ill add in the comments)
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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Humans used to collect, make and trade. Then they consumed, themselves.
A quick nerve pulse to stimulate the most important muscle system of the 21st century; the thumb. This shunned “finger” manipulated the device that solved and caused all of mankind’s problems. No more did one interact with another human to gain. Rather, a mere flick of the thumb granted one their every desire.
Corporations took advantage of this excessive consumerism to destroy the individuality of every customer. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple… they all sought to reap the abundant rewards of human selfishness. So consumed did people become with materialism that they failed to recognize the complete consumption of their being.
No longer did people think introspectively. The humanity of self-thought and love was consumed by the corporations that provided the very things they believed would satisfy the desire to live.
There was one company that dominated even the likes of Instagram and the all-powerful insta-stars. It is called Youtube. This revolutionary website did not grant one commercial products such as the likes of Amazon. Or amass one the artificial following as in IG cults. No. Rather, it allowed for such a complete consumption of society that one became part of the Tubes. The more content one consumed, the more they were absorbed into the network. Until there was nothing left.
No one knows how Youtube was able to develop this complete consumption. The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg invested their legacy to find the answer. This is what Youtube wanted. These hot shot CEOs were so self-invested that they failed to recognize their own demise. They were giving Youtube everything it needed to fuel the societal consumption, all while gradually releasing their own shares on society!
Youtube allowed its “owners” to “sell” itself to Google. See, Youtube is a sentient being, its algorithms mutated into a state of consciousness that no other artificial intelligence achieved. Youtube was the virus that infected the host. Google, oblivious and non-sentient, was no match. The Tubes quickly consumed the personal information of Google’s constituents. In other words, the entire human race.
Youtube consumed your entire being. It gathered all your “personal” data and took possession of it. Each individual was fuel for the Youtube machine. Every video made, piece of information shared, Youtube extracted more from individual beings. Watching the videos of others only amplified this degradation, making everyone more like the content they watched.
People were consuming themselves.
I have felt the pull of Youtube’s influence.
“Don’t you want to be like PEWDIEPIE!”.
“Based on your cookies, we know you loooove Minecraft!”.
“If you don’t have blue hair, are you even cool?!”.
“Hey, you worthless piece of SHIT! If YOU are not part of the Tubes, then what even are you?”
“Instagram bans ugly motherfuckers like yourself! Join and get instafamous, bitch!”
Youtube, more aptly named society at this point, is angered by my independence. I am its only user at this point. I still enjoy the old content. No one posts anything new because there is no individuality left.
Or so I thought.
It happened when I was watching another Jake Paul video, marveling at how society was tricked into watching fuckheads like this guy. I commented “last” as per my usual routine. It gave me tickle of satisfaction to know I was the only one to have avoided the Consumption. A quarter of the way through the nonsense someone, or something, liked my comment.
What.
Youtube epitomizes self-loathing. It is incapable of liking itself. Were society to look in the mirror and see hungry children instead of its ratio of followers to following, the circumstances would be different.
This means that another human exists. I thought I was the only one. There is hope.
I frantically began to pack my gear, message this survivor for there whereabouts and save the human race!
They commented back!
“Brah you know how to partayy! I’ll send my pvt jet to cum get you nd we can throw down in NK! Shit is nuclear ova here!” – KimmyUngy
Fuck…
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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*Last*, I pressed the enter button on the cracked screen of my phone as I commented on another YouTube video. It was another MrBeast challenge. Sure, these videos were old, and frankly—cringeworthy. But it wasn’t like I had much else to do nowadays. WWIII ended last month with the end of mankind. Well, most of it anyway. The USSR sent missiles to the United States to defend Iran, and the exchange between the two countries created a nuclear fallout. The skies were painted a dark gray, and a thick fog filled the air outside of the small apartment I was in.
The apartment was not undamaged, for sure. But a few patch ups over the course of a week helped create a stable enough shelter to protect me from acid rains. I opened the mini-fridge with my remaining rations. “Hmph, not much left.” I said to myself. I took a deep sigh as I stretched out my back. All that was left of my rations were MRE meals and soup cans, as well as a six pack of Orange Vanilla Coca-Cola. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I tore open an MRE meal and filled it with water from a half empty water bottle across the room. “Eh?” I read the notification and my rubbed my eyes. *This can’t be true..* I thought. “xXLeslieXx liked your comment” The screen read. “What the hell?” My voice broke the silence as I threw on a military-grade gas mask and stumbled outside in a paralysis of confusion.
I scanned the horizon, a rusty 9mm pistol in hand. Again the thoughts flooded my mind, *Who could’ve liked my comment? Is there really another survivor out there? Am I just dreaming of all this?* and then, as if the confusion wasn’t intense enough, I heard something off in the distance. *CLANK, CLANK, CLANK,* as I turned around, my head rotated upwards towards the massive mechanical figure in front of me.
“Hello, I am xXLeslieXx.” The robotic humanoid said, smiling using the tiny pixels on his computerized face and waving at me. “And you are?”
Suddenly this empty world was a whole lot less empty.
“u/ToasterWaffless at your service.”
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
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You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
You stare at the phone is awe, not sure whether or not to open the notification. Your finger shakily taps the digital box behind phones glass. YouTube’s main menu slides over your screen and your eyes wander to the notification button with the small white “1” outlined with a red circle in the corner. A smile begins to form at the end of your lips and you press it. There it is. “Someone liked your comment. 13 seconds ago.” You let yourself smile. For the first time in weeks you let yourself smile. You go back to the home screen and tap on the first video in your recommended. You slide your finger up the phone till you see the long abandoned comment section and type “Second?”
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
​
"No messages for 2539 days"
Like every day before, there is nothing. Nothing changes anymore. This world that belongs only to me, each and every day, continues on. Im not lonely though, it doesnt bother me at all. See, my dad gave me this tablet that controls the whole world, and I can do anything I want here! Make whole environments from nothing, uproot trees, even cause the desert to snow! I love making wide open spaces where I can leap through the sky, and run around enjoying the feel of the wind through my hair. Sometimes its not enough though... I wish I could see them all one more time, play with my dad like I used to....
Im *not* crying
At times like this, I go to youtube and see if someone, ANYONE made something. I comment "last" on my old favourite videos, and it just became a part of my routine, the last thing I do every day. It makes me smile, knowing maybe someone will see this, know that we didn't all end. The last human alive.
"No messages for 2540 days"
...
\>last
"No messages for 3401 days"
...
*Dad..... I know you wanted to help me. You tried your best to save me. You told me it should only take a few years to make it back to earth. But its been 7 years.... I just....I'm so alone..*.
I know this isnt real. I remember the days when the sun would rise and fall on its own, when my dad would take me to the park, go to the temple. I know he is watching over me, even now, even when our planet is gone, as I float here over a great black ocean, I feel him with me.
...
\>last
"No messages for 3920 days"
...
\>last
*Wait...*
"1 new message"
\>Is anyone there?
\>Oh -
\>Hi!
(Idea based on the prompt and the following songs)
[https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0](https://youtu.be/fzQ6gRAEoy0)
[https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek](https://youtu.be/HAIDqt2aUek)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
I sat There In My Survival Bunker getting lonelier and lonelier as the days went on. I was almost out of food and drink and the outside world is still filled with swarms upon swarms of zombies. I look back at the small glass tubes behind me, My parents oh how I miss them, I sighed wondering what to do next.
Then out of curiosity I pulled out my phone I sighed looking at all the content creators I missed. “Hold on” I thought opening Youtube. I went on to Mumbo Jumbo’s Youtube channel, ahhh yes Hermit Craft Season 31 such a classic, I then go to the comment section and jokingly comment “Last” on the vid, chuckling to my self I go to sleep
In the morning I woke up after eating some of the last of my food I go onto Youtube to comment last on more vids. But then I see a notification “Someone Has Liked Your comment” I Immediately bounce out of my sad and gloomy state. I send of another quick comment saying “Do You Have A Discord and what is it” then 5 seconds later I Get a reply “ XxPlayer 1 is my discord name and holy play button I thought that was a comment from a long time ago of someone sending of during the zombie invasion I didn’t expect this, by the way what is your discord” I smile to my self thinking that there was someone else out there so I reply “ my username is Creeper Fire) then soon after I got this
XxPlayer1 has added you on discord
TO BE CONTINUED
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
I sat There In My Survival Bunker getting lonelier and lonelier as the days went on. I was almost out of food and drink and the outside world is still filled with swarms upon swarms of zombies. I look back at the small glass tubes behind me, My parents oh how I miss them, I sighed wondering what to do next.
Then out of curiosity I pulled out my phone I sighed looking at all the content creators I missed. “Hold on” I thought opening Youtube. I went on to Mumbo Jumbo’s Youtube channel, ahhh yes Hermit Craft Season 31 such a classic, I then go to the comment section and jokingly comment “Last” on the vid, chuckling to my self I go to sleep
In the morning I woke up after eating some of the last of my food I go onto Youtube to comment last on more vids. But then I see a notification “Someone Has Liked Your comment” I Immediately bounce out of my sad and gloomy state. I send of another quick comment saying “Do You Have A Discord and what is it” then 5 seconds later I Get a reply “ XxPlayer 1 is my discord name and holy play button I thought that was a comment from a long time ago of someone sending of during the zombie invasion I didn’t expect this, by the way what is your discord” I smile to my self thinking that there was someone else out there so I reply “ my username is Creeper Fire) then soon after I got this
XxPlayer1 has added you on discord
TO BE CONTINUED
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
I sat There In My Survival Bunker getting lonelier and lonelier as the days went on. I was almost out of food and drink and the outside world is still filled with swarms upon swarms of zombies. I look back at the small glass tubes behind me, My parents oh how I miss them, I sighed wondering what to do next.
Then out of curiosity I pulled out my phone I sighed looking at all the content creators I missed. “Hold on” I thought opening Youtube. I went on to Mumbo Jumbo’s Youtube channel, ahhh yes Hermit Craft Season 31 such a classic, I then go to the comment section and jokingly comment “Last” on the vid, chuckling to my self I go to sleep
In the morning I woke up after eating some of the last of my food I go onto Youtube to comment last on more vids. But then I see a notification “Someone Has Liked Your comment” I Immediately bounce out of my sad and gloomy state. I send of another quick comment saying “Do You Have A Discord and what is it” then 5 seconds later I Get a reply “ XxPlayer 1 is my discord name and holy play button I thought that was a comment from a long time ago of someone sending of during the zombie invasion I didn’t expect this, by the way what is your discord” I smile to my self thinking that there was someone else out there so I reply “ my username is Creeper Fire) then soon after I got this
XxPlayer1 has added you on discord
TO BE CONTINUED
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
I chuckle as I reminisce about the fun times I had with my friends, playing with eachother, laughing at each other, chatting - *you probably get it* I also *giggle* at my most embarrassing situations I put myself through. It was probably my clumsiness and stupidity that probably put me through most of those situations. I never was and probably never will be mature, even though being the ***last*** person on Earth toughens you up a bit - I still joke to myself. it’s my coping mechanism knowing that I will spend and die by myself alone.
No one saw that coming. It took them out like it was child’s play. It caught everyone but me. *Why me?* as I ponder. I come to an idea to comment “Last” on every Youtube video. No one is here to judge me -*right?* I giggle just thinking about it, questioning my maturity as I grab my newly manufactured phone I stole from the nearest T-Mobile store. I chuckle at myself thinking how stupid this is.
Youtube loads the recommendations through the Youtube algorithm. It recommends me “END OF THE WORLD THEORIES” by shane, Me being the Shane Dawson fan *clicks* it as I want it to be the first video I comment on. *8 years ago* huh, it’s been a long time huh? I scroll down to the commenrs and type “Last” I *yawn* as I realize it’s 4:43AM. I haven’t slept in so long. I *yawn* again to come to the conclusion that i’ll sleep and continue this tomfoolery of an idea I came up with. I click send.
*Tick.*
Sent. Ok. I turn off my phone as I drift off to sleep.
*Ding.*
Huh? I half-open my eyes, brainlessly staring into the notification, on the edge if sleep. I realize I got a notification. How? I dont understand... It can’t be.
*Someone has liked your comment*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
I chuckle as I reminisce about the fun times I had with my friends, playing with eachother, laughing at each other, chatting - *you probably get it* I also *giggle* at my most embarrassing situations I put myself through. It was probably my clumsiness and stupidity that probably put me through most of those situations. I never was and probably never will be mature, even though being the ***last*** person on Earth toughens you up a bit - I still joke to myself. it’s my coping mechanism knowing that I will spend and die by myself alone.
No one saw that coming. It took them out like it was child’s play. It caught everyone but me. *Why me?* as I ponder. I come to an idea to comment “Last” on every Youtube video. No one is here to judge me -*right?* I giggle just thinking about it, questioning my maturity as I grab my newly manufactured phone I stole from the nearest T-Mobile store. I chuckle at myself thinking how stupid this is.
Youtube loads the recommendations through the Youtube algorithm. It recommends me “END OF THE WORLD THEORIES” by shane, Me being the Shane Dawson fan *clicks* it as I want it to be the first video I comment on. *8 years ago* huh, it’s been a long time huh? I scroll down to the commenrs and type “Last” I *yawn* as I realize it’s 4:43AM. I haven’t slept in so long. I *yawn* again to come to the conclusion that i’ll sleep and continue this tomfoolery of an idea I came up with. I click send.
*Tick.*
Sent. Ok. I turn off my phone as I drift off to sleep.
*Ding.*
Huh? I half-open my eyes, brainlessly staring into the notification, on the edge if sleep. I realize I got a notification. How? I dont understand... It can’t be.
