There was something that she felt, something uncertain which reached into her chest and threatened to take over. The pain was almost welcome, as it brought about the thing she desired most: knowledge that she still was, at the very least, alive.

The same difficulties had plagued her life that had pestered many lives before hers: growing bills, a decreasing sense of self importance, and an ever-burning desire to be better, more, to be successful. Pressure would grow into her temple like a bullet, sending waves of violent pain that some would diagnose as migraines through her stressed brain. A lacking job, coupled with endless and unsatisfied ambition brought her passion into her bloody knuckles, as she beat against a wall that would never move, or so it seemed.

And then something strange had happened. She awoke one day to find that an alarming destruction had wracked her otherwise stressfully normal existence. The bills in her mailbox were splattered across the street; her neighbors were nowhere to be found, and their house appeared to be split into two pieces in a less than neat fashion; domestic animals were running wild, and no one answered when she yelled "hello!"

It took a moment for all this to register. After all, one could easily be dreaming this into existence, this solitude. It was not something that would normally happen, or at least, even if it should prove itself, it would never happen to her. After all, she ate her vegetables, kept herself clean-- in short, she did not tease the gods of bad luck with opportunities to destroy her. So, then, what was this silence, this chaotic wasteland, truly about?

She found the answer shortly after exploring the boundaries of the suburbia within which she had domesticated herself. Dug into the earth like a stain were large, nasty looking containers, which gave off an odd glow. The craters had skeletons surrounding it, but for some reason, whatever poison this substance had spread into the air, it no longer lingered. The poison had subsided, and all that was left were the hybrid creations.

"I am desensitized," she whispered to herself. "I am... what am I?"

The question disturbed her enough so that she rushed toward the nearest house-- which she felt strongly would be abandoned if not hold its dead hosts at any rate-- and rushed to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked into the shiny glaze of her own eyes and saw nothing out of the ordinary. She carefully examined the contours of her face, the details of her pores, and yet could find nothing extraordinary. At least for the time being, she was herself.

"Why me?" she asked no one in particular, a feeling of intense loneliness brooding upon her. "Why did I survive and is there anyone else with me?"

The answer to that question, she felt, was an outstanding 'yes'. After all, there was always someone somewhere, wasn't there? Since the dawn of time, humanity has never been truly alone except that it chose to be so, never alone unless thrusted into it by circumstance and even then, only artificially, for even if there was no human company in the space that one was forced into, there was somewhere to be found another human compatriot.

So she looked. And looked. And looked, to no avail. She charted the area carefully, if not in a notebook designed to keep her observations, then in her memory, which had always served her well.

Ah, memory, that glorious aide to the imagination! How it brings upon our minds eye visions of something that, as of this moment, does not exist! Great is the crafts-person who can wield the weapon of memory, for in an unlimited memory holds all the experiences of past, and knowledge of the past is power over the present and future.

At least, that is what she told herself. "We are all given a specific gift," her mother always told her-- this, she remembered vividly, was when she was but six years of age and had been teased by her classmates for failing to do well at a spelling bee-- "with which we can take control of our lives."

Control. That word sounded sweet on the tongue inside her mind, the one that speaks to us all in a language only we can understand. "With control," one could say, "or, that is to say, with enough control, one could presumably live forever." With control comes its comrades: voice; choice; power; success; happiness. Discipline had always been her spiritual guidance, and at the helm, there was a God who knew of its own psyche, a God whose power over itself and its creations proved so profound that nature itself was simply at a hush in its presence. Yes, with control comes power, and with omnipotence comes the greatest of dignities, the most profound of sports: satisfaction. With the discipline and desperation that one required to attain one's goals, accomplishment was destined to follow.

Or so believed her mother, and so she, until now, had believed. And yet, staring her in the face was a disaster that God could not explain to her, at least not the god of discipline that had been indoctrinated into her spirit. This was Nazi Germany, this was September 11th, 2001, and this was Stalin, Hitler, the BTK Killer, only the knife had been nature.

"It was only a matter of time," she thought to herself, "before nature began to fight back. We had become such an enemy of nature, both outside of ourselves and the very nature that surges within our veins, that it was only a matter of time before we had sinned enough for nature to take its own revolution, revolt against our ice caps and hurricane-killing cool waters; we are the product of our own massive suicide, and what does that say of the God that watched us being pummelled by our own toxicity?

She shuddered at the thought. Religion had become a staple in her life, something she had grown to depend upon. Reciting her prayers every night felt purifying, and she knew that there was perhaps some level of placebo effect in her drastic change, but still, the placebo effect, if that was what it was, would not be possible if at least a little part of her truly believed in the power of the prayers that emmanated from her lips. The question was not what was the truth and what was lies-- the question was what was truth and what was mere wishful thinking.

