It's funny, really.
I always thought the end of the world would be loud. Explosions, firestorms, prophets shouting in the streets.
Maybe some epic soundtrack playing in the background.
But no.
It was quiet.
The end came with a cough.
A wet, careless little cough in a laboratory somewhere in Boston. The story goes that a virologist sneezed, said "whoops," and forgot to sterilize the petri dish. Within three weeks, the world was done arguing on Twitter and started eating itself alive.
They called it The Collapse, though that makes it sound like it happened in one go. It didn't. It was more like a long, slow unspooling of everything that made sense.
Electricity went first. Then water. Then reason.
Now it's just me, Milo Crane — professional underachiever, apocalypse enthusiast, and, apparently, the last idiot alive.
I live in a half-collapsed 7-Eleven at the corner of 41st and Broadway.
Or at least, I think it's Broadway. The street signs are melted and half the buildings are skeletal husks draped in vines.
New York City smells like rust, ash, and stale potato chips.
Every morning, I climb up onto the roof with my coffee substitute (a mix of instant cocoa, rainwater, and denial) and give my daily motivational speech to my audience: three pigeons and a plastic flamingo I found in a dumpster.
"Fellow survivors," I begin, standing tall in my stolen leather jacket, "we gather here today to remember civilization — its glory, its stupidity, and its absolute inability to wash its hands."
The pigeons blink. One poops. The flamingo says nothing.
Rough crowd.
"But fear not!" I continue. "For as long as there is one human left, hope remains! And also, I have Doritos."
That gets their attention.
I wave a half-empty bag like a victory flag.
It's been 487 days since the Collapse.
I keep track with tally marks on the wall — each one drawn with a ketchup packet because pens, like everything else, died early in the apocalypse.
The world is quiet now. Too quiet.
Sometimes, the silence feels like it's breathing down my neck.
At night, I hear the wind whispering through broken skyscrapers.
Sometimes it sounds like voices — laughter, crying, or the hum of a city that's forgotten it's dead.
To keep myself sane, I talk to my reflection in a cracked mirror. His name is also Milo, though he's got better hair.
"Morning, handsome," I say.
"Morning, disaster," he replies.
We argue a lot. Usually about which one of us is real.
The thing about being the last man alive is: boredom will kill you faster than hunger.
I try to stay busy. I explore nearby buildings, scavenge supplies, and write terrible poetry.
Here's one:
"Roses are red,
The sky sometimes burns,
I miss the internet,
And everyone's germs."
Yeah. I never said I was Shakespeare.
On the 488th morning, everything changes.
I'm halfway through my speech ("Together, we can rebuild Netflix!") when I hear it — a sound that's been extinct for over a year.
A car engine.
I freeze.
No one drives anymore. Gas went bad, batteries died, and roads turned into graveyards for Teslas and trucks alike.
But this sound — this deep, uneven growl of an internal combustion engine — it's real. And it's getting closer.
My first thought is: "Finally, aliens."
My second: "I should hide."
My third: "Nah, maybe it's a food truck."
I grab my baseball bat (named Karen, because she solves problems loudly) and climb to the edge of the roof.
Down below, through the dusty morning haze, I see it — a beat-up Jeep, black and armored with welded scrap metal. The engine wheezes like a dying bear, but it's moving, kicking up a trail of gray dust.
Someone's driving it.
I lean forward so far I nearly fall off the roof.
The Jeep screeches to a stop right in front of my store. The door bursts open, and out steps a woman.
She's tall, lean, covered in soot, wearing a leather jacket with torn sleeves. Her goggles are tinted green, her boots are bloodstained, and she carries a rifle that looks like it could take down a small building.
She scans the street, quick, sharp, professional.
Then she yells, "Anyone alive in there?!"
My brain short-circuits.
It's been over a year since I've heard another human voice. It sounds wrong — beautiful, but wrong, like music in a graveyard.
I should say something heroic.
Something that screams "survivor."
Something like, Yes! I'm