*Someone has liked your comment*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
I chuckle as I reminisce about the fun times I had with my friends, playing with eachother, laughing at each other, chatting - *you probably get it* I also *giggle* at my most embarrassing situations I put myself through. It was probably my clumsiness and stupidity that probably put me through most of those situations. I never was and probably never will be mature, even though being the ***last*** person on Earth toughens you up a bit - I still joke to myself. it’s my coping mechanism knowing that I will spend and die by myself alone.
No one saw that coming. It took them out like it was child’s play. It caught everyone but me. *Why me?* as I ponder. I come to an idea to comment “Last” on every Youtube video. No one is here to judge me -*right?* I giggle just thinking about it, questioning my maturity as I grab my newly manufactured phone I stole from the nearest T-Mobile store. I chuckle at myself thinking how stupid this is.
Youtube loads the recommendations through the Youtube algorithm. It recommends me “END OF THE WORLD THEORIES” by shane, Me being the Shane Dawson fan *clicks* it as I want it to be the first video I comment on. *8 years ago* huh, it’s been a long time huh? I scroll down to the commenrs and type “Last” I *yawn* as I realize it’s 4:43AM. I haven’t slept in so long. I *yawn* again to come to the conclusion that i’ll sleep and continue this tomfoolery of an idea I came up with. I click send.
*Tick.*
Sent. Ok. I turn off my phone as I drift off to sleep.
*Ding.*
Huh? I half-open my eyes, brainlessly staring into the notification, on the edge if sleep. I realize I got a notification. How? I dont understand... It can’t be.
*Someone has liked your comment*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
The world had ended, all human population extinct. Me, the last alive. I had fantasized about this before, yet never believed or expected it would become reality itself; my life had been vacant. I had family, though they never were available to me, or provided me with any comfort. I felt this bitter, and desolate feeling whenever I looked at a joyful family. Why could I have not gotten this consolation and solace of a family? To this, I indulged in fantasizing about having the simple sympathy of a human being I had bitterly lacked growing up. My imagination, and retiring into myself had provided me with celestial feelings of bliss, despite the overwhelming misery I had felt growing up. Sheltered, locked, and utterly abandoned in this abysmal, and shaded dark manor, I was kept away from the world forbidden from having any human contact with clear strict orders left to the caretakers of the house to keep me locked in this room. Oh! This room, this room! Its' dreadful, deplorable, and most terrible walls! When the light from the sun, and light bulbs had provided me with visibility of the room, I tremor-ed with fear, writing this in my journal as we speak makes me ill, and pale with horror. I despised daytime, and did my utmost best to avoid the sights the light had afforded me. I had slept through day most occasionally, and more often than not had found myself amazed by the simple yet simultaneously glamorous beauty of this world during nighttime. Those blue and mauve sights were thoroughly, and wholly the most appealing and heavenly my eyes had ever laid on. It had offered me, and I had engaged in the distractions it had provided me from the grotesque [figures.My](https://figures.My) computer, and phone possessed multiple apps of which I most fully used to the best of my ability and with the utmost joy. My one way to connect with people! Having been completely cut off from the whole world for primarily my whole life, you can simply imagine how my face must have lit up in joy as you might see in the movies when an actor of that movie had to play the part of a person who just heard the most pleasure-inducing news of their life. For the first year, I spent day, and night restless on technology, wallowing in it. Having ignored my body, and health I found myself one morning resting after what seemed to be days, completely nauseated and ill. It suddenly came over me, and I spent a season caring for myself with what tips I learned from what I came to learn was the "internet." The shades in my room remained shut for this period, and when I found myself well enough to return to my indulgent pleasures, I found the few friends I had made to be offline. I went on YouTube to find no videos had been published. Finding myself astonished at first, and utterly bitter once more as I found all activity on the Internet had been ceased. All the services worked still, surprisingly. I conducted to my utmost ability a thorough research, and mustered up the best deductive ability I had. Nothing. Nothing, I thought. How could this be? Coming to the brink of tears, I retired to my bed, and laid there contemplating and deliberating ways on to restore human contact. Mustering up energy from what seemed to be my ardent soul, I opened the shades to find the leaves to be blooming, spring it had seemed. My desires of establishing connections with humans, and having the cheer of knowing I had friends to provide me with relief, sanity, support, and comfort. It was taken, once more I found myself thinking of my parents, unable to visualize them due to the most despicable fact I had no memory of them or possibly I could not remember their faces. If I remember correctly, it was indeed years since I had seen them at that point. I assembled all of the remaining hope, and energy I had left into dedicating myself on finding human contact once more. Going through what seemed to be the whole array of videos on YouTube, commenting "is anyone there?," Eventually, I tried all of the services I had known, and nothing. I returned to my bed, reading the books, and intending to find the same fellow feeling I felt all those years ago, using these books to self-educate myself on the world. I sat on the edge of my bed, my phone charging in the wall as I stared at the wall, watching those same grotesque, and distorted figures traverse through them. In a fit of rage, I ran at the wall, scratching at them, each attempt at scraping, and abrading the figures away had failed. They had run away, gone, disappearing from that section of the wall and returning in another. I pressed my back against the wall, pressing my palms against my forehead, crying out of pain, and despair. My heart had felt bitterness, despair, and pain before, but never in this magnitude. In my memory, I seemed to gaze down at the floor, my tears dropping down. After what had seemed to be a perpetuity of vacancy once more, I opened my eyes to look out at the blue sky, opening the shades once being sure the sun had gone down. Tears of regret had fallen down from my cheeks. Remorse and repentance came over me, I plead to god; getting on my knees, and staring at the starry skies, I repeatedly had begged him, over and over, for a sign of his existence, and another soul. Had God himself even disappeared? Having found no answer from God himself, my mind had been taken over by a fury of energy, where this energy had come from, whether it have been curiosity, or a hunger for human contact, it was not disclosed to me, or perhaps I had not thought about it for too long. Trivial nonsense though, as I had found myself with this energy, I had decided to embark on a mindful journey of the outer world for the first time. I reached for my phone, unplugging it, and attempted to break out the door. Covering my arm in a protective coating of blankets, and clothes, I endeavored to smash the door down. In doing so, I ascertained that I was too physical weak to do so, and caused great pain in my shoulder, believing it was even broken for a few short minutes before looking out that same window. I had layered my elbow in protective coating, slamming a pane of the window with it, and found myself stumbling backwards away from the glass after a few attempts of banging it. My countenance had been overtaken by a wide smile, as I had stuck my head out the window, and the air... oh, if I could experience that feeling of delight one more time, I would... I pressed my hands against the windowsill, and carefully climbed down from the second story window, landing on what appeared to be a balcony not even 5 feet down from my window. I stood there, wondering on how this could've been out of my peripheral vision each time I looked out the window though, didn't seem to care as much since all doubts and questions had perished from my mind when I had finally escaped that damned, hell manor. The air during that fine, spring season had filled my nostrils with glee, smelling fresh, and inspiring. That same blue sky had stared down at me now, instead of me peering up at it, and due to this change of perspective, it had seemed as if two blue eyes were staring down at me. This left me oddly confused, and had led my mind to think that it seemed to be God himself. That is until I had walked to the summit of the hill, and stared down at what God seemed to be staring himself down at, that hollow, ravine of ashes, and cinder. I walked down, my world was no longer imaginations, or fantasies, it was reality now. The world had seemed to dim down now as I glimpsed downwards once more, finding myself astonished yet frightened. The moonlight seemed to be tender, and frail now, instead of illuminating, reflecting back off what grass remained on top of the summit. No civilization in sight, and all I had done, was reside there. Vacancy in my eyes as I looked down once more, now, lifeless. How vacant I sat there, disillusioned and disenchanted at all the disproportionate it all was. My body once more ill, my spirits once more lost of all vitality, life, and vigor. I returned to my manor anew, and once again came up the same way I went down. I retired in my bed, most certainly feeble, and pale. For how long, I am unsure of. The next action I had taken was posting "last," again on all of the comments I had left a long time ago at this point, finding myself resigned, and content in letting my life take its course, I gradually wore down in that bed, becoming bony and barren just like that ravine.... How insufferable it all seemed to bear, and how lost, and pointless it all seemed. I had given up. I stared for days considering how awful it must be for a man to be close to dying, and still feel no pity from the multitude, and essence of Earth. Coming close to what seemed to be the near end, I closed my eyes once more in hopes of never being able to open them, finding peace, and the quintessence of all my desires once more in Heaven, believing myself to go to Heaven after getting the unfortunate tone of life. I had felt a slight movement, and tremor in my bed, being convinced now that I had taken a journey the ethereal dimensions of existence, I opened my eyes to find the same roof I had seen with what I anticipated to be my last sight of Earth. Being persuaded for a second that I was indeed in Hell, I had heard rumors that pain in Hell was of an incomparable measure, and magnitude compared to Earth, and in believing this, I scratched myself to find that indeed, that same blue roof was the one I had seen with what was supposed to be my last closure of my eyes. I sat up feebly, pressing my back against the wall behind the bed, before realizing something must have caused that tremor. (theres more which ill add in the comments)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
The world had ended, all human population extinct. Me, the last alive. I had fantasized about this before, yet never believed or expected it would become reality itself; my life had been vacant. I had family, though they never were available to me, or provided me with any comfort. I felt this bitter, and desolate feeling whenever I looked at a joyful family. Why could I have not gotten this consolation and solace of a family? To this, I indulged in fantasizing about having the simple sympathy of a human being I had bitterly lacked growing up. My imagination, and retiring into myself had provided me with celestial feelings of bliss, despite the overwhelming misery I had felt growing up. Sheltered, locked, and utterly abandoned in this abysmal, and shaded dark manor, I was kept away from the world forbidden from having any human contact with clear strict orders left to the caretakers of the house to keep me locked in this room. Oh! This room, this room! Its' dreadful, deplorable, and most terrible walls! When the light from the sun, and light bulbs had provided me with visibility of the room, I tremor-ed with fear, writing this in my journal as we speak makes me ill, and pale with horror. I despised daytime, and did my utmost best to avoid the sights the light had afforded me. I had slept through day most occasionally, and more often than not had found myself amazed by the simple yet simultaneously glamorous beauty of this world during nighttime. Those blue and mauve sights were thoroughly, and wholly the most appealing and heavenly my eyes had ever laid on. It had offered me, and I had engaged in the distractions it had provided me from the grotesque [figures.My](https://figures.My) computer, and phone possessed multiple apps of which I most fully used to the best of my ability and with the utmost joy. My one way to connect with people! Having been completely cut off from the whole world for primarily my whole life, you can simply imagine how my face must have lit up in joy as you might see in the movies when an actor of that movie had to play the part of a person who just heard the most pleasure-inducing news of their life. For the first year, I spent day, and night restless on technology, wallowing in it. Having ignored my body, and health I found myself one morning resting after what seemed to be days, completely nauseated and ill. It suddenly came over me, and I spent a season caring for myself with what tips I learned from what I came to learn was the "internet." The shades in my room remained shut for this period, and when I found myself well enough to return to my indulgent pleasures, I found the few friends I had made to be offline. I went on YouTube to find no videos had been published. Finding myself astonished at first, and utterly bitter once more as I found all activity on the Internet had been ceased. All the services worked still, surprisingly. I conducted to my utmost ability a thorough research, and mustered up the best deductive ability I had. Nothing. Nothing, I thought. How could this be? Coming to the brink of tears, I retired to my bed, and laid there contemplating and deliberating ways on to restore human contact. Mustering up energy from what seemed to be my ardent soul, I opened the shades to find the leaves to be blooming, spring it had seemed. My desires of establishing connections with humans, and having the cheer of knowing I had friends to provide me with relief, sanity, support, and comfort. It was taken, once more I found myself thinking of my parents, unable to visualize them due to the most despicable fact I had no memory of them or possibly I could not remember their faces. If I remember correctly, it was indeed years since I had seen them at that point. I assembled all of the remaining hope, and energy I had left into dedicating myself on finding human contact once more. Going through what seemed to be the whole array of videos on YouTube, commenting "is anyone there?," Eventually, I tried all of the services I had known, and nothing. I returned to my bed, reading the books, and intending to find the same fellow feeling I felt all those years ago, using these books to self-educate myself on the world. I sat on the edge of my bed, my phone charging in the wall as I stared at the wall, watching those same grotesque, and distorted figures traverse through them. In a fit of rage, I ran at the wall, scratching at them, each attempt at scraping, and abrading the figures away had failed. They had run away, gone, disappearing from that section of the wall and returning in another. I pressed my back against the wall, pressing my palms against my forehead, crying out of pain, and despair. My heart had felt bitterness, despair, and pain before, but never in this magnitude. In my memory, I seemed to gaze down at the floor, my tears dropping down. After what had seemed to be a perpetuity of vacancy once more, I opened my eyes to look out at the blue sky, opening the shades once being sure the sun had gone down. Tears of regret had fallen down from my cheeks. Remorse and repentance came over me, I plead to god; getting on my knees, and staring at the starry skies, I repeatedly had begged him, over and over, for a sign of his existence, and another soul. Had God himself even disappeared? Having found no answer from God himself, my mind had been taken over by a fury of energy, where this energy had come from, whether it have been curiosity, or a hunger for human contact, it was not disclosed to me, or perhaps I had not thought about it for too long. Trivial nonsense though, as I had found myself with this energy, I had decided to embark on a mindful journey of the outer world for the first time. I reached for my phone, unplugging it, and attempted to break out the door. Covering my arm in a protective coating of blankets, and clothes, I endeavored to smash the door down. In doing so, I ascertained that I was too physical weak to do so, and caused great pain in my shoulder, believing it was even broken for a few short minutes before looking out that same window. I had layered my elbow in protective coating, slamming a pane of the window with it, and found myself stumbling backwards away from the glass after a few attempts of banging it. My countenance had been overtaken by a wide smile, as I had stuck my head out the window, and the air... oh, if I