Epidemics, pandemics, famine, climate crisis, war, terrorism, capitalism.

Suddenly, harshly, mockingly they are not just words anymore. They came not as lightning, but with lightning, striking not only at our homes, our friends and our families, but also at our core, our foundation… our humanity.

It was as if they all struck together, unanimously, ruthlessly, effortlessly. One did not occur afore another, at least not in the sense that we perceived it to, but then, in what position were we to perceive anything. Looking back at these past decades one cannot help but feel that it must have been a matter of divine retribution. If not an act of God, then an act of Mother Nature.

The increased rise in temperature, coupled with global heatwave after global heatwave caused land-based ice masses to melt at an astonishing rate. A number of massive underwater landslides in the Norwegian Sea caused catastrophic amounts of methane gas to be released into the atmosphere, as well as causing never before seen tsunamis in the Nordic region. Although chocking and unparalleled, this release of green house gases did not measure up to the huge amounts of methane trapped in the ice caps. As sea levels started to rise, covering more and more ice, the gas slowly and deadly slipped out into the air, and the atmosphere.

In the end this caused the so called greenhouse effect to accelerate in a way that no one could ever have predicted. It didn’t take long before water levels reached critical highs, effectively displacing millions of people from coastal regions such as Holland and California. Then, in the midst of this economical and incredulous crisis, came the flu.

After defeating and surviving bird and swine flues, we felt safe in our assumption that we had mastered the trade of eliminating these annoyances. In our presumptuous state of false security we did not act quickly enough, and we suffered the consequences. The virus spread like Australian wildfire, and before anyone had realized what we were up against, we had a pandemic on our hands that made the 1918 flu seem like a walk in the park. I don’t think we ever got any realistic estimates of the casualties. People were simply too busy dealing with death, and what came after, to count bodies.

The ever ongoing and escalating conflicts throughout the world had put an enormous strain on the global economy. When everything started happening at once, the already fragile economy plunged into the dark ages. As the Crisis wreaked havoc upon our planet and our economy it was as if though warring factions from all over the world were spurred into taking it to the next level.

Through a number of particularly violent and effective attacks, Israel suffered a heavy blow, losing several high profile political figures. This resulted in the Israeli army launching the largest, most brutal counter offensive ever witnessed in the history of the region into neighboring countries Lebanon and Syria. Facing an untenable situation, members of the Arab League declared all out war on Israel, unwillingly repeating the 1948 Arab-Israeli War of Independence. Building upon the already tense and prolonged conflicts in the Middle-East, this war brought an unparalleled level of devastation to the region.

Even though it took on different shapes, forms and sizes, this event repeated itself all across the globe. The pandemic, the floods, the climate refugees, the failing economy, it all acted as a catalyst, driving people to new and undefined levels of desperation, panic and brutality.

Then, in 2036 the Aphophis meteor hit just west of Maracaibo, Venezuela, in direct contradiction to NASA’s estimates. The roughly 300 meters wide rock struck with a force equivalent of 900 megatons of TNT, or 60 000 Hiroshima A-bombs, causing a massive, devastating fireball with a radius of over three kilometers. The following air blast and ejecta more or less obliterated everything in a 50 kilometer radius from the impact site, including the city of Maracaibo, with its 3 500 000 inhabitants.

At this point, we were too broken and shattered to even register the sheer immensity of this event. Although the meteor strike didn’t have any lasting global effects, it signified a kind of turning point for us. Perhaps we did not know or understand it at the time, but this was humanity’s final stand. We were fighting a losing battle and it was not against the often portrayed common enemy, but against the essence of humanity, the world and the universe itself.

Faced with insurmountable obstacles, with uncontrollable events and global death and destruction, we descended into a world-wide depression. No one was unaffected, everyone suffered. Instead of finding strength in adversity, as we had seen so many times on the big screen, we found desperation, sorrow and apathy.  We did not have a common enemy that we could stand against, united, and so, we gave up.

The entirety of the world’s population, the whole human race, just gave up. Why fight? Why try? What was the point? After being hammered, crushed, broken, disintegrated, felled and shattered we were a lost cause. The human psyche is incredibly easy affected by external input, and thereby functions in a similar way to a host for a virus. In a wave that made the flu seem slow, desolation spread, grew and prospered, and all around us, the world fell apart.

Soon, there wasn’t really that much left to fight for, and we knowingly, even willingly, let it happen. Society as we had once known it was succeeded by a broken shadow of its former self, barely maintaining any sort of function. Because of the lack of international collaboration, the flu soon found its way out into the open again, and now there was nothing left to stop it.

I think that, in those final days, people were, perhaps not happy, but at least content with the promise of unavoidable doom looming around the corner. Coming to terms with one’s mortality might not seem so hard when you have witnessed the destruction of an entire world.

And so, it ends. Humanity finding harmony in death, and the world is given a chance to recuperate. If it will ever be able to do so, no one knows, at least no one left alive. The few of us who were immune to the flu, and managed to survive the endless turmoils following in its wake, are spread across the world, with next to no means of communicating with one another. Perhaps that is as well as one could hope for, limiting our already small chances of repeating our sins.

I am getting old, and my mortality is catching up with me. I am writing this, well I don’t actually know why I am writing this. There is almost no one left who can read it, and even if there were, I don’t know what good it would do. Even if someone by some random future event finds this note, it doesn’t matter. We failed as a race, and as the guardians of this marvelous world, we failed. We deserve everything that happened to us, and that’s that.

I bid you farewell, unknown and perhaps unknowing reader. This is my last testament, my ark of knowledge, and with it done I can now achieve my goal of harmony. I leave behind an empty world, with no claims on its future, and I am harmonious.

Good bye.

Date unknown, fall of 2056

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