Into The Grey II
The Wall Is Seen - The End
This is where this story starts:
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On the roads eastward, housing became sparser, but they were still all metal sheeted. When he saw a shop, he managed to rip the sheet off the door and get provisions. This time, he decided to explore a little further and look upstairs.
Again, he was shocked. The couple who had been the owners were, in bed, dead, and covered in flies. He ran downstairs and threw up when he got out of the shop.
He knew that could just as easily have been him. How many dead people had he passed on his walk away from the city? He didn't like to think, but he couldn't get the thought out of his mind.
This was why he hadn't seen anyone, and probably all the animals had succumbed to the same malaise, although walking past fields, there were no cows or sheep, not even carcasses.
Whatever or whoever was behind this was remarkably efficient in creating absolute desolation, but he had survived, for now.
Going onward, he crested a rise in the road and saw a wall taking up the whole of the horizon and there were things on the wall, watching.
He decided to get nearer, but also did not want to be seen, and noticed there was a small wood close to the wall, so he made for that. He walked over the field into the wood, and again noticed a lack of birdsong, and a lack of dead animals, although there were insects, they seemed to have avoided the effects of whatever had happened.
He walked through the woods and then walked out to study the walk. There was a loud crack, and he saw a black burning on the grass five feet from him. he had been seen and was being shot at.
Then he was being pulled back into the trees:
"What the fuck, are you trying to get yourself killed, stay under cover"
"What the hell's happening? You're the first living person I have seen, I thought everyone and everything had been killed"
"We don't know, but we have a safe-ish place in a cave half a mike from here. We are trying to find out who or what they are, but they just seem to want to destroy all living things. I'll take you back, and John will tell you what he thinks has happened"
So they walked back through fields to a little gorge that split a hill, and in the gorge was a cave with a door. The guy knocked and was let in and introduced as a guy trying to get shot by the robots. They gave him a drink and then sat down.
"I'm John, and this is all that's left of humanity that we know about. There are fourteen of us; you make it fifteen if you decide to stay, but there is nowhere else to go.
We all woke up the same as you to find nothing worked, and then wandered out here after looking at the city. There may be others that went in other directions, but we don't know. We also think big groups might catch the notice of whatever did this. I say whatever because we don't think it is human, but not alien ever, we think it is some powerful computer entity.
The guess is it decided that humanity was no longer necessary, and then flooded the land with some fatal gas, but it didn't kill everybody. We know computer reasoning can be very flawed. It is artificial but not very intelligent.
However, it is remarkably efficient in destroying things. We think there are robots about, that's how they did the metal sheeting and built that wall so quickly, but we never saw it happen.
They stopped our access to power, communication, and anything we could use to talk to them and other humans who are still alive.
We think the other side of the wall, there might be people like us, but we don't know because we can't even get close to the wall, as you have seen.
If you were looking for hope, there is none as such, just survival. Maybe it will get bored and shut itself down; that is all we can possibly hope for. I don't know.
You are welcome to stay, but for humanity, this might be the end of days.
It reminds me of the final verse of a poem by John Cooper Clarke, "Psycle Sluts":
"For you, that's how the world could end
Not with a bang but a whimper"
Actually he says "Wimpy" referring to a hamburger, but you get what I'm saying
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Mike Singleton π Mikeydred
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More stories from Mike Singleton π Mikeydred and writers in Chapters and other communities.
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Dark Memoirs - Index There are at least two kinds of people in the world: those who write this half-arsed kind of intro to a story that looks to separate the rare and the norm, and those who realise it's an overused framing device and don't.
By Paul Stewart7 days ago in Chapters
Comments (5)
Great ending, Mike
Gripping story, Mike. " I say whatever because we don't think it is human, but not alien ever, we think it is some powerful computer entity." The future of AI, maybe?
Whimpy's favorite epicurean delight, the Whimpy Burger of Popeye fame! Intriguingly continued, Mike.
This story's intense! The guy scavenging for provisions finding dead bodies really hits home how bad things are. And then being shot at? Crazy. Makes me wonder what could've caused all this desolation. Also, who are these people pulling him to safety? Can't wait to find out what happens next.
The beginning stages of some kind of end of the world? It's written so vivid I thought for a second I was watching a movie. Good stuff