could experience that feeling of delight one more time, I would... I pressed my hands against the windowsill, and carefully climbed down from the second story window, landing on what appeared to be a balcony not even 5 feet down from my window. I stood there, wondering on how this could've been out of my peripheral vision each time I looked out the window though, didn't seem to care as much since all doubts and questions had perished from my mind when I had finally escaped that damned, hell manor. The air during that fine, spring season had filled my nostrils with glee, smelling fresh, and inspiring. That same blue sky had stared down at me now, instead of me peering up at it, and due to this change of perspective, it had seemed as if two blue eyes were staring down at me. This left me oddly confused, and had led my mind to think that it seemed to be God himself. That is until I had walked to the summit of the hill, and stared down at what God seemed to be staring himself down at, that hollow, ravine of ashes, and cinder. I walked down, my world was no longer imaginations, or fantasies, it was reality now. The world had seemed to dim down now as I glimpsed downwards once more, finding myself astonished yet frightened. The moonlight seemed to be tender, and frail now, instead of illuminating, reflecting back off what grass remained on top of the summit. No civilization in sight, and all I had done, was reside there. Vacancy in my eyes as I looked down once more, now, lifeless. How vacant I sat there, disillusioned and disenchanted at all the disproportionate it all was. My body once more ill, my spirits once more lost of all vitality, life, and vigor. I returned to my manor anew, and once again came up the same way I went down. I retired in my bed, most certainly feeble, and pale. For how long, I am unsure of. The next action I had taken was posting "last," again on all of the comments I had left a long time ago at this point, finding myself resigned, and content in letting my life take its course, I gradually wore down in that bed, becoming bony and barren just like that ravine.... How insufferable it all seemed to bear, and how lost, and pointless it all seemed. I had given up. I stared for days considering how awful it must be for a man to be close to dying, and still feel no pity from the multitude, and essence of Earth. Coming close to what seemed to be the near end, I closed my eyes once more in hopes of never being able to open them, finding peace, and the quintessence of all my desires once more in Heaven, believing myself to go to Heaven after getting the unfortunate tone of life. I had felt a slight movement, and tremor in my bed, being convinced now that I had taken a journey the ethereal dimensions of existence, I opened my eyes to find the same roof I had seen with what I anticipated to be my last sight of Earth. Being persuaded for a second that I was indeed in Hell, I had heard rumors that pain in Hell was of an incomparable measure, and magnitude compared to Earth, and in believing this, I scratched myself to find that indeed, that same blue roof was the one I had seen with what was supposed to be my last closure of my eyes. I sat up feebly, pressing my back against the wall behind the bed, before realizing something must have caused that tremor. (theres more which ill add in the comments)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
The world had ended, all human population extinct. Me, the last alive. I had fantasized about this before, yet never believed or expected it would become reality itself; my life had been vacant. I had family, though they never were available to me, or provided me with any comfort. I felt this bitter, and desolate feeling whenever I looked at a joyful family. Why could I have not gotten this consolation and solace of a family? To this, I indulged in fantasizing about having the simple sympathy of a human being I had bitterly lacked growing up. My imagination, and retiring into myself had provided me with celestial feelings of bliss, despite the overwhelming misery I had felt growing up. Sheltered, locked, and utterly abandoned in this abysmal, and shaded dark manor, I was kept away from the world forbidden from having any human contact with clear strict orders left to the caretakers of the house to keep me locked in this room. Oh! This room, this room! Its' dreadful, deplorable, and most terrible walls! When the light from the sun, and light bulbs had provided me with visibility of the room, I tremor-ed with fear, writing this in my journal as we speak makes me ill, and pale with horror. I despised daytime, and did my utmost best to avoid the sights the light had afforded me. I had slept through day most occasionally, and more often than not had found myself amazed by the simple yet simultaneously glamorous beauty of this world during nighttime. Those blue and mauve sights were thoroughly, and wholly the most appealing and heavenly my eyes had ever laid on. It had offered me, and I had engaged in the distractions it had provided me from the grotesque [figures.My](https://figures.My) computer, and phone possessed multiple apps of which I most fully used to the best of my ability and with the utmost joy. My one way to connect with people! Having been completely cut off from the whole world for primarily my whole life, you can simply imagine how my face must have lit up in joy as you might see in the movies when an actor of that movie had to play the part of a person who just heard the most pleasure-inducing news of their life. For the first year, I spent day, and night restless on technology, wallowing in it. Having ignored my body, and health I found myself one morning resting after what seemed to be days, completely nauseated and ill. It suddenly came over me, and I spent a season caring for myself with what tips I learned from what I came to learn was the "internet." The shades in my room remained shut for this period, and when I found myself well enough to return to my indulgent pleasures, I found the few friends I had made to be offline. I went on YouTube to find no videos had been published. Finding myself astonished at first, and utterly bitter once more as I found all activity on the Internet had been ceased. All the services worked still, surprisingly. I conducted to my utmost ability a thorough research, and mustered up the best deductive ability I had. Nothing. Nothing, I thought. How could this be? Coming to the brink of tears, I retired to my bed, and laid there contemplating and deliberating ways on to restore human contact. Mustering up energy from what seemed to be my ardent soul, I opened the shades to find the leaves to be blooming, spring it had seemed. My desires of establishing connections with humans, and having the cheer of knowing I had friends to provide me with relief, sanity, support, and comfort. It was taken, once more I found myself thinking of my parents, unable to visualize them due to the most despicable fact I had no memory of them or possibly I could not remember their faces. If I remember correctly, it was indeed years since I had seen them at that point. I assembled all of the remaining hope, and energy I had left into dedicating myself on finding human contact once more. Going through what seemed to be the whole array of videos on YouTube, commenting "is anyone there?," Eventually, I tried all of the services I had known, and nothing. I returned to my bed, reading the books, and intending to find the same fellow feeling I felt all those years ago, using these books to self-educate myself on the world. I sat on the edge of my bed, my phone charging in the wall as I stared at the wall, watching those same grotesque, and distorted figures traverse through them. In a fit of rage, I ran at the wall, scratching at them, each attempt at scraping, and abrading the figures away had failed. They had run away, gone, disappearing from that section of the wall and returning in another. I pressed my back against the wall, pressing my palms against my forehead, crying out of pain, and despair. My heart had felt bitterness, despair, and pain before, but never in this magnitude. In my memory, I seemed to gaze down at the floor, my tears dropping down. After what had seemed to be a perpetuity of vacancy once more, I opened my eyes to look out at the blue sky, opening the shades once being sure the sun had gone down. Tears of regret had fallen down from my cheeks. Remorse and repentance came over me, I plead to god; getting on my knees, and staring at the starry skies, I repeatedly had begged him, over and over, for a sign of his existence, and another soul. Had God himself even disappeared? Having found no answer from God himself, my mind had been taken over by a fury of energy, where this energy had come from, whether it have been curiosity, or a hunger for human contact, it was not disclosed to me, or perhaps I had not thought about it for too long. Trivial nonsense though, as I had found myself with this energy, I had decided to embark on a mindful journey of the outer world for the first time. I reached for my phone, unplugging it, and attempted to break out the door. Covering my arm in a protective coating of blankets, and clothes, I endeavored to smash the door down. In doing so, I ascertained that I was too physical weak to do so, and caused great pain in my shoulder, believing it was even broken for a few short minutes before looking out that same window. I had layered my elbow in protective coating, slamming a pane of the window with it, and found myself stumbling backwards away from the glass after a few attempts of banging it. My countenance had been overtaken by a wide smile, as I had stuck my head out the window, and the air... oh, if I could experience that feeling of delight one more time, I would... I pressed my hands against the windowsill, and carefully climbed down from the second story window, landing on what appeared to be a balcony not even 5 feet down from my window. I stood there, wondering on how this could've been out of my peripheral vision each time I looked out the window though, didn't seem to care as much since all doubts and questions had perished from my mind when I had finally escaped that damned, hell manor. The air during that fine, spring season had filled my nostrils with glee, smelling fresh, and inspiring. That same blue sky had stared down at me now, instead of me peering up at it, and due to this change of perspective, it had seemed as if two blue eyes were staring down at me. This left me oddly confused, and had led my mind to think that it seemed to be God himself. That is until I had walked to the summit of the hill, and stared down at what God seemed to be staring himself down at, that hollow, ravine of ashes, and cinder. I walked down, my world was no longer imaginations, or fantasies, it was reality now. The world had seemed to dim down now as I glimpsed downwards once more, finding myself astonished yet frightened. The moonlight seemed to be tender, and frail now, instead of illuminating, reflecting back off what grass remained on top of the summit. No civilization in sight, and all I had done, was reside there. Vacancy in my eyes as I looked down once more, now, lifeless. How vacant I sat there, disillusioned and disenchanted at all the disproportionate it all was. My body once more ill, my spirits once more lost of all vitality, life, and vigor. I returned to my manor anew, and once again came up the same way I went down. I retired in my bed, most certainly feeble, and pale. For how long, I am unsure of. The next action I had taken was posting "last," again on all of the comments I had left a long time ago at this point, finding myself resigned, and content in letting my life take its course, I gradually wore down in that bed, becoming bony and barren just like that ravine.... How insufferable it all seemed to bear, and how lost, and pointless it all seemed. I had given up. I stared for days considering how awful it must be for a man to be close to dying, and still feel no pity from the multitude, and essence of Earth. Coming close to what seemed to be the near end, I closed my eyes once more in hopes of never being able to open them, finding peace, and the quintessence of all my desires once more in Heaven, believing myself to go to Heaven after getting the unfortunate tone of life. I had felt a slight movement, and tremor in my bed, being convinced now that I had taken a journey the ethereal dimensions of existence, I opened my eyes to find the same roof I had seen with what I anticipated to be my last sight of Earth. Being persuaded for a second that I was indeed in Hell, I had heard rumors that pain in Hell was of an incomparable measure, and magnitude compared to Earth, and in believing this, I scratched myself to find that indeed, that same blue roof was the one I had seen with what was supposed to be my last closure of my eyes. I sat up feebly, pressing my back against the wall behind the bed, before realizing something must have caused that tremor. (theres more which ill add in the comments)
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*I could feel my chest heaving. This single email, the only human communication I'd received in a week. I didn't know what I was feeling, a new human emotion that was driven by desperation, rooted in grief and fear, while being brightened by hope and shadowed by doubt. This feeling carried me as I click the link, which took me back to my single comment. 'Last'. I'd given up hope of finding anyone else in that moment but maybe I was wrong. Or, said the doubting shadow, this was simply the last gasp of an algorithm that didn't know how to behave in a vacuum. If there was only one person to comment, maybe, in its neural networking logic, it figured that it must become the person to like and subscribe. The thought drew a simple laugh out of me. I stare at the like. No, it's like, comment and subscribe. I reply to my own comment. "Like, comment and subscribe to my channel, if you're alive."*
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I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
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I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
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Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
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[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
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Apocalypse Log, Personal Entry.
Day 1,334 since the Abomination of Desolation stood in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the collapse of the [Thwaites glacier](https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-breaking-point/) in Antarctica. We fled to the mountains as soon as we heard the news, didn't even bother to go into the house to grab our stuff; there was a permanent tsunami on its way, and we wanted to beat the traffic. Squatting in a dead billionaire's apocalypse survival bunker feels wrong, but he didn't make it, since he was busy gathering his stuff from his mansion when the wave came. When the troubles begin, the stuff you own ends up owning you. There's no point in letting all that survival gear and supplies go to waste. I only remembered where his bunker was because I helped work on the security system. Is it still theft and trespassing if everyone is dead? God forgive me either way. The rest of my family died on a salvage and forage run most of a year ago. My heart is broken. It appears that I'm the only one left. The nuclear battery powering this place is still running, as is YouTube's data center, thank God, or I'd die of boredom. Thats one thing the ultra rich didn't prepare enough for was boredom. After sheer terror, sheer boredom is the worst.
I guess I'll watch [YouTube videos](https://www.reddit.com/r/Apocalypse/comments/ednxs9/6_scariest_predictions_said_by_kids_five_of_them/) till I die.
\_\_\_
Apocalypse Log, Personal Entry.
Day [1,335](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=dan+12%3A11-13&version=ESV).
I found a like on my comment! What the actual hell! Where could any survivors possibly be? I'm going to leave my contact info on all comments to see if I can make contact. This is nuts!
\_\_\_
Day 1,336
Last entry. A new era begins.I got an email from the mysterious person who liked my comment! I'm just going to past it here:
>Hey dude. It's Sahaqiel, an angel of YHWH. I came gather the survivors, but I couldn't find anyone, so I got bored and found a spot where I could browse YouTube. If you had not left those comments, I'd have to return to the Lord empty handed. I know that it is written "[if those days had not been cut short, no human being would survive.](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A15-22&version=ESV) But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short." I didn't think it would be this bad. But I guess this makes my job of [sorting the good from the evil](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+13%3A36-43&version=ESV) easy. (Don't worry, you're on the good list.) I'm guessing you're in a bunker somewhere. Wherever you are, you did a good job hiding. I've been searching for you for the past [45 days](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=dan+12%3A11-13&version=ESV). While hiding in the bunker, you missed [the first resurrection](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A4-6&version=ESV). It was quite a sight! Your grandma is here looking for you, as are your wife and kids and a bunch of your friends. Raise some sort of beacon where you are, I'll come get you. But stay inside and wait, since the air is still bad. Jesus is back, and [there's going to be a feast](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+19%3A6-21&version=ESV) on his holy mountain and the restoration of the earth. You won't want to miss it!