There was a sound-- she heard it! She was asleep after much searching, and much attempt at distraction. She managed to find a tattered book on anatomy and some scraps in a poorly cooled refrigerator and a few cans of food, and so she had managed to make quite a dinner for herself, relaxing with the wonders of the human body. At each description, she felt the part that was being described: reading about her chest made her conscious of a heart beating against her rib cage; reading about her sexual organs gave her a tinge of sensation which was quickly washed under when she remembered the precise purpose the body parts, at least biologically, served. She felt a tinge in her heart, even though she had never desired children of her own, for the existence of her species.

"What if I'm the last one," she said to herself aloud, dropping the book on her lap. Overwhelming emotions began to wash over her, beating her with their dark claws. "What if I missed my chance at greatness... what if I missed my chance to have control over my social destiny, my financial success-- my chances at having a family!"

She closed her eyes and ran philosophies through her mind, like whirlwinds. She had not desired children because she felt that the world was overpopulated. Was that still the case? Hidden in some cave, was there an over-crowded arena of men and women, dying from their own carbon dioxide expulsions? Was there some chance, then, that the reasons she had kept her womb protected from the virus of life had been fulfilled-- that society had been thinned out sufficiently to the point with which the world could actually sustain some population increase? The odds were certainly in her favour in this. After all, what were the odds that everyone on the earth except for her had been obliterated? Whatever had accidentally kept her alive surely had accidentally kept someone else alive, right? There must be a chance to murder and create, to destroy and rebuild and destroy again. Was there not?

The drive to keep herself moving came through in its wonderful, self-saving efficiency. "If there are others," she reasoned with herself, "I must search them out. I have to find them. I have to know. It's time for me to go."

She filtered around the home that she had made for herself; her neighbors had managed to keep quite a few things that would have served them well had they managed to survive. Bookbags and much canned foods; tents and even a handful of tools that could be used either in construction of camp or defending against the animals that, moving away from domestication, would become increasingly violent.

She moved with stealth and desperation. This was not simply a need for a better apartment, a larger television, or a more stable financial equation. This was the hunt for meaning and purpose, this was the meaning of her life-- to find another being so that she could at least have the illusion of human progress. She had felt that years of stagnancy had caused humanity to devolve into a decadent and diseased monstrosity, and that the only hope society had of actually maturing was depopulation. Now that her conditions were met, a new Eden could be brought about the world, and she could see it in her lifetime.

The more desperate she fought to find someone, the more elusive any other human presence became. Years floated by in a series of growing practicality. She had developed a mapping system not to find her way-- she was well travelled and needed no aid in that regard-- but to catalogue already searched parts and any evidence of ongoing life outside of her own tumult. Years went by, and then something.

He looked tired and sore. Scars littered his shirtless body like marks of age; his gaze was cold, knowing, and sarcastic. "Who are you?" he asked her, without any regard for the importance of procreation at this point in the species' lifetime.

"Eve."

His eyes narrowed in examination. He put out a hand. "If your new name is Eve, then mine must be Adam."

They quickly begun to create a home for each other. They discussed each other's findings in terms of society, and both found that society had, as far as they were concerned, stopped at each of them. They were the new mother and father, daughter and son, the new alpha and omega. They were the new hope.

The homestead lasted for awhile, but as all do, this one was not destined to survive.

After all the delicacies of romance were established-- the two found themselves truly with feeling for the other, a mixture of biological necessity and true good will-- they found that whatever inadequacies the two had were becoming a barrier to the main objective.

They did not know it for certain, though they guessed, but Adam was infertile.

All the hope of humanity had been washed yet again not by sin or depravity, but by sheer bad luck.

Desperation could be seen on his face when they made love. Tears flowing from his eyes, curses from his lips, every thrust flashed memories on both of their imagination. Memories of loved ones and the glory and dignity of human kind played like a bittersweet cinema that spread upon the wastelands, exposing its sweet secrets that were hidden in rubble and wild animals.

The animals had survived, certainly another... but what then? The two stared at each other, knowing what they had to do in order to save the species. In their mind, the game was played out. They would march off, chart new land, and find another male or female. And then the love they had developed would have to be given up for practicality. One night of passionless sex and then perhaps a return, or perhaps the break of their already delicate relationship.

Stroking her one morning, he whispered into her ear:

"Better die in loving arms than survive forever in neutrality."

Tears filled with frustration, she agreed... and the two vanished into the dust, further rubble painted across the dignity and beauty of humanity.

The evidence of our existence was burned to the ground-- but remnants were still etched deep into the earth. The matter, the dirt, the rocks, even the animals, all hold the memories like a capsule, awaiting the knowing hand of some examiner. Even the loving memories of forgotten pets kept the memory alive as the dust of our last Adam and Eve spread in the air, a part of the elements, returning to purity and defining the ever-devilish discipline of entropy.