Staying Human

Souce

I was hungry again. It had been awhile.
I came to the city a few months ago. Lots of food here. I could probably stay here a few years, maybe.
I found a nice hotel to stay at. I took the big suite!
A few blocks down was a convenience store and up the street the other way there was a supermarket/deli.
Shelter, food and water weren't a problem. Taking a bath or shower and taking a crap with no running water was a big inconvenience.
Most of the downtown core was in pretty good shape. The buildings were all standing and most still had the glass in the windows. Some of the doors had been broken in a while back, I guess.
There was nobody here any more. At least, I hadn't seen anyone since I got here.

I started moving west almost 3 years ago. I packed up a van, took four 5 gallon gas cans and a long piece of garden hose to syphon gas and just headed west. I stopped along the way and explored the sights hoping to find another human being. No luck. Looks like they are all gone. I didn't give up hope. I somehow survived so why shouldn't others have survived?

Don't ask me what happened as I don't know. I am losing track of time. I think it is summertime and the year must be about 2038 or maybe 39. Sometime, between 5 and 8 years ago we had millions of people in cities all over the world. The last reports I heard it was some kind of plague. There was no known defense against it. It swept over the world in a matter of weeks. It didn't take long to wipe us out. Millions died, probably billions. Nations across the world closed their borders. All travel was stopped. But it was all in vain. The plague was everywhere. All primates on the planet were dying within days of contact. It was in the water and the air. It was thought by a few that we were targeted. Most of the corpses had been removed by the remaining people as they died. I hadn't seen another human being for years. There were only a few times I encountered the corpses of the last to go just lying around. Most were skeletons now.

I felt loneliness a lot these days. It's funny how I miss hearing a voice, seeing a smile, touching another human, a simple hug. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by sadness. Tears fill my eyes and that lump in the throat, that you know, if you just released it, it would unleash a rush of uncontrollable sobbing. Sobbing for the loss of your race, sobbing for your loved ones, sobbing for the children, sobbing for what would never be.

On my better days I kept myself busy with survival. Funny, I might be the last person on this planet and yet I cling to life.

I managed to find a few things that kept the loneliness at bay. Movies and books were good. Batteries where the problem. The movie/music player I had was great. It was small, wrist worn, battery powered and had a great headset and sound. The headset and sound were wireless. So far I could still find batteries that hadn't died but they were getting increasingly scarce. The movie chips were small. I could carry a hundred movies in one pocket!

Source

One day I was exploring in an electronics store looking for movies and I came across a memory chip. All it said was STE. It looked like any other movie chip that fit my player. I thought, well I would take it back to the hotel and have a look at it later.Little did I know it was going to reconnect me to humanity. I grabbed it and a handful of music and movies and headed back home.
I got busy feeding myself and forgot about the chips I had found that day. The next day I was off exploring again. Went to the park and had a bath in the pond and put on some fresh clothes I grabbed along the way and my armor of course.

Source

I also carried my 9mm Glock and a couple of flash bangs as you never knew when you would run into wild animals.
It almost cost me my life once and I just got lucky. It didn't take me long to get some personal protection. Packs of wild dogs were the worst. A lot of the younger ones had never seen a human before and I was just a meal to them. It was hard for me to take a life, even a wild animal that was about to attack. I thought about trying to capture a young pup and domesticate it. It would be good company. It was on my list of things to do.

After I finished exploring the west side of the city I stopped and picked up some food. Cans and dry foods were pretty much all that was left in the super markets and warehouses.

That night I was in my room with a light on just laying on my bed going through the chips I had picked up the day before.
There were some good movies I had seen a long time ago and I put them into a box. The ones I hadn't seen I put into another box. It was then I came across the chip with STE on it. It got my curiosity going as I couldn't remember a movie or a group or song by that name. I plugged it into my player and put my helmet on. It was quite amazing. It was all different stories and jokes and just about everything I could imagine, and then some!
It was like all different personal stories, thoughts, opinions and things about these people that were probably all long dead. There were the adventures of skypilot, news stories from long ago from newschannel428, slices of life from kaylinart, millions of pictures from all over the world, political opinions of their time, poetry, jokes and humor of all kinds. There was also much written in the last days and most of it was heartbreaking and hard to read. The last article I found was written in about 2031. I haven't found anything newer so far.
The more I read the more human I began to feel. I felt connected and a part of humanity again. The articles made me laugh, cry, think, and reflect. These were the stories of my race. Stories from all corners of the world. Knowledge that was meant to be handed down over the generations.

All this information was stored on what was known as a blockchain. Terabytes of information from millions of human beings all over the earth. I had stumbled onto a treasure.
Sometimes, late at night, I read something especially interesting and I silently say a thank you to the author and all those people that left their thoughts.
Thank you all for keeping me human!