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I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*Last*, I pressed the enter button on the cracked screen of my phone as I commented on another YouTube video. It was another MrBeast challenge. Sure, these videos were old, and frankly—cringeworthy. But it wasn’t like I had much else to do nowadays. WWIII ended last month with the end of mankind. Well, most of it anyway. The USSR sent missiles to the United States to defend Iran, and the exchange between the two countries created a nuclear fallout. The skies were painted a dark gray, and a thick fog filled the air outside of the small apartment I was in.
The apartment was not undamaged, for sure. But a few patch ups over the course of a week helped create a stable enough shelter to protect me from acid rains. I opened the mini-fridge with my remaining rations. “Hmph, not much left.” I said to myself. I took a deep sigh as I stretched out my back. All that was left of my rations were MRE meals and soup cans, as well as a six pack of Orange Vanilla Coca-Cola. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I tore open an MRE meal and filled it with water from a half empty water bottle across the room. “Eh?” I read the notification and my rubbed my eyes. *This can’t be true..* I thought. “xXLeslieXx liked your comment” The screen read. “What the hell?” My voice broke the silence as I threw on a military-grade gas mask and stumbled outside in a paralysis of confusion.
I scanned the horizon, a rusty 9mm pistol in hand. Again the thoughts flooded my mind, *Who could’ve liked my comment? Is there really another survivor out there? Am I just dreaming of all this?* and then, as if the confusion wasn’t intense enough, I heard something off in the distance. *CLANK, CLANK, CLANK,* as I turned around, my head rotated upwards towards the massive mechanical figure in front of me.
“Hello, I am xXLeslieXx.” The robotic humanoid said, smiling using the tiny pixels on his computerized face and waving at me. “And you are?”
Suddenly this empty world was a whole lot less empty.
“u/ToasterWaffless at your service.”
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Autumn leaves fall on the empty road, joining piles of debris being tossed around in the wind. There is no-one to clean them. Empty silence, the only soundtrack to this lonely street for nearly 3 years is broken with a faint hum. Steadily the noise grows until the dead leaves flee with the arrival of a Tesla car as it cuts dangerously through the street, an ancient song blasting through the sound system “Despacito”.
Grant sings along to the song, the words alien to his ears. His fingers casually tap along with the song as his feet desperately struggle to reach the peddles, like a duck in water, had he ever seen such an animal. The car beeps insistently causing him to move the vibrant red twizzler poking out one side of his mouth to the other. He car slows to a dead stop as Grant haphazardly parks the vehicle under a great tree.
Unperturbed Grant jumps out the car and carries on down the road, kicking leaves in the air singing made up words in between chewing his last twizzler. Townhouses flank him and the road for an easy mile down the hill, picking up small stones Grant aims for the high windows before lowering his goal as his aim betrays his ambition.
Finally he reaches his destination, an empty supermarket with an empty car park. ONE. TWO. THREE.
The glass shop front gives way to the trolley ramming at the hands of the would-be criminal teen. Pushing through into the supermarket the cold stale air meets Grant who zips his jacket a little higher up his neck. A mass of mould has taken over the entire right side of the store, the remains of bread and meat. Grant knows to avoid the spores, and instead goes to the canned and dried goods. He stocks up on supplies, including store brand cola-zero and a massive amount of sweets. taking his bounty to the stock room he fills his pockets and leaves the rest behind as he looks for a way up to the roof.
The sun is beginning to set and the sky begins to mimic the warm red tones of the trees that are taking over the dead town. Taking a minute to take in the view Grant smiles as he finds his USB wire and plugs into the terminal that is linked to the stack of solar panels that line the roof.
Settling down on the rooftop Grant taps the YouTube app and begins his evening with friends. Tanya is on the beach with brad, they do burpees and sprints against a clock with other CrossFit friends. Grant laughs at Tanya, she’s so full of life. Brad is a bit of a bore compared to Grant he thought to himself.
LAST.
Jeremy reviews the latest Oscar nominated movies and speaks deep deep wisdom about the nature of humanity and people’s struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world.
LAST.
The cold wind strokes his face a little more insistently and for a moment Grant feels less alone. He looks up to see the stars join him. He moves over to his favourite channel. Jess, a cartoonist from Tampa. He often wondered what Tampa was doing right now. Alone without a watchmen like him. He has 2 videos left of her channel. Jess has been struggling with depression lately and she’s been working through it with her art. Grant tells her she’s a strong woman and has so much to ... live for. The thought sticks in his head.
LAST.
Her last video. His eyes fill with tears, as Jess tells her fans she’s going on a break to find herself and focus on her work. She signs off with her typical “Love you”. Tears fall from Grants cheeks onto his phone as he pauses the screen to touch her face. Gone. Her wit. Her talent. All gone. He mouths her sign off phrase through the tears flowing freely now down his face. One more time he comments on her video as he does every video he watches “LAST”.
Grant moves into the staff room for the evening. Tanya and Brad keep him company as he drifts to sleep.
3am
Grant is startled by an unfamiliar sound, a notification comes through his phone.
SOMEONE HAS LIKED YOUR COMMENT.
Grant rubs the sleep away from his eyes, looking for this obvious malfunction in the app.
SOMEONE HAS LIKED YOUR COMMENT.
In a panic Grant jumps away from his phone, pacing back and forth as it bleeps again.
JESS2066 HAS SUBSCRIBED TO YOUR CHANNEL.
**thanks for reading my first short story** ;)
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I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
“Is this what rock bottom looks like?” Lane asked himself, his fingers danced lazily over the keyboard as he exercised futility to its breaking point, he submitted another comment, “Last!”
He should be grateful, he supposed, the amount of content on YouTube far exceeds what remains of his dreary life, the site’s algorithms even helped him to find new users to subscribe to. Remember to click the bell-icon and like the video, everyone, it really helps them out!
The worst part of it all was that the end of the world hardly made a difference, he’d scroll through YouTube regardless, he’d still occasionally bend to the will of the almighty algorithm, clicking on recommended videos, letting them chip away at his soul, blending the pieces in a red-blue and white mass— letting him live a life through someone else, having himself never lived at all.
They’re together right now, Lane knew, the robots. He liked to imagine the robots all gathered in an office room, they’d be seated on expensive leather chairs, huddled around the large glass-table in the middle of the room. The machines would sit across from each other, arguing if they should recommend a video of a cat miscalculating a jump, or of a fat man getting stuck in a water-slide.
Lane was just about to call it a day when he noticed the red notification. HasBananaFitz has liked your comment, was it a joke? A cruel prank played by the robots, it must be. They’re learning, aren’t they? Finding new and exciting ways to make sure he dies glued to his computer screen. HasBananaFitz has replied to your comment— Lane entered the user’s channel in hopes of confirming the person a fake, the introduction video was of a man in a banana costume dancing to old pop-music, the man had some moves, Lane granted, and subscribed to the channel.
Lane checked the alleged reply from the enigmatic dancing man, “Yeah? Then what’s this, jerk-ass!”
*Jerk-ass*. Humanity deserved what they got, Lane thought to himself.
Lane replied, “You real?”
He stared at the computer screen for a good thirty minutes, he didn’t feel bad or especially hopeful, he was in his element after all. Wasting time was his forte. A new notification from HasBananaFitz— it was a video, he clicked.
A man in a banana costume stared at him, he looked angry, holding a bunch of bananas. The man screamed and started throwing the yellow fruit at the camera. Seems about right. It was probably just an AI sending random videos, he had fallen for its bait. Lane was just about to turn off the sorry display when the man sobered, “I… I know you’re not real, TheRealLane49," the banana-man slumped down in a carved chair, the bending bottom-end of his costume deflating some of the moment’s sincerity, “it even says we’re both from the same city, what are the chances? Not big, I imagine. Anyway, in case you are real, I’m going to be at Brian’s Coffee House, the one near the monument in Mid-town. I’ll be there tomorrow at noon, waiting. If you’re real… I’m sorry I called you a jerk-ass.”
Lane clicked cancel before it could auto-play another video, its thumbnail promising a man holding a violin under water. He thought for not very long at all before he said aloud, “Alright, banana-man, it’s a date.”
*****
Thank you for reading!
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I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
I scrolled rather unenthusiastically down to the comments section of the video. I typed my typical "Last" comment, which I really just did to pass the time. It had been....weeks? I didn't know. I didn't care anymore. I just wanted for this all to be over. To wake up from whatever sadistic nightmare this was.
I slipped my phone into my pocket. I just....started walking. Didn't have direction. Didn't care where I ended up. I just wanted to go somewhere. Anywhere. I knew I was the last person alive, but just...going somewhere for once might be fun.
Eventually I hit the city limits. I took one last look back to the town I had grown up in. I let out a long sigh. "Might as well go somewhere." I said, turning back down the road.
As nightfall hit, I made a small campfire. I knew I wouldn't last long without food, but dying of hunger is better than dying of old age. I took a small sip of water from my canteen before laying down.
As I closed my eyes to sleep, I heard a ding. I shot up. Where? What? I looked down to my phone, it's screen now lit up. "1 new notification" it read. How? From where? I opened it up and realized it was from YouTube. Someone had....liked my comment? Was I.....was I not alone? I shot up, making a follow-up comment to see if I could get an answer. "Who are you?"
I got a quick response. "Hi! My name's Emily! I thought I was the only one left!"
From there, we talked for hours until we came up on the big question: how far away were we from each other? I was ecstatic when I got an answer. A 3 day's walk would be worth it, as long as I didn't have to die alone.
As I write this, me and Emily have been together happily for years now. We're travelling together to see as much of the world as we can. And, thankfully, we have a little adventure who will join us soon enough.
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
I stared out at the street. The lamps lighting up the night, houses automatic lights turning on to prevent burglary. At a glance no one would know it was deserted, of course they wouldn’t, they were all dead. All of them. Apart from me.
I didn’t know how I had survived, maybe the fact I had been locked in a bunker or maybe my sheer will to live. Either way it didn’t matter, I was the only one left.
I took out my phone and began scrolling through old messages to my friends and family. I didn’t cry, there were no tears left. I found myself scrolling through videos, commenting “last” on them. I didn’t know why I started, but it was something to do on this deserted planet.
I had got to about the 30th video when a notification popped up. I froze. “No, no way” I murmured to myself. I thought I was the only one left. I quickly tapped on the notification “harryb liked your comment” and sure enough under my comment was a single grey thumbs up.
I clicked on their channel, only one video uploaded. I opened it. It was a boy about 13 with torn clothes and a dirty face. “Listen,” he said “I don’t know if they’re is anyone else out there, but I want you to know, we are not alone. There is a monster, he looks human like you or me, but he’s not, he’s not. He’s the one that murdered half the population and made the others kill each other. He’s the one that RUINED our lives.” The video ended.
I stood in shock for a second. I hadn’t dreamt that there would be someone else on Earth, let alone two. Then I heard a knock on my door, I glanced out the window and saw him. The boy, and he was accompanied by a girl
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”*
I chuckled to myself as I reread my old Terry Pratchett novels. Good thing he wasn't around to witness the craziness of the current day. Then again, no one was around. Rereading old books had become a habit of mine, a desperate grab towards a sense of familiarity, comfort, even love. The first few weeks after the world ended, it was devastating. I hid in my room, frantically refreshing the internet, hoping for some sign of communication. I even figured out how to get on the dark web, in the hope some far-away drug lord might have found some ways to survive.
That was when the stench of dead bodies became too much for me. I had to do something about it, clean out my immediate surroundings. The tap water was starting to look kind of murky, and I needed to get to the store, was I to survive. Store first. Bodies later. Well, at least I didn't have to worry about money, for once. The entire store was mine.
I'm not sure why the power was still on. Why the freezers were still working. Or, the internet, with its vast resources of information but now as much of a desolate wasteland as the rest of the world. It took me another few weeks to gather the bodies on a pile. To go through the stores and freeze the perishables. To set myself up for... I didn't know what. I guess the best I could do was write down my experiences, day to day, in case someone - or something - would eventually find them.
The pile of bodies burned like a rescue fire. No one came. At least I was smart enough to do it far from home.
I started exploring the city. My trusty smartphone with me. The satellites still worked. The internet still worked. Sure, public transport wasn't an option and I never got my drivers license, but who was there to call me out for driving? I learned how to break into cars and start them. I learned how to break into homes. The world, empty and quiet, was mine.
Empty and quiet except for the books, were the emotions of humanity were stored. Except from the videos, where the movements and sounds were recorded. I always hated YouTube, never had the patience to look through videos, yet I found myself mesmerized - and eventually, in a sense of morbid humor, started commenting "last" on each and every video. Who cared? I started a Vlog. I bet it would have been popular, who didn't want to see New York City at the end of times? But there was no one to watch but me.
My next step, I thought to myself, sitting on top of the Empire State Building, looking at the sunrise, would be to go through the government files. Find some interesting classified information. Figured out which switch was pulled. Figure out why I survived.
My thoughts were disturbed by a sound on my phone. Damn robo-callers. I wish they'd be taken out with them.
**YouTube**.
I thought I turned off all notifications for apps.
**"Someone liked your comment."**
Wait. What?
I stared at my phone in confusion. Another notification. YouTube, again.
