The End of Days

Audio Diary Entry 1: This is an audio-diary for whatever species comes after us. My name is Emily Danvers, and at approximately 9:17 AM on the morning of July 30th, 2040, the apocalypse began. The world did not end with a bang or a flash, but limped quietly towards its demise under the gaze of The Horsemen. 

Pestilence had come first. He had concocted a particularly nasty strain of flu. It took the old, the very young and the weak. Nothing natural selection wouldn’t have done over time. I lost my baby brother and my grandparents to him. If you ask me, they were the lucky ones, to leave before shit got really bad. 

Next came War. He took with him many of the able-bodied men and women, as well as many world leaders. His job was easy. This world was already full of anger and hatred, all War had to do was give it a little nudge. A political assassination did just fine. We lost our leaders, our family, and our friends to War. Not many were left. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

Famine took his sweet time in coming. He crept slowly into the fields and crops and choked them to death. Bugs spoiled crops and plants rotted. With so few able-bodied people left to tend to them, the livestock soon followed. After months of this struggle, many who had survived the first two Horsemen eventually fell to famine’s unyielding torment, withering from within. 

There are so few of us left after him. 

Now that his brothers have finished their fun, Death has come to claim the rest of us. As I am recording this log, I am hiding out in an abandoned farm somewhere in the middle of Idaho. It’s so quiet. It's been too quiet since the war ended. When there were simply not enough people on either side to continue fighting, everyone just kinda gave up. You can go for days and days now and never see another person. I, myself, haven’t seen another person in 6 days, and the last person I did see, I had to kill because… well, because I was hungry. 

There is no food left. Famine took most of that from us. I hadn’t had meat in a while and I felt myself weakening.

 Listen, I’m a survivor ok? I survived the other three horsemen because I am willing to do what needs to be done. I look out for number one first. 

But that is not how it always was. I guess I started this audio-diary because I was lonely, but also because I want humanity to be remembered for its beauty and life, not just the pathetic and ugly way it ended. 

To any lifeforms that come to earth and find this recording, please know that the people who lived here were strong, resourceful, stubborn as hell, and survivors. We ruled this planet for thousands of years, and we were not always kind to it, but we persisted. We found solace in each other and celebrated together and shared in each other’s happiness and pain. Our culture does not deserve to be quietly dismissed.

 I will not let humanity be forgotten without a fight. Death can come, but I will face him. 

I can hear him now. The silence has gained a heavy feeling. His presence is a weight in the air, the inevitability of HIM suffocating me. 

Death has come.

-[CLICK]-

… 

Emily Danvers stopped recording, stepped out of the large barn doors of the barn she was squatting in, and faced Death head-on. She saw him gliding over the hill-tops, a dark-cloaked figure astride a brilliant white horse. From far away, Death looked blurry, like Emily could not quite make out where he ended and the night around them began. Death is never quite clear until you meet it, is it?

She was not unarmed. Emily had been conscripted to the war, and had survived through selfishness and sheer will-power, and the handgun and knife she’d been given hadn’t hurt either. She drew the gun from its holster on her hip and aimed it at Death.

 I must be completely insane, she thought to herself. I am aiming a gun at freaking DEATH. What on earth is that going to do??

Death approached her, and although his outline was becoming clearer with each stride, Emily was still unable to see him clearly. 

Death was unconcerned with the gun trained on him, but intrigued by the little human who was so bold as to threaten Death. He supposed this one must have some balls since she had survived all three of his brothers. They were always leaving him the scraps. Death always came last. His brothers were suffering and pain, but Death was an end to all of that. 

He had found, however, as he made his way across this world, picking off the last of the survivors, that the ones that he got were far more interesting than what his brothers assumed. Death got the bravest, the strongest and the cleverest of humanity. He enjoyed having them as his own. This girl was the last one. He was almost sorry that this intriguing race was extinct now. He had gained an appreciation for it as he consumed their souls. 

He stopped a few paces from the girl. She was the last, so he would take his time. He had nowhere else to be. 

“Why do you point that at me?” he asked the girl. Death’s voice is little more than a whisper but Emily could hear it as clearly as if he were whispering in her ear. 

“I want to live,” she stated simply. There was nothing more to it than that. She desperately wanted to live. 

“Why?” Death responded. He had seen that bright flame of desire in all the humans he had taken. Everyone wanted to live. He felt it when he took the souls into his domain, but he still did not understand that desire. He was peace and safety. No one was ever unhappy after Death had come to claim them. Why were the humans so resistant to that peace? Why did they wish to stay in the world of suffering? Surely, after everything she had endured at the hands of his brothers, this girl would want peace.

