The last frequency

They say the world didn’t end in fire.
It ended in silence.

No asteroids. No bombs. No alien invasion.
Just... sound, fading away.

I’ve been here in Station 9 for what I estimate is 287 days. The wall calendar ran out a month ago, and time lost meaning when clocks stopped syncing. No sunrise anymore. Just an eerie red haze, constant and oppressive. The sky looks like it’s bleeding.

But I’m still transmitting.

Every evening at 19:00, I send the same message into the static:

> “This is Elias Ward at Station 9. If anyone can hear this… respond. I am alive. I am listening.”



And every evening, I get the same reply: nothing.


---

It started slow, at first. The silence.

First the birds went quiet. Then dogs stopped barking. Cities hushed. Then came the science: atmospheric dampening. A catastrophic shift in the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere started choking sound waves. Within weeks, 80% of the planet experienced near-total sound decay.
No thunder. No waves. No voices beyond a few feet. It was like someone turned the volume knob on Earth to zero.

People panicked. Without sound, communication failed. Technology collapsed. Violence broke out in deaf confusion. And then... extinction began.


---

I wasn’t always alone. Julia was with me. My wife. A cellist. A woman whose fingers could tell stories through strings better than any words could.

When we left Boston, she begged to bring her cello. I told her we didn’t have space. “I’ll come back for it,” she said, softly.

She didn’t. Neither did I.

I buried her near Station 9, under the last pine tree still standing. I carved a few notes of her favorite sonata into the bark with my knife.

Some nights, I dream of her playing into the void. Even silence can’t erase memory.


---

I’m not a hero. I’m a sound engineer who happened to know how to operate shortwave radio. Station 9 used to be a military relay hub. Now, it’s my bunker. My lighthouse.

I have water. Solar backup. Cans of beans and rice.
But no voice except my own.

So I talk to the air.

Maybe it’s madness. Maybe it’s hope.
But either way, I transmit.


---

Yesterday, something changed.

At 19:06, right after my usual message, I heard it: a flicker. A sound. A weak pulse of signal through the static.

My hands froze. My heart raced like it hadn’t in months.

And then I heard it:

> “...Station... 2... hear... alive…”



Three seconds. That’s all. But it was enough.


---

Tonight, I sit up straighter. I widen the band. Boost the range. I write a new message.

> “This is Elias Ward at Station 9. I received your signal. Please respond. I am alive. I am listening.”



At 19:00, I transmit.

And I wait.

Each second feels like an hour. Every hiss of static taunts me.

Then—at 19:08—a voice.

> “Elias... this is Mari... Station 2... I’m here.”



I drop the mic. I sit in stunned silence.

Another voice.
Another human.

Alive.


---

We talk for twenty minutes.

Her voice is grainy but full of warmth. Mari. She’s holed up in an old airport control tower three hundred miles west. Her generator is dying. She’s down to powdered soup and bottled rain. But she’s surviving.

She laughs when I tell her about my beans. She hasn’t laughed in months either.

Before she signs off, she says:

> “Let’s find each other.”



I don’t sleep that night. I lie on the floor, staring at the rusted ceiling, heart racing. The silence feels less heavy.


---

In the morning, I pack.
Two bags: one with food, water, gear. One with my radio. I take the old compass, a flare gun, a solar map, and a photo of Julia. Her smile feels like fuel now.

I look back at Station 9 one last time. It served me well. But now it’s just bricks and wires.

Hope is west.


---

The journey won’t be easy.
The roads are cracked. Storms rage without warning.
Sometimes, silence screams louder than sound ever did.

But with every step, I replay Mari’s voice in my head.

> “You’re not alone.”



I cling to that sentence like rope.


---

Day three. I find a broken car buried in sand. There’s an old radio inside. I hook it to my frequency. Static. Then a crackle.

> “Elias... you still out there?”



I weep.

It’s the first time I’ve cried in months.

Because someone’s waiting for me.

Because this world, though broken, still carries echoes.


---

Maybe we were never meant to survive forever.
Maybe this silence is nature reclaiming its balance.
But as long as two voices remain, something of us remains too.

The world may be ending.

But I am still transmitting.

And someone is listening.