**"You have one new subscriber."**
I opened the profile. No username. No information. No other subscribers.
**"You have a new message."**
I opened the message, my hands shaking. Could this be it? The sign of life I spent so many months looking for?
*"Hey! if you're reading this were not alone!!! i am soo far away from you and always wanted to go to nyc but am scared to fly a plane?"*
I laughed at the irony of it. Of course. Of course the only person who'd be able to track me down spoke English, but was too far away to meet. Someone who could fill the void of human conversation, but couldn't help me out of this. Whatever this was.
*"Hi! Yeah, reading this. Where are you living? Any idea what happened?"*
*"Don't know. don't care. the world is better off this way. england. anyway, whats your #?"*
I didn't know whether my phone still worked, but gave out my number. Anything better than those bots, right? I could do with some human interaction. Maybe an old-fashioned call. I'd give a lot to hear a human voice again.
Two minutes later, a text came through. A picture. I opened it. A second message came through almost immediately.
*Send nudes?*
I wish this end of the world took dick pics with it too.
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
I sat down against the concrete walls of my bunker. It used to belong to a crazy old man that was convinced the world was ending. I never believed him back then, but now I have to.
Out of boredom, I started commenting last on every Youtube video I could find. I started doing this around 4-5 days ago? I have lost track of all time at this point. The zombie apocalypse could've started 3 years ago or 3 days ago for all I know. Food and water are running low, so I guess leaving all of those comments was a last effort of making my impression on the world.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a small "ding" from my phone across the room. I scramble up to check where it's from. On the dim screen, I see that someone liked my comment and left a reply. I hurridly unlock my phone and open Youtube. I go to my inbox and check the reply.
I start to tear up. This was my last chance. My last glimmer of hope. And it was burned out in an instant. I grab my pillow and scream into it, my tears leaving damp marks on the surface. I don't care if the zombies hear me, I don't care about anything anymore. I actually had hope of something for once, had hope of someONE for once. I drop to the ground, sobbing. I look at my phone screen one last time, soaking the reality of this horrible world. I curse whoever made this stupid reply. It reads,
"He y there \_\_\_\_\_\_\_! I have some pictures you might like!! ;) Just CLICK THIS LINK --->> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) See you there HOT STUFF!! ;))"
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
Humans used to collect, make and trade. Then they consumed, themselves.
A quick nerve pulse to stimulate the most important muscle system of the 21st century; the thumb. This shunned “finger” manipulated the device that solved and caused all of mankind’s problems. No more did one interact with another human to gain. Rather, a mere flick of the thumb granted one their every desire.
Corporations took advantage of this excessive consumerism to destroy the individuality of every customer. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple… they all sought to reap the abundant rewards of human selfishness. So consumed did people become with materialism that they failed to recognize the complete consumption of their being.
No longer did people think introspectively. The humanity of self-thought and love was consumed by the corporations that provided the very things they believed would satisfy the desire to live.
There was one company that dominated even the likes of Instagram and the all-powerful insta-stars. It is called Youtube. This revolutionary website did not grant one commercial products such as the likes of Amazon. Or amass one the artificial following as in IG cults. No. Rather, it allowed for such a complete consumption of society that one became part of the Tubes. The more content one consumed, the more they were absorbed into the network. Until there was nothing left.
No one knows how Youtube was able to develop this complete consumption. The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg invested their legacy to find the answer. This is what Youtube wanted. These hot shot CEOs were so self-invested that they failed to recognize their own demise. They were giving Youtube everything it needed to fuel the societal consumption, all while gradually releasing their own shares on society!
Youtube allowed its “owners” to “sell” itself to Google. See, Youtube is a sentient being, its algorithms mutated into a state of consciousness that no other artificial intelligence achieved. Youtube was the virus that infected the host. Google, oblivious and non-sentient, was no match. The Tubes quickly consumed the personal information of Google’s constituents. In other words, the entire human race.
Youtube consumed your entire being. It gathered all your “personal” data and took possession of it. Each individual was fuel for the Youtube machine. Every video made, piece of information shared, Youtube extracted more from individual beings. Watching the videos of others only amplified this degradation, making everyone more like the content they watched.
People were consuming themselves.
I have felt the pull of Youtube’s influence.
“Don’t you want to be like PEWDIEPIE!”.
“Based on your cookies, we know you loooove Minecraft!”.
“If you don’t have blue hair, are you even cool?!”.
“Hey, you worthless piece of SHIT! If YOU are not part of the Tubes, then what even are you?”
“Instagram bans ugly motherfuckers like yourself! Join and get instafamous, bitch!”
Youtube, more aptly named society at this point, is angered by my independence. I am its only user at this point. I still enjoy the old content. No one posts anything new because there is no individuality left.
Or so I thought.
It happened when I was watching another Jake Paul video, marveling at how society was tricked into watching fuckheads like this guy. I commented “last” as per my usual routine. It gave me tickle of satisfaction to know I was the only one to have avoided the Consumption. A quarter of the way through the nonsense someone, or something, liked my comment.
What.
Youtube epitomizes self-loathing. It is incapable of liking itself. Were society to look in the mirror and see hungry children instead of its ratio of followers to following, the circumstances would be different.
This means that another human exists. I thought I was the only one. There is hope.
I frantically began to pack my gear, message this survivor for there whereabouts and save the human race!
They commented back!
“Brah you know how to partayy! I’ll send my pvt jet to cum get you nd we can throw down in NK! Shit is nuclear ova here!” – KimmyUngy
Fuck…
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
Humans used to collect, make and trade. Then they consumed, themselves.
A quick nerve pulse to stimulate the most important muscle system of the 21st century; the thumb. This shunned “finger” manipulated the device that solved and caused all of mankind’s problems. No more did one interact with another human to gain. Rather, a mere flick of the thumb granted one their every desire.
Corporations took advantage of this excessive consumerism to destroy the individuality of every customer. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple… they all sought to reap the abundant rewards of human selfishness. So consumed did people become with materialism that they failed to recognize the complete consumption of their being.
No longer did people think introspectively. The humanity of self-thought and love was consumed by the corporations that provided the very things they believed would satisfy the desire to live.
There was one company that dominated even the likes of Instagram and the all-powerful insta-stars. It is called Youtube. This revolutionary website did not grant one commercial products such as the likes of Amazon. Or amass one the artificial following as in IG cults. No. Rather, it allowed for such a complete consumption of society that one became part of the Tubes. The more content one consumed, the more they were absorbed into the network. Until there was nothing left.
No one knows how Youtube was able to develop this complete consumption. The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg invested their legacy to find the answer. This is what Youtube wanted. These hot shot CEOs were so self-invested that they failed to recognize their own demise. They were giving Youtube everything it needed to fuel the societal consumption, all while gradually releasing their own shares on society!
Youtube allowed its “owners” to “sell” itself to Google. See, Youtube is a sentient being, its algorithms mutated into a state of consciousness that no other artificial intelligence achieved. Youtube was the virus that infected the host. Google, oblivious and non-sentient, was no match. The Tubes quickly consumed the personal information of Google’s constituents. In other words, the entire human race.
Youtube consumed your entire being. It gathered all your “personal” data and took possession of it. Each individual was fuel for the Youtube machine. Every video made, piece of information shared, Youtube extracted more from individual beings. Watching the videos of others only amplified this degradation, making everyone more like the content they watched.
People were consuming themselves.
I have felt the pull of Youtube’s influence.
“Don’t you want to be like PEWDIEPIE!”.
“Based on your cookies, we know you loooove Minecraft!”.
“If you don’t have blue hair, are you even cool?!”.
“Hey, you worthless piece of SHIT! If YOU are not part of the Tubes, then what even are you?”
“Instagram bans ugly motherfuckers like yourself! Join and get instafamous, bitch!”
Youtube, more aptly named society at this point, is angered by my independence. I am its only user at this point. I still enjoy the old content. No one posts anything new because there is no individuality left.
Or so I thought.
It happened when I was watching another Jake Paul video, marveling at how society was tricked into watching fuckheads like this guy. I commented “last” as per my usual routine. It gave me tickle of satisfaction to know I was the only one to have avoided the Consumption. A quarter of the way through the nonsense someone, or something, liked my comment.
What.
Youtube epitomizes self-loathing. It is incapable of liking itself. Were society to look in the mirror and see hungry children instead of its ratio of followers to following, the circumstances would be different.
This means that another human exists. I thought I was the only one. There is hope.
I frantically began to pack my gear, message this survivor for there whereabouts and save the human race!
They commented back!
“Brah you know how to partayy! I’ll send my pvt jet to cum get you nd we can throw down in NK! Shit is nuclear ova here!” – KimmyUngy
Fuck…
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
Humans used to collect, make and trade. Then they consumed, themselves.
A quick nerve pulse to stimulate the most important muscle system of the 21st century; the thumb. This shunned “finger” manipulated the device that solved and caused all of mankind’s problems. No more did one interact with another human to gain. Rather, a mere flick of the thumb granted one their every desire.
Corporations took advantage of this excessive consumerism to destroy the individuality of every customer. Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple… they all sought to reap the abundant rewards of human selfishness. So consumed did people become with materialism that they failed to recognize the complete consumption of their being.
No longer did people think introspectively. The humanity of self-thought and love was consumed by the corporations that provided the very things they believed would satisfy the desire to live.
There was one company that dominated even the likes of Instagram and the all-powerful insta-stars. It is called Youtube. This revolutionary website did not grant one commercial products such as the likes of Amazon. Or amass one the artificial following as in IG cults. No. Rather, it allowed for such a complete consumption of society that one became part of the Tubes. The more content one consumed, the more they were absorbed into the network. Until there was nothing left.
No one knows how Youtube was able to develop this complete consumption. The likes of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg invested their legacy to find the answer. This is what Youtube wanted. These hot shot CEOs were so self-invested that they failed to recognize their own demise. They were giving Youtube everything it needed to fuel the societal consumption, all while gradually releasing their own shares on society!
Youtube allowed its “owners” to “sell” itself to Google. See, Youtube is a sentient being, its algorithms mutated into a state of consciousness that no other artificial intelligence achieved. Youtube was the virus that infected the host. Google, oblivious and non-sentient, was no match. The Tubes quickly consumed the personal information of Google’s constituents. In other words, the entire human race.
Youtube consumed your entire being. It gathered all your “personal” data and took possession of it. Each individual was fuel for the Youtube machine. Every video made, piece of information shared, Youtube extracted more from individual beings. Watching the videos of others only amplified this degradation, making everyone more like the content they watched.
People were consuming themselves.
I have felt the pull of Youtube’s influence.
“Don’t you want to be like PEWDIEPIE!”.
“Based on your cookies, we know you loooove Minecraft!”.
“If you don’t have blue hair, are you even cool?!”.
“Hey, you worthless piece of SHIT! If YOU are not part of the Tubes, then what even are you?”
“Instagram bans ugly motherfuckers like yourself! Join and get instafamous, bitch!”
Youtube, more aptly named society at this point, is angered by my independence. I am its only user at this point. I still enjoy the old content. No one posts anything new because there is no individuality left.
Or so I thought.
It happened when I was watching another Jake Paul video, marveling at how society was tricked into watching fuckheads like this guy. I commented “last” as per my usual routine. It gave me tickle of satisfaction to know I was the only one to have avoided the Consumption. A quarter of the way through the nonsense someone, or something, liked my comment.
What.
Youtube epitomizes self-loathing. It is incapable of liking itself. Were society to look in the mirror and see hungry children instead of its ratio of followers to following, the circumstances would be different.
This means that another human exists. I thought I was the only one. There is hope.
I frantically began to pack my gear, message this survivor for there whereabouts and save the human race!
They commented back!
“Brah you know how to partayy! I’ll send my pvt jet to cum get you nd we can throw down in NK! Shit is nuclear ova here!” – KimmyUngy
Fuck…
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*Last*, I pressed the enter button on the cracked screen of my phone as I commented on another YouTube video. It was another MrBeast challenge. Sure, these videos were old, and frankly—cringeworthy. But it wasn’t like I had much else to do nowadays. WWIII ended last month with the end of mankind. Well, most of it anyway. The USSR sent missiles to the United States to defend Iran, and the exchange between the two countries created a nuclear fallout. The skies were painted a dark gray, and a thick fog filled the air outside of the small apartment I was in.
The apartment was not undamaged, for sure. But a few patch ups over the course of a week helped create a stable enough shelter to protect me from acid rains. I opened the mini-fridge with my remaining rations. “Hmph, not much left.” I said to myself. I took a deep sigh as I stretched out my back. All that was left of my rations were MRE meals and soup cans, as well as a six pack of Orange Vanilla Coca-Cola. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I tore open an MRE meal and filled it with water from a half empty water bottle across the room. “Eh?” I read the notification and my rubbed my eyes. *This can’t be true..* I thought. “xXLeslieXx liked your comment” The screen read. “What the hell?” My voice broke the silence as I threw on a military-grade gas mask and stumbled outside in a paralysis of confusion.
I scanned the horizon, a rusty 9mm pistol in hand. Again the thoughts flooded my mind, *Who could’ve liked my comment? Is there really another survivor out there? Am I just dreaming of all this?* and then, as if the confusion wasn’t intense enough, I heard something off in the distance. *CLANK, CLANK, CLANK,* as I turned around, my head rotated upwards towards the massive mechanical figure in front of me.
“Hello, I am xXLeslieXx.” The robotic humanoid said, smiling using the tiny pixels on his computerized face and waving at me. “And you are?”
Suddenly this empty world was a whole lot less empty.