 “You are the last human.” He felt her shudder as he confirmed her worst fear. “What is there left for you here? I can bring you peace.” He rasped. “An end to your suffering.” 

Emily lowered the gun a fraction of an inch. A rest did sound lovely, she thought. And she was very tired. With each thought like this, she could see Death’s outline become clearer and more defined. 

He too could feel her resolve weakening. He would take her before long now. He dismounted from his steed, and stood on the ground facing this girl. He walked toward her, closing the gap between them with a few steps. He shrugged the hood of his cloak off his head, and Emily saw underneath not a gruesome monster with decaying skin and reeking of… well, death, but a young man, with deathly pale skin and bone-white hair. 

He was not beautiful by any means, his skin made him look like a drowned man and his eyes were like large gray saucers in too small sockets, but he looked undoubtedly human. This gave Emily some confidence. She had been afraid to face Death, the legendary being of power and destruction, but she had killed humans before. In this form, death would be just like the man she had killed last week for food. She decided to give it her best effort. 

She did not show any of this brash confidence as Death approached her. He felt a slight shift in her energy, a quick buzz of anticipation. He mistook it for desire for himself.

Death opened his arms to her, and she leaned towards him, surrendering to his embrace. As Death’s outline just became clear, Emily thrust her knife up, between what should have been human ribs and into a human heart. 

But Emily made a mistake. 

Death may look like a young man, but she forgot that he most definitely was not. He was a being as old and powerful as the world itself.

He stumbled away from her, his outline becoming fuzzier again. He yanked the knife from his chest and stared in shock and indignation at this foolish creature. How DARE she try and trick Death. 

As Emily looked on in horror, Death began to transform. His eyes shrank back into his head and two dark holes were left. His mouth elongated into a screaming black hole and his skin and hair melted into a sagging mess. 

He was inevitable.

He was immortal.

He was Death.   

This was the monster that Emily had feared, and now it was fast approaching her. She was ready for the end. She closed her eyes. She knew it was time to meet the others, to rejoin her kind on the other side of the veil. The time of humans was over, but she had not wanted to leave this world without one final “f you” to the unfairness of it all. She had wanted to give humanity a fighting chance, but now she knew there was no chance. Death had said she was the last one. 

She did not want to be alone anymore.

She welcomed Death’s embrace, and let the monstrous thing envelop her completely. She was engulfed by darkness, but then she heard Death whisper in her ear.

“I will not take you.” He rasped. “You wanted to live so badly that you were willing to kill me, so I will grant your wish. I will leave you in this world, and I will never come for you again. You will spend eternity here, alone, the last of your kind” Then as quickly as the darkness had enveloped her, it disappeared and Emily was left blinking away the light of day, which had come sometime while she was under Death’s veil.

Emily let loose a strangled cry and looked around, but Death and his horse were nowhere to be seen.

 She was all alone.

…

Audio Diary Entry 207: This will have to be my final entry. I have been trying to log sparingly to save space, but I am afraid this will be it. I have lost count of the number of years it has been since death left me here. 

In the beginning I tried everything to get his attention. I tried hanging myself, drowning myself, cutting myself, and so much more. But Death never came back. 

After a while, I decided to dedicate my life to compiling a reserve of knowledge about humanity, for whoever comes next. I’ve found books, films, buildings that I think will best convey who humanity was and what we stood for. I’ve created sources of my own to add to the collection, but I’m beginning to doubt there will ever be a species after us to find it. 

-a sob is heard on the audio- Now, I’m just so tired. Spending time trying to preserve the essence of humanity has made me so aware of the fact that humans were meant to be together. What is a life with no one to share it with? Our holidays centered around time with loved ones. Our funerals brought us together. Our trials and our wars always left the world stronger and more united than it started. Humanity was stronger together. Without company, life is meaningless.

 I want Death to come for me. I promise I won’t fight this time. There is nothing left for me here. 

-[CLICK]-

…

The girl’s pleas have not been unheard. Death smiles as he heads across the plain towards the lonely figure. He could feel her broken spirit, and he would come to bring her the peace she desired. 

He punished the girl because she needed to learn. Death was inevitable. He was inescapable. No one ever bested Death. 

At last she saw him coming, and she ran to meet him. Not unlike their last encounter, she flung her arms out to embrace him, but this time there were tears of happiness streaming down her face. He welcomed her into his embrace and could feel her release from pain and worry. 

Yes. They always welcomed him in the end.