Abraison

Beginnings are always harder to see than endings. When it began? How it started? You know, the usual questions — looking for someone to blame. But in the end, beginnings don’t really matter.

Endings. Now, those are much easier to see. Everything ends after all. And so it is that humanity just got added to that list. No exceptions, it appears. And now I see the ending as clear as flipping to the last page of a book. A few paragraphs of text, and then nothing, just empty white space. You might even get a “The End” if you’re lucky. I don’t think we’ll be so lucky. So this is my note to the future, to whoever or whatever might find it, that this is the last chapter, and my version of “The End.”

I’m not even sure why I’m writing this, or exactly to whom I’m writing this. In truth, I know why I’m writing this — vanity, surely — but I digress. This is not about me, it’s about the future. A future that contains remnants of the human race without the humans in it. I expect that in less than two years, humans will be as relevant as homo erectus. Just another page in earth’s book of archaeology.

My name is Dr. Johan Nepler, and today is the 21st of July, 2025. Whoever you are, whatever you are, consider this a short transcription of biology gone awry.

Life seems so simple. Things grow, things die. The circle of life and all that. Yet, it’s not that simple, is it? For us, for humans, we’ve spent centuries discovering, learning, knowing — from our bodies to our minds, the earth, space and beyond. Still, all these millennia later, we understand very little. 

You might not think that from the pride we wore. Yet that is the bitter truth of it. We lived on the cusp of knowledge, not within it. And that truth came to find and end us.

I imagine it all began with an abrasion. At least, it did for me.

An abrasion, on the knee, in my office. Emma Nordine, a twelve-year-old girl with bobbed brown hair, hazel eyes, and limber as a cat. She sat upon my waiting room table, her knee skinned. Nothing extraordinary in that. Except, according to her mother, this abrasion had remained for 24 hours. No amount of bandages or other remedies would create a scab. I was indeed curious. I should have been terrified. 

A clean wound, still trickling red, stared at me from that table, daring me to know, to see, the end. As I, and soon the world, discovered, that wound did not heal. It in fact, refused to heal. And for me, that was the beginning. Soon, doctors across the globe were beset by bodies that would not heal themselves.

Such a little thing, a nick on the finger, a scraped elbow. We lived in a world where such things were but minor inconveniences. Apply some ointment, set a bandage, and in a short time all would be well. No trace of the injury remained, vanishing as if by magic. Yet it was not magic, or so we believed. We understood how the body healed its wounds. We could describe to you the processes that were triggered, how our immune system protected us, rebuilt us. It’s funny, looking back, we had the temerity to call it an ‘immune system,’ as though humans were exempt from the fate that befell the dynasties of extinct creatures before us. Still, in the end, describing is not the same as knowing. In truth, we knew not why the body did these things. We expected the body to do these things — survival is built upon it. Which is why now, the end is only a few pages away. 

Some affliction of unknown origin universally halted our body’s healing. A cut on the finger became a permanent wound. A disease, any disease, a death sentence. A cold, the beginning of the end. It was as if our bodies rebelled against themselves. All immune responses switched off. All of our medical advancements could only sustain a life for so long. To our humility, we learned it is the body that repairs itself, not our efforts to suppress fevers, kill infections, or apply stitches. Without the body to mend itself, our remedies are useless.

Scientists and medical professionals over the world were stunned. Spurred into unified and yet disordered action. But knowledge comes with time, and our abrasion stared at us from the knee, claiming time no longer belonged to us.

It is now ten months since I saw that abrasion, and the world is already a quieter place. Many have fled into their homes, or into the wild. Others turned to violence. Most have died. Our artificial protections are just that, artificial. They have proven themselves unworthy of withstanding the onslaught of natural existence.  

Early in the discovery, hospitals rallied. Spurred by volunteerism and heroic individuals, who believed that through monumental effort nature could be overcome. It cannot. More specifically, human nature cannot. After three months of surging census at hospitals, patients overflowing into hallways, and medicines dwindling — riots ensued. Hospitals were looted, doctors kidnapped, pharmaceuticals raided. The system of medical support collapsed, and with it, any hope of facing the challenge before us — bodies that had passed their ‘Use By’ date. Now, it was just a matter of time before the blood turned sour, the heart curdled, or the pain became too much. 

I myself have several maladies that, within short order, will cease this heart from beating, but I have had the fortune of medical training, and access to supplies, to live longer than most. But a life without purpose is no life at all, so with the short time I have left, I have assigned myself this purpose: to write a letter to the future. This letter, as rambling as it is.

So what do I wish to say to those who may someday stumble upon the ruins of humanity? Hell if I know. What would we have wished to ask those extinctions that came before us? I guess a simple ‘What happened?’ would be too easy. But I’m not an archaeologist, paleontologist, or anthropologist. So what do I say to those who come after? Just this: Take care of each other while you can. 

I would like to say that humanity achieved its fullest potential, but that would be a lie. What we achieved through science and technology, we somehow lost in compassion. With all of our prowess in discovering things, building things, and shaping this little blue dot we called home, we somehow ignored the more important things that make it a welcome one. I don’t know why this disease afflicted humanity. It seems all other creatures are unaffected. Perhaps if there is a god, or gods, maybe we failed to pass the test. Maybe our clock just ran out. Maybe this is just the way of all things. Or maybe this is a reckoning of our failures to one another. We accomplished what I believe to be amazing feats of science, engineering, and physics. Still, we failed to solve such simple matters as poverty, equality, and inclusion. Would humans have acted differently if we had known there was a global expiration date? I hope so, because in the end, we could’ve been so much better, should’ve been so much better.

So, if you’ve unearthed our concrete and steel palaces, our roads and our monuments from under millennia of sand and earth, and you wonder, “What happened?” Just know that we failed to realize that our path had an end. That our lives, our structures, our accomplishments, were merely paragraphs in the Book of Humanity. So now you are warned. If your path has an end, and I suspect it might, don’t wait until you turn the page to see nothing but a vast, white expanse. Start by helping each other, now. And when you do come to “The End”, may it say, “They lived happily ever after.”