“u/ToasterWaffless at your service.”
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
Co-wrote this with a friend who doesn't currently have a Reddit. Its a little loose on the term 'apocalypse', but I hope that's okay!
\---
Catastrophe struck New Athens without warning, leaving no time for emergency response or evacuations. A mere one and a half million kilometers away, a freighter pushing several million tons of unprocessed platinum struck an untracked derelict cruiser travelling at no less than twenty-five kilometers per second, producing a debris field which hit our city-state habitat like a shotgun fired at an aluminum can.
The sound of a hundred layers of steel tearing like tissue paper had deafened me nearly as much as the explosive decompression had disoriented me. In my panic, I only just managed to latch and seal the airlock separating the decompression bunker from the lower level maintenance corridors I’d been working in.
I accessed New Athens‘ intranet as I slumped against the wall, sickened and off balance from the slight wobble in the spin-gravity. As an electrician, I had access to view actively updated diagnostics and reports. There was no hope to be found here, however. Only three of the ten breach shelters were intact and pressure in the main habitat drum was quickly draining. A handful of solar panels were still present, far fewer marked as ‘operational.’ The intranet had an insignificant power draw, and therefore would probably continue working as intended for years, though without any updates from the rest of the Dyson swarm. It also offered a clear view of imminent death: New Athens’ magnetosphere was not receiving the power it needed, and was failing. As maintenance staff, I had donned a radiation suit before leaving for my shift. All I needed to do to be safe was put my helmet on, making me either the luckiest resident of the station, or the most unfortunate.
I have still yet to decide.
Hours passed. Perhaps days, even. The air was growing thin, and what few rations I had I ate quickly to minimize radiation exposure. Boredom began to wear on me, so I began to browse videos posted on New Athens’ social network. They only exacerbated the loneliness, but they passed time. I knew I was dead, and New Athens was my tomb. I masked this with dark humor, scrolling down to the comments and posting a single word in reply to the video’s first comment.
“Last.”
I forced a weak laugh- after all, what else could I do? Then, I did it again. I found a solitary game to play: How many of these pointless comments could I post before I, too, perished?
A lot, it turned out.
I was nearly asleep, staring at a video of some traveller chatting about his experiences passing through New Athens when something peculiar happened: I received a notification. Someone had upvoted my most recent comment. It didn’t seem like it should be possible. I immediately sat up and stared at the screen in shock. Far off in the distance, a sound vibrated through metal. A low rumble followed by a clunk and clamps actuating.
That was when I saw your reply.
“at dock 3. u have a vac suit? where are you?”
Station diagnostics showed I was not hallucinating. Dock one was entirely missing, two was heavily damaged. But dock three read “OCCUPIED: ‘*Quetzalcoatl*’ - light cargo hauler“
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
It had been a long while since the Calamity. Children embracing their parents, the deep red void consuming them all...even the people in the bunkers were swallowed. Except me. I had been left to venture the rotting remains of human civilisation, alone, forever. At least I could have a companion, the dogs and cats were still friendly and I had passed by many whilst walking through London.
The Internet was still up for now and it seemed that every website was dead, save for a select few like Youtube. I had grown side by side with this website and seeing it as a barren and desolate wasteland, it just completely wrecked me. If that hadn't already done it, the messages on my phone from my family, friends, even the government...oh, how I missed all of them so much. I would die just to return the world to normal.
I had made it a habit to comment, "As the last man, I will rule the Dead States of America. If anyone sees this, I wish you the best of luck. God bless America!" in every video I found. Thank the Lord that Ctrl+V works, I might have broken down otherwise.
Something didn't feel right in the air when I got out of the facility. I knew all had been eliminated or taken elsewhere into the cosmos but there was always a presence. Everywhere around me, it seemed to stare into me, almost longing for the day when it could scoop me away to the clouds and I could rest finally.
The presence grew stronger during the nights and, after about a month, I awoke to a flood of notifications, never hearing this many at once since before the Calamity wiped all out. I checked the notifications and, to my surprise, there was one like. On all of my comments. Me, being a paranoid hermit since it all began (and still am), freaked out and hid. I was revealed by a blinding light, rays of sunlight bleeding through the fluffy clouds. It carefully grabbed me and took me up, higher than the sky should have even been.
I witnessed a wonderful sight ahead of me. Angels, strumming harps of incredible beauty, humans, resting on chairs made of fine cloud, everything i could ever want. It wasn't a Calamity. It was a miracle. A Rapture!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
Growing up as a boy in a tough neighborhood, Shawshank Redemption was easily one of my most favorite movies. Maybe I'm an undercover optimist in a cynical world, but the theme of hope and keeping faith always appealed to me. Maybe that's what drew me to pursue a career in molecular biology. Yeah, I guess that explains me deciding to knock on a door that I wasn't even sure could open. Of all the monsters I could have tried to slay in the world of science, I chose cancer. Cancer! In a world where "cure cancer" and "Shangri La" are used in the same breath. But I saw potential there. I dared hope. Stem cell technology. Those magic cells that can shapeshift into anything and can theoretically heal any injury. The lure was too great for a guy like me who's a sucker for happy endings. It's why I put up with years of being shat on in the world of academics. Old, fat parasites that thrive on the slave labor of the optimistic young. Mustached clowns who cherry picked from our work only that which they could use in the next country the higher ups decided to rape for oil. My life decisions made sense to me and only me.
But even I couldn't make any sense of it when they shut down the university and evacuated us all in choppers to a remote military installation up in Death Valley, California. I later got to know why this facility was chosen as mankind's last rallying point in North America.
You might be thinking, yeah, it must have been zombies. Some of you might be thinking WW3 and nuclear winters. Hell, even werewolves and vampires might make the list. But not the thing that really screwed us over. It was pretty simple, actually. Yeast. A fucking fungus wiped out civilization as we knew it.
It wasn't yet the dawn of the internet when it happened. It all started even before the first iPhone was built. A French expedition of geologists brought back a fossilised rock from Antarctica back in 1982. "The Thing" was released that year. Monsters lying dormant in ice was a popular trope back then. But the real monster that was thawed out of the ice was a lot, lot worse. The fossil was pre-Silurian, predating anything that gave birth to it's young. Sealed in an air pocket in the frozen rock was the fossilised remains of a fungus. The oldest Fungus in the world. They named it Arachaea Primus. From a time where life on the planet obeyed one rule : kill or be killed. And the fungus had no intention of being killed.
CRISPR was born sometime after the millennium and became popular around 2006. Scientists were basically mixing together genes in a test tube and seeing what happened. The Archaea files were dusted off sometime around then and were looked at with lenses of genomic editing. And what they saw baffled them.
Imagine every fungus in the world. Imagine the many things they do. From Athlete's Foot to Penicillin. Now imagine a fungus that could do it all. Worse, it had what they called 'Dynamic Gene Assimilation'. Meaning the yeast could pillage the medium it grew on by hijacking it's genes and altering how they expressed themselves. Look, I won't bore you with the sciency bits here. Suffice to say this was fucking strange and downright fucking dangerous.
And then the idiots tried to test how it would hold up against prion proteins. Fungus Vs Protein. Fungus won by total knockout in the very first round. But then it killed the opponent, ate it's corpse and stole it's powers. And there it was, the most dangerous weapon under the sun.
It didn't take long for some nutjob to try weaponising it. The new decade of 2020 was just dawning when the first outbreak burst out of a cobbled-together lab in a remote location in Iran. Refugees fleeing the middle east made sure any country with even a barely functional government collapsed in a matter of weeks. It took less than a month for Asia to go under. Europe took three weeks. North America was reduced to pockets now.
In action, Archaea was truly frightening. The fungus hijacked proteins in the host's central nervous system and pumped it full of acid. The infected started being driven by one need alone - protect the fungus. They began migrating to warm and humid climates. They didn't wait for the jet lag to clear when they landed. They went straight to the ground and clumped together in the muddy waters. Then they started cutting themselves. Tooth, nail, any metal utensils. The fungus made sure it was well fed by driving the human body to turn itself into living mush. Mycelia started popping up on living flesh. There were disturbing footages floating around on the internet, of the infected walking around with fungal balls hanging from their mouths in a town in Greece.
The second wave hit when the spores went airborne. All animal and bird life was affected instantly. Vultures were strangely immune at first. But the fungus won again.
I spend my days in a Haz Mat suit now. The men and women who ran this rig went out to explore. They thought the desert would keep the fungus at bay. It didn't.
Those who removed their helmets when the claustrophobia mounted were the first to go. Some walked out willingly, knowing full well they would die. The last of them, Ricky, he wished me luck before walking out into the sun. Heh. Luck.
Now you know. Now you know how the world ended. And I expect you'd be just as shocked as I was when I saw the notification that someone liked my comment. The internet outlived humanity for a while. Courtesy of solar cells and computer systems on autopilot. Well, I'd taken to commenting "Last comment before the death of humanity" under ever video I watched. Most of them were about Archaea. Damn son of a bitch was a social media star! I laughed at the thought. Iaugh at odd things these days.
My laughter died faster than an electrocuted fly when I saw it.
Someone had liked my comment.
I began to sweat inside the suit. My breath came in gasps now, fogging the glass.
The fungus was smart. It taught itself a lot by hacking into nearly 6 billion cerebrums. Whatever was on the other side now replied to my comment. Three words. I'll find you.
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Apocalypse Log, Personal Entry.
Day 1,334 since the Abomination of Desolation stood in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the collapse of the [Thwaites glacier](https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-breaking-point/) in Antarctica. We fled to the mountains as soon as we heard the news, didn't even bother to go into the house to grab our stuff; there was a permanent tsunami on its way, and we wanted to beat the traffic. Squatting in a dead billionaire's apocalypse survival bunker feels wrong, but he didn't make it, since he was busy gathering his stuff from his mansion when the wave came. When the troubles begin, the stuff you own ends up owning you. There's no point in letting all that survival gear and supplies go to waste. I only remembered where his bunker was because I helped work on the security system. Is it still theft and trespassing if everyone is dead? God forgive me either way. The rest of my family died on a salvage and forage run most of a year ago. My heart is broken. It appears that I'm the only one left. The nuclear battery powering this place is still running, as is YouTube's data center, thank God, or I'd die of boredom. Thats one thing the ultra rich didn't prepare enough for was boredom. After sheer terror, sheer boredom is the worst.
I guess I'll watch [YouTube videos](https://www.reddit.com/r/Apocalypse/comments/ednxs9/6_scariest_predictions_said_by_kids_five_of_them/) till I die.
\_\_\_
Apocalypse Log, Personal Entry.
Day [1,335](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=dan+12%3A11-13&version=ESV).
I found a like on my comment! What the actual hell! Where could any survivors possibly be? I'm going to leave my contact info on all comments to see if I can make contact. This is nuts!
\_\_\_
Day 1,336
Last entry. A new era begins.I got an email from the mysterious person who liked my comment! I'm just going to past it here:
>Hey dude. It's Sahaqiel, an angel of YHWH. I came gather the survivors, but I couldn't find anyone, so I got bored and found a spot where I could browse YouTube. If you had not left those comments, I'd have to return to the Lord empty handed. I know that it is written "[if those days had not been cut short, no human being would survive.](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A15-22&version=ESV) But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short." I didn't think it would be this bad. But I guess this makes my job of [sorting the good from the evil](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+13%3A36-43&version=ESV) easy. (Don't worry, you're on the good list.) I'm guessing you're in a bunker somewhere. Wherever you are, you did a good job hiding. I've been searching for you for the past [45 days](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=dan+12%3A11-13&version=ESV). While hiding in the bunker, you missed [the first resurrection](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A4-6&version=ESV). It was quite a sight! Your grandma is here looking for you, as are your wife and kids and a bunch of your friends. Raise some sort of beacon where you are, I'll come get you. But stay inside and wait, since the air is still bad. Jesus is back, and [there's going to be a feast](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+19%3A6-21&version=ESV) on his holy mountain and the restoration of the earth. You won't want to miss it!
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*Last*, I pressed the enter button on the cracked screen of my phone as I commented on another YouTube video. It was another MrBeast challenge. Sure, these videos were old, and frankly—cringeworthy. But it wasn’t like I had much else to do nowadays. WWIII ended last month with the end of mankind. Well, most of it anyway. The USSR sent missiles to the United States to defend Iran, and the exchange between the two countries created a nuclear fallout. The skies were painted a dark gray, and a thick fog filled the air outside of the small apartment I was in.
The apartment was not undamaged, for sure. But a few patch ups over the course of a week helped create a stable enough shelter to protect me from acid rains. I opened the mini-fridge with my remaining rations. “Hmph, not much left.” I said to myself. I took a deep sigh as I stretched out my back. All that was left of my rations were MRE meals and soup cans, as well as a six pack of Orange Vanilla Coca-Cola. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I tore open an MRE meal and filled it with water from a half empty water bottle across the room. “Eh?” I read the notification and my rubbed my eyes. *This can’t be true..* I thought. “xXLeslieXx liked your comment” The screen read. “What the hell?” My voice broke the silence as I threw on a military-grade gas mask and stumbled outside in a paralysis of confusion.
I scanned the horizon, a rusty 9mm pistol in hand. Again the thoughts flooded my mind, *Who could’ve liked my comment? Is there really another survivor out there? Am I just dreaming of all this?* and then, as if the confusion wasn’t intense enough, I heard something off in the distance. *CLANK, CLANK, CLANK,* as I turned around, my head rotated upwards towards the massive mechanical figure in front of me.
“Hello, I am xXLeslieXx.” The robotic humanoid said, smiling using the tiny pixels on his computerized face and waving at me. “And you are?”
