Planet Earth.

It's so beautiful, don't you think?

Dancing and spinning in space, its constant rotation among the stars.

I've never seen it myself. That view from space. Hardly anyone has. But the pictures...imagine how positively breathtaking it would be, seeing your home, your planet, in person, perpetually suspended in space. Just imagine it.

Go on then.

Close your eyes.

Imagine.

Earth, before your eyes. Hundreds of thousands of miles in your vision. Its vast oceans, the bluest of the blue, illuminated by the light of the ever-present Sun, the whole of it just a quick turn-of-the-head away. Imagine its land, wide continents and pin-prick islands and floating countries ever-so-invisibly slowly drifting along its surface. Imagine seas of clouds and white expanding across. Imagine the Moon in your peripherals, hovering over the dark side where the Sun's light hadn't quite yet reached. Imagine its life. So many species, so much diversity, so much life it could hardly be contained. Imagine its careful balance, its food chains and natural disasters and diseases to keep everything in line, in perfect, beautiful harmony.

Then imagine cutting off the top.

A genocide.

An extinction.

The top of the list wiped from existence.

Humanity.

The human race.

Earth had had enough of us, I suppose. Us, with our constant digging into her skin and drilling into her muscle. With our pollution and global warming. With our slaughter of her inhabitants. Slaughtering of each other.

She'd had enough.

So we had to go.

People, before they died, argued that the virus, disease, plague was, in fact, synthetic. It was, yes, theories were that an experimental gas the government was making to be weaponized in the next inevitable war was accidentally released, but who cares anymore? Who cares? Everyone's dead. Every damn human on this planet's dead.

Except me.

The virus was air-borne. The millisecond it made contact with you, any part of you, you died. Every death was different. Every death was painful. Every death was slow.

I witnessed five.

My best friend died in my arms.

Abby.

She...

She was at my house, for a party, my party, my birthday party. But before you ask, no, the end of humanity did not happen on my birthday, but that would've been a sick twist of events, wouldn't it? No, my party's always the weekend after. My friend, Graceann, she was there, too, when it hit us.

Graceann's death was less slow and more painful. Her scream joined the chorus that echoed around our town as her flesh and muscle melted, reducing the once tall, beautiful girl to a pile of smoking bones on the floor.

My brother, little brother's eyes rolled back in his head, and he stood, shuddering, not making a sound, till he collapsed in a heap, blood trickling from his eyes and ears. My father slammed into the wall, the would in his chest resembling that of a bullet. My mother's whole body was blue, as if she'd frozen to death.

Abby though...

My poor, dear Abby...

Hers was the most gruesome one to watch.

She coughed up blood first, the sticky glob of thick red liquid colliding with the hardwood floors with a dull smack!

Then she fell forward, and I caught her, half-carrying half-dragging her to the couch.

She writhed in my arms, her short blonde-black hair sticking to her forehead with sweat. She whispered and screamed, over and over and over and over, "It hurts, make it stop, make it stop!" She cried blood, the life-sustaining substance also running in tiny rivers from her ears, nose, and mouth. I cried with her, over her, over them, the question 'why why why' running through my mind.

Why wasn't I dying too?

I had her for seven minutes, as her writhing and twisting grew weaker, her breaths becoming ragged as she continued to cough up blood and more pour from her face.

I had a hand over her chest. I felt when her heart pulsed one last time. I heard as she exhaled but didn't inhale. I saw as her eyes glossed over, becoming glassy, cold, distance, lifeless.

I continued to hold her till body grew cold and my tears ran dry. I gently sat her down on the couch, closing her eyes in the process, unable to look at them. I avoided looking at anyone. Any of the bodies.

With Abby's blood staining my clothes and the smell of Graceann's burned flesh in my nostrils I set out on the street, to see the undoubtedly gruesome carnage the virus left in its wake.

Let's just say I threw up several times.

I tried as hard as I could to avoid looking at the remains but sometimes it was unavoidable. One man's head was flattened, bits of bone and the brain creating a soup-like substance around what was left, tire marks patterned across the more solid parts of the wreckage. I wondered if it was the virus or the result of a dying or dead man's out-of-control car.

I searched every house in the town, searching for the remains of my friends. I knew it would break my heart to see them, but I wanted to see. I wanted to see how painful it was for them, hoping it wasn't too bad, praying they'd had it easy.

In one I found Jared, a former crush of mine and a complete asshole in life, but I still sobbed when I saw him. He looked like he'd been mauled by a pack of dogs, his body mangled and deformed, bits of his flesh scattered around the room, his curly hair stained red with his own blood.

In another I found George. His eyes had exploded, pieces of the fragile organs stuck to the ceiling, white foam drying around his mouth.

In one more, what remained of my abused, cracked heart shattered into tiny pieces.

Before this, I'd never been to Tommy's house, all I knew was that it was close to the theatre he, Abby, and I used to go to–no more of that then, huh?–but I knew it was his. Rebecca was against the wall by the door. Now you may be wondering how I recognized her with her head splattered all over the walls, floor, and ceiling. At first, I didn't, but as I moved through the house I saw pictures of their family on the walls. I found Nick's barely recognizable form in the kitchen area, his body blackened, charred, and smoking like he'd been set on fire.

My heart, though, my heart officially shattered to dust when I saw Tommy, finding him in his room.

He was slumped against his bed, resting in a pool of blood, his blood. His eyes, open, had the same glassy, dead look Abby's did. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, lips parted slightly. Deep, long gashes criss-crossed over his torso. I closed my eyes, unwillingly to look anymore, but I was unable to help imagining him as he died. He screamed as an invisible force shoved him back, gouging into his body, maiming him and leaving him to bleed out on the floor as his siblings burned and exploded at the same time.

My two closest friends, one who died in my arms and the other who suffered so much, forever staring back with lifeless eyes.

I ran.

I ran until I found a spot with no bodies, a nice secluded area, where the coppery tang of blood didn't permeate the air. So here I sit, that question still running furious circles in my mind.

Why not me?

I was going to fix it., though. The Last human sounded so boring, lonely, too. I've never even held a gun before this. I don't even remember where I got it from, just that I'd picked it up and kept going. It was kind of heavy and oh so very cold.

I lifted it up to my head, hands steady. My face was permanently scarred with tearstains, new ones falling to join them.

The last words I'll ever say are, "I'm coming to join you."

I closed my eyes.

I pulled the trigger. Everything went black.

Isn't Planet Earth beautiful?