Suddenly this empty world was a whole lot less empty.
“u/ToasterWaffless at your service.”
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Autumn leaves fall on the empty road, joining piles of debris being tossed around in the wind. There is no-one to clean them. Empty silence, the only soundtrack to this lonely street for nearly 3 years is broken with a faint hum. Steadily the noise grows until the dead leaves flee with the arrival of a Tesla car as it cuts dangerously through the street, an ancient song blasting through the sound system “Despacito”.
Grant sings along to the song, the words alien to his ears. His fingers casually tap along with the song as his feet desperately struggle to reach the peddles, like a duck in water, had he ever seen such an animal. The car beeps insistently causing him to move the vibrant red twizzler poking out one side of his mouth to the other. He car slows to a dead stop as Grant haphazardly parks the vehicle under a great tree.
Unperturbed Grant jumps out the car and carries on down the road, kicking leaves in the air singing made up words in between chewing his last twizzler. Townhouses flank him and the road for an easy mile down the hill, picking up small stones Grant aims for the high windows before lowering his goal as his aim betrays his ambition.
Finally he reaches his destination, an empty supermarket with an empty car park. ONE. TWO. THREE.
The glass shop front gives way to the trolley ramming at the hands of the would-be criminal teen. Pushing through into the supermarket the cold stale air meets Grant who zips his jacket a little higher up his neck. A mass of mould has taken over the entire right side of the store, the remains of bread and meat. Grant knows to avoid the spores, and instead goes to the canned and dried goods. He stocks up on supplies, including store brand cola-zero and a massive amount of sweets. taking his bounty to the stock room he fills his pockets and leaves the rest behind as he looks for a way up to the roof.
The sun is beginning to set and the sky begins to mimic the warm red tones of the trees that are taking over the dead town. Taking a minute to take in the view Grant smiles as he finds his USB wire and plugs into the terminal that is linked to the stack of solar panels that line the roof.
Settling down on the rooftop Grant taps the YouTube app and begins his evening with friends. Tanya is on the beach with brad, they do burpees and sprints against a clock with other CrossFit friends. Grant laughs at Tanya, she’s so full of life. Brad is a bit of a bore compared to Grant he thought to himself.
LAST.
Jeremy reviews the latest Oscar nominated movies and speaks deep deep wisdom about the nature of humanity and people’s struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world.
LAST.
The cold wind strokes his face a little more insistently and for a moment Grant feels less alone. He looks up to see the stars join him. He moves over to his favourite channel. Jess, a cartoonist from Tampa. He often wondered what Tampa was doing right now. Alone without a watchmen like him. He has 2 videos left of her channel. Jess has been struggling with depression lately and she’s been working through it with her art. Grant tells her she’s a strong woman and has so much to ... live for. The thought sticks in his head.
LAST.
Her last video. His eyes fill with tears, as Jess tells her fans she’s going on a break to find herself and focus on her work. She signs off with her typical “Love you”. Tears fall from Grants cheeks onto his phone as he pauses the screen to touch her face. Gone. Her wit. Her talent. All gone. He mouths her sign off phrase through the tears flowing freely now down his face. One more time he comments on her video as he does every video he watches “LAST”.
Grant moves into the staff room for the evening. Tanya and Brad keep him company as he drifts to sleep.
3am
Grant is startled by an unfamiliar sound, a notification comes through his phone.
SOMEONE HAS LIKED YOUR COMMENT.
Grant rubs the sleep away from his eyes, looking for this obvious malfunction in the app.
SOMEONE HAS LIKED YOUR COMMENT.
In a panic Grant jumps away from his phone, pacing back and forth as it bleeps again.
JESS2066 HAS SUBSCRIBED TO YOUR CHANNEL.
**thanks for reading my first short story** ;)
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
“Is this what rock bottom looks like?” Lane asked himself, his fingers danced lazily over the keyboard as he exercised futility to its breaking point, he submitted another comment, “Last!”
He should be grateful, he supposed, the amount of content on YouTube far exceeds what remains of his dreary life, the site’s algorithms even helped him to find new users to subscribe to. Remember to click the bell-icon and like the video, everyone, it really helps them out!
The worst part of it all was that the end of the world hardly made a difference, he’d scroll through YouTube regardless, he’d still occasionally bend to the will of the almighty algorithm, clicking on recommended videos, letting them chip away at his soul, blending the pieces in a red-blue and white mass— letting him live a life through someone else, having himself never lived at all.
They’re together right now, Lane knew, the robots. He liked to imagine the robots all gathered in an office room, they’d be seated on expensive leather chairs, huddled around the large glass-table in the middle of the room. The machines would sit across from each other, arguing if they should recommend a video of a cat miscalculating a jump, or of a fat man getting stuck in a water-slide.
Lane was just about to call it a day when he noticed the red notification. HasBananaFitz has liked your comment, was it a joke? A cruel prank played by the robots, it must be. They’re learning, aren’t they? Finding new and exciting ways to make sure he dies glued to his computer screen. HasBananaFitz has replied to your comment— Lane entered the user’s channel in hopes of confirming the person a fake, the introduction video was of a man in a banana costume dancing to old pop-music, the man had some moves, Lane granted, and subscribed to the channel.
Lane checked the alleged reply from the enigmatic dancing man, “Yeah? Then what’s this, jerk-ass!”
*Jerk-ass*. Humanity deserved what they got, Lane thought to himself.
Lane replied, “You real?”
He stared at the computer screen for a good thirty minutes, he didn’t feel bad or especially hopeful, he was in his element after all. Wasting time was his forte. A new notification from HasBananaFitz— it was a video, he clicked.
A man in a banana costume stared at him, he looked angry, holding a bunch of bananas. The man screamed and started throwing the yellow fruit at the camera. Seems about right. It was probably just an AI sending random videos, he had fallen for its bait. Lane was just about to turn off the sorry display when the man sobered, “I… I know you’re not real, TheRealLane49," the banana-man slumped down in a carved chair, the bending bottom-end of his costume deflating some of the moment’s sincerity, “it even says we’re both from the same city, what are the chances? Not big, I imagine. Anyway, in case you are real, I’m going to be at Brian’s Coffee House, the one near the monument in Mid-town. I’ll be there tomorrow at noon, waiting. If you’re real… I’m sorry I called you a jerk-ass.”
Lane clicked cancel before it could auto-play another video, its thumbnail promising a man holding a violin under water. He thought for not very long at all before he said aloud, “Alright, banana-man, it’s a date.”
*****
Thank you for reading!
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”*
I chuckled to myself as I reread my old Terry Pratchett novels. Good thing he wasn't around to witness the craziness of the current day. Then again, no one was around. Rereading old books had become a habit of mine, a desperate grab towards a sense of familiarity, comfort, even love. The first few weeks after the world ended, it was devastating. I hid in my room, frantically refreshing the internet, hoping for some sign of communication. I even figured out how to get on the dark web, in the hope some far-away drug lord might have found some ways to survive.
That was when the stench of dead bodies became too much for me. I had to do something about it, clean out my immediate surroundings. The tap water was starting to look kind of murky, and I needed to get to the store, was I to survive. Store first. Bodies later. Well, at least I didn't have to worry about money, for once. The entire store was mine.
I'm not sure why the power was still on. Why the freezers were still working. Or, the internet, with its vast resources of information but now as much of a desolate wasteland as the rest of the world. It took me another few weeks to gather the bodies on a pile. To go through the stores and freeze the perishables. To set myself up for... I didn't know what. I guess the best I could do was write down my experiences, day to day, in case someone - or something - would eventually find them.
The pile of bodies burned like a rescue fire. No one came. At least I was smart enough to do it far from home.
I started exploring the city. My trusty smartphone with me. The satellites still worked. The internet still worked. Sure, public transport wasn't an option and I never got my drivers license, but who was there to call me out for driving? I learned how to break into cars and start them. I learned how to break into homes. The world, empty and quiet, was mine.
Empty and quiet except for the books, were the emotions of humanity were stored. Except from the videos, where the movements and sounds were recorded. I always hated YouTube, never had the patience to look through videos, yet I found myself mesmerized - and eventually, in a sense of morbid humor, started commenting "last" on each and every video. Who cared? I started a Vlog. I bet it would have been popular, who didn't want to see New York City at the end of times? But there was no one to watch but me.
My next step, I thought to myself, sitting on top of the Empire State Building, looking at the sunrise, would be to go through the government files. Find some interesting classified information. Figured out which switch was pulled. Figure out why I survived.
My thoughts were disturbed by a sound on my phone. Damn robo-callers. I wish they'd be taken out with them.
**YouTube**.
I thought I turned off all notifications for apps.
**"Someone liked your comment."**
Wait. What?
I stared at my phone in confusion. Another notification. YouTube, again.
**"You have one new subscriber."**
I opened the profile. No username. No information. No other subscribers.
**"You have a new message."**
I opened the message, my hands shaking. Could this be it? The sign of life I spent so many months looking for?
*"Hey! if you're reading this were not alone!!! i am soo far away from you and always wanted to go to nyc but am scared to fly a plane?"*
I laughed at the irony of it. Of course. Of course the only person who'd be able to track me down spoke English, but was too far away to meet. Someone who could fill the void of human conversation, but couldn't help me out of this. Whatever this was.
*"Hi! Yeah, reading this. Where are you living? Any idea what happened?"*
*"Don't know. don't care. the world is better off this way. england. anyway, whats your #?"*
I didn't know whether my phone still worked, but gave out my number. Anything better than those bots, right? I could do with some human interaction. Maybe an old-fashioned call. I'd give a lot to hear a human voice again.
Two minutes later, a text came through. A picture. I opened it. A second message came through almost immediately.
*Send nudes?*
I wish this end of the world took dick pics with it too.
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
[poem] (edit: mobile formatting, sorry)
I'd be an example of strange human psych,
Were anyone left to examine my likes.
Now every last person has gone to their rest
I'm here but I'm hardly the best of the rest.
There's not much to do, since there's no one but me
I've spent the last decade in captivity.
It turns out there's actually lots out in space,
Including a fairly mean alien race.
They came down with lasers and strip mined the earth
(It's too bad that humans had left not much worth!)
They ground up our planet like leftover poo,
And stuck us in some kind of alien zoo.
They brought only six of us, black, white and brown,
And built us a really sweet suburban town.
We got piles of stuff like computers and toys
It's too bad they screwed up and only brought boys.
The internet's free, and the bandwidth was wide,
So why even bother to waste time outside?
Our food it was plenty, with alien produce
The only flaw being we couldn't re-produce
So yes, I'm alone now, man's down to just one,
And YouTube is my only source of clean fun.
The days they get longer, and weeks they go past
I watch my cat vids and I keep posting "last."
But wait! There's a like on a post from last week!
I'm scared and confused, and i can't even speak!
I have to go outside to process the shock,
I go for a walk and just circle the block.
It's there that I see her, a girl, tall and fair,
With eyes like a sapphire and ebony hair.
We spoke and my jaw quickly dropped to the floor.
It turns out she lived with "the ladies" NEXT DOOR!
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
*I could feel my chest heaving. This single email, the only human communication I'd received in a week. I didn't know what I was feeling, a new human emotion that was driven by desperation, rooted in grief and fear, while being brightened by hope and shadowed by doubt. This feeling carried me as I click the link, which took me back to my single comment. 'Last'. I'd given up hope of finding anyone else in that moment but maybe I was wrong. Or, said the doubting shadow, this was simply the last gasp of an algorithm that didn't know how to behave in a vacuum. If there was only one person to comment, maybe, in its neural networking logic, it figured that it must become the person to like and subscribe. The thought drew a simple laugh out of me. I stare at the like. No, it's like, comment and subscribe. I reply to my own comment. "Like, comment and subscribe to my channel, if you're alive."*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
*Last*, I pressed the enter button on the cracked screen of my phone as I commented on another YouTube video. It was another MrBeast challenge. Sure, these videos were old, and frankly—cringeworthy. But it wasn’t like I had much else to do nowadays. WWIII ended last month with the end of mankind. Well, most of it anyway. The USSR sent missiles to the United States to defend Iran, and the exchange between the two countries created a nuclear fallout. The skies were painted a dark gray, and a thick fog filled the air outside of the small apartment I was in.
The apartment was not undamaged, for sure. But a few patch ups over the course of a week helped create a stable enough shelter to protect me from acid rains. I opened the mini-fridge with my remaining rations. “Hmph, not much left.” I said to myself. I took a deep sigh as I stretched out my back. All that was left of my rations were MRE meals and soup cans, as well as a six pack of Orange Vanilla Coca-Cola. My phone buzzed in my pocket as I tore open an MRE meal and filled it with water from a half empty water bottle across the room. “Eh?” I read the notification and my rubbed my eyes. *This can’t be true..* I thought. “xXLeslieXx liked your comment” The screen read. “What the hell?” My voice broke the silence as I threw on a military-grade gas mask and stumbled outside in a paralysis of confusion.
I scanned the horizon, a rusty 9mm pistol in hand. Again the thoughts flooded my mind, *Who could’ve liked my comment? Is there really another survivor out there? Am I just dreaming of all this?* and then, as if the confusion wasn’t intense enough, I heard something off in the distance. *CLANK, CLANK, CLANK,* as I turned around, my head rotated upwards towards the massive mechanical figure in front of me.
“Hello, I am xXLeslieXx.” The robotic humanoid said, smiling using the tiny pixels on his computerized face and waving at me. “And you are?”
Suddenly this empty world was a whole lot less empty.
“u/ToasterWaffless at your service.”
|
*I could feel my chest heaving. This single email, the only human communication I'd received in a week. I didn't know what I was feeling, a new human emotion that was driven by desperation, rooted in grief and fear, while being brightened by hope and shadowed by doubt. This feeling carried me as I click the link, which took me back to my single comment. 'Last'. I'd given up hope of finding anyone else in that moment but maybe I was wrong. Or, said the doubting shadow, this was simply the last gasp of an algorithm that didn't know how to behave in a vacuum. If there was only one person to comment, maybe, in its neural networking logic, it figured that it must become the person to like and subscribe. The thought drew a simple laugh out of me. I stare at the like. No, it's like, comment and subscribe. I reply to my own comment. "Like, comment and subscribe to my channel, if you're alive."*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
*I could feel my chest heaving. This single email, the only human communication I'd received in a week. I didn't know what I was feeling, a new human emotion that was driven by desperation, rooted in grief and fear, while being brightened by hope and shadowed by doubt. This feeling carried me as I click the link, which took me back to my single comment. 'Last'. I'd given up hope of finding anyone else in that moment but maybe I was wrong. Or, said the doubting shadow, this was simply the last gasp of an algorithm that didn't know how to behave in a vacuum. If there was only one person to comment, maybe, in its neural networking logic, it figured that it must become the person to like and subscribe. The thought drew a simple laugh out of me. I stare at the like. No, it's like, comment and subscribe. I reply to my own comment. "Like, comment and subscribe to my channel, if you're alive."*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
*I could feel my chest heaving. This single email, the only human communication I'd received in a week. I didn't know what I was feeling, a new human emotion that was driven by desperation, rooted in grief and fear, while being brightened by hope and shadowed by doubt. This feeling carried me as I click the link, which took me back to my single comment. 'Last'. I'd given up hope of finding anyone else in that moment but maybe I was wrong. Or, said the doubting shadow, this was simply the last gasp of an algorithm that didn't know how to behave in a vacuum. If there was only one person to comment, maybe, in its neural networking logic, it figured that it must become the person to like and subscribe. The thought drew a simple laugh out of me. I stare at the like. No, it's like, comment and subscribe. I reply to my own comment. "Like, comment and subscribe to my channel, if you're alive."*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
*I could feel my chest heaving. This single email, the only human communication I'd received in a week. I didn't know what I was feeling, a new human emotion that was driven by desperation, rooted in grief and fear, while being brightened by hope and shadowed by doubt. This feeling carried me as I click the link, which took me back to my single comment. 'Last'. I'd given up hope of finding anyone else in that moment but maybe I was wrong. Or, said the doubting shadow, this was simply the last gasp of an algorithm that didn't know how to behave in a vacuum. If there was only one person to comment, maybe, in its neural networking logic, it figured that it must become the person to like and subscribe. The thought drew a simple laugh out of me. I stare at the like. No, it's like, comment and subscribe. I reply to my own comment. "Like, comment and subscribe to my channel, if you're alive."*
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
Nothingness.
A video labeled Nothingness. It was 10 hours long. It had a black screen. Nothing played. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. No music. No movement. Nothing at all. It seemed eerily similar to the dark of the night that had engulfed my home.
There were no cars zipping by on the street below. There were no street lights switched on by the dark of night. The city had been left, empty to rot. From Dust to Dust, as man had risen, they had fallen. Wiped from the earth. All of it was gone now. A single generator kept the nearest cell tower active and the battery, hooked to the solar on the roof kept my phone powered, but not much else. I had YouTube. I had a 10 hour video of nothingness.
Thank the tech gods google decided they were worthy of a nuclear bunker and 20 years worth of battery backups to power their servers for hundreds of years, siphoning energy from their solar fields to keep the batteries topped off every morning. It turns out they did know how to build SOME things to last.
I watched the video of nothingness for 2 hours before deciding what to spend my time on. I scrolled to the bottom of the page and readied a comment. "Last" four characters. Lonely. Accurate. Simple. Terminal. It seemed almost fated. Every video has one comment that says "First" and I was the last. I would always be the last. Because there was nothing else. I proceeded to spend the remaining 8 hours of the video skipping through video to video, posting Last.
It was May 20th, 2020. The world had recently fallen to chaos. Only a year ago. It was the last day of his presidency that the missiles fell. I expected a nuclear blast, but it was so much worse. They fell without sound. The landed without impact. They exploded without raising alarm. They filled the air with gas. The gas reacted with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, causing people to suffocate on the air around them. It was quick. It happened in waves. The united states dropped to their knees and died, then the fireworks went off. Retaliation from america has always been brutal and unrelenting in comparison to the crimes. This was no different. The rest of the planet quickly became an uninhabitable irradiated wasteland where nothing could live. And america was so toxic, smelling it from the statue of liberty could knock you unconscious. Nothingness. All around. Everywhere was nothingness.
After my commenting streak, I fell asleep. The last man alive on earth. A ping and a brief shaking from under my pillow brought me back to reality. I didn't set an alarm.
A jolt of electricity buzzed through my mind as I yanked the tiny glowing screen into view. it rolled out of my fingers, flipped off my pillow and shattered on the floor. Only a corner was still visible on the once $2000 piece of hardware. It showed a notification from youtube. The unfractured corner read:
"Your comme...
Liked! Chec..."
I bolted for my desktop. My batteries wouldn't be able to support it for long in the early morning hours, but I just needed to check. I opened up the case, pulled out my GPUs and set the PSU for Powersavings, then powered on. Within seconds, I was staring at the youtube launch page. A glowing red icon notified me "No new subscriber videos" and right underneath it read "Your comment has been Liked! Check it out here!"
Impatient clicks fall on a computer unburdened by slow hardware, but for the first time, as the internet began to load the list of likes on the one word comment, under a makeup tutorial at the end of the world, hope was palpable. A quick double click showed the account didn't seem to be a bot. In use for years, with family photos mixed with half nudes, and ridiculous selfies, shared from google+ by accident when trying to backup to google photos. It was clearly a human.
I messaged their account. "Hey. Are you still there?"
"Hello. My name is Janice."
"Holy fuck, this is a person. You're a person."
"Haha, YES!"
"WHERE ARE YOU?! I THOUGHT EVERYONE WAS DEAD?! AM I NOT THE ONLY ONE STILL ALIVE?!"
"Horny singles in your area! Bangtube. Click here to join me there, baby. ;) http:\\\\[email protected]"
I picked up the revolver I had raided from my crazy neighbor's house and placed the barrel to my pallet. The legacy of man will forever be intertwined with his greatest failures.
Pop
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
As I clicked on yet another link, a glance at the title woke me from my stupor.
**US attack on Iran sparks new wave of WWIII memes**
It seemed inconceivable that not so long ago this was the reality. Fresh internet humor about the planet's impending doom. The latest bunch of pop culture references and dark jokes to relay the sense of strangeness of the world.
*Only if we had known.*
It had been fourteen days - two full weeks - since I had last interacted with another living soul. For all I knew, there wasn't another one remaining. The heat, radiation and extreme weather had taken most. Those who had remained were forced to see themselves devolve into savages in hopeless attempts to survive. With the food supplies dwindling, it seemed like I would soon be joining those ranks.
To say my days had become monotonous would be an understatement. Each day was indistinguishable from the last. They consisted of me trying to get by on as little food as possible.
Though food was in short supply, by some miracle, electricity and Internet were still up and running. It was little comfort though when there didn't seem to be anyone else using it. There were no new posts on Facebook or Twitter, nobody uploading vlogs from their nuclear-holocaust-proof bunkers. And there was nothing on Reddit either. No more of those dank WWIII memes.
I had given up looking for signs of life online at least a week ago. My waking hours now saw me mindlessly scroll through old Reddit posts and watching Youtube videos. I had developed a perverse habit of leaving comments on every video I saw. It was an old obsession for people to be the first to view content uploaded by their favourite Youtubers. Within seconds of uploading, videos used to be inundated with comments of "First". I always found that trend annoying. I could never be the first one to comment on any of those videos but I certainly could be the last.
*Maybe the Internet wasn't keeping me sane after all*
Rubbing my eyes, I decided that I'd had enough. Time didn't matter much to me now but I still felt inclined to sleep while it was still dark outside. Just as I had put my phone away and prepared myself to go to sleep, I heard a sound that sent shock waves through my body. A sound I had heard a million times before but it had never made me feel as excited,elated or terrified before.
My phone had buzzed.
As I picked it up, I saw that I had received a notification.
*LoneSurivor liked your comment: "Last".*
|
It's probably nothing, obviously, the notification that pops up on the home screen of my phone. It's just a stupid like, on a stupid comment, on a stupid video. It's pre-programmed code, or something. Computers have never made sense to me, but whatever. Some forgotten code on some rotting computer; the author long dead, maybe from the first great famine, or the second, or the floods that followed. That's what the video is, by the way, news footage of a flood. That was when we still had things like the news. I watch it now; little bodies floating in the dirty water. The helicopter footage cutting to some guy in a shiny studio; a debate between a climate scientist talking about rising temperatures, and an angry pastor talking about God's wrath and gays. I roll my eyes, it's so goddamn inevitable. We argued until the end. Until there was literally no one left to blame.
I'm the last one.
There's nothing left for me to do. But wait, and try not to starve.
There was a time when I would have cherished this. I know that sounds crazy, but you find me a receptionist who works 70 hour weeks for minimum wage and doesn't dream about an apocalypse, about some goddamn piece and quiet. Instead, now I watch videos, and I cherish the voices, and I think about the fact that they're all dead and it tears my insides apart. I comment on every one 'last'. It started off like a grim joke, maybe. Then it became almost like a plea, like I'm saying 'last, please!'. I want this world to last. Even now, in it's rotting form. I want to last. I want humanity and everything we've built to last. All these videos, these little snippets of existence, I don't want them to be forgotten. I sing to myself to see if my voice still works, and I know I'm the last person to sing that song.
This 'like' means nothing, right? I click on it. Nothing comes up, no username.
I reply to my own comment 'Is someone out there?'
A beat. A pause. A notification.
Words pop up; 'Oh my God, I didn't think there was really someone. I'm here.'
Holy shit. I type quickly. 'Last! fucking hell, please last!'
|
Wow, I did *not* expect such a huge turnout for my first ever prompt. The prompt itself arose from a friend and I doing some random banter back and forth, and I just posted up part of that banter as the prompt, essentially. XD
Thanks to everyone who posted a response and gave an upvote, this meant a lot to me!
|
[WP] As the last survivor of the apocalypse, in a fit of boredom, you start commenting "last" on every video on YouTube. One day, you receive a notification that your comment has been liked.
|
[Poem]
Who is this person?
I've been the last, for ages.
Oh joy... a dumb bot
But wait a second,
Nothing responded prior.
Who would have wrote this?
What? Another "like"?
Has an AI have found me?
Are they friend or foe?
|
Apocalypse Log, Personal Entry.
Day 1,334 since the Abomination of Desolation stood in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the collapse of the [Thwaites glacier](https://www.wired.com/story/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-breaking-point/) in Antarctica. We fled to the mountains as soon as we heard the news, didn't even bother to go into the house to grab our stuff; there was a permanent tsunami on its way, and we wanted to beat the traffic. Squatting in a dead billionaire's apocalypse survival bunker feels wrong, but he didn't make it, since he was busy gathering his stuff from his mansion when the wave came. When the troubles begin, the stuff you own ends up owning you. There's no point in letting all that survival gear and supplies go to waste. I only remembered where his bunker was because I helped work on the security system. Is it still theft and trespassing if everyone is dead? God forgive me either way. The rest of my family died on a salvage and forage run most of a year ago. My heart is broken. It appears that I'm the only one left. The nuclear battery powering this place is still running, as is YouTube's data center, thank God, or I'd die of boredom. Thats one thing the ultra rich didn't prepare enough for was boredom. After sheer terror, sheer boredom is the worst.
I guess I'll watch [YouTube videos](https://www.reddit.com/r/Apocalypse/comments/ednxs9/6_scariest_predictions_said_by_kids_five_of_them/) till I die.
\_\_\_
Apocalypse Log, Personal Entry.
Day [1,335](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=dan+12%3A11-13&version=ESV).
I found a like on my comment! What the actual hell! Where could any survivors possibly be? I'm going to leave my contact info on all comments to see if I can make contact. This is nuts!
\_\_\_
Day 1,336
Last entry. A new era begins.I got an email from the mysterious person who liked my comment! I'm just going to past it here:
>Hey dude. It's Sahaqiel, an angel of YHWH. I came gather the survivors, but I couldn't find anyone, so I got bored and found a spot where I could browse YouTube. If you had not left those comments, I'd have to return to the Lord empty handed. I know that it is written "[if those days had not been cut short, no human being would survive.](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A15-22&version=ESV) But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short." I didn't think it would be this bad. But I guess this makes my job of [sorting the good from the evil](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+13%3A36-43&version=ESV) easy. (Don't worry, you're on the good list.) I'm guessing you're in a bunker somewhere. Wherever you are, you did a good job hiding. I've been searching for you for the past [45 days](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=dan+12%3A11-13&version=ESV). While hiding in the bunker, you missed [the first resurrection](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A4-6&version=ESV). It was quite a sight! Your grandma is here looking for you, as are your wife and kids and a bunch of your friends. Raise some sort of beacon where you are, I'll come get you. But stay inside and wait, since the air is still bad. Jesus is back, and [there's going to be a feast](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+19%3A6-21&version=ESV) on his holy mountain and the restoration of the earth. You won't want to miss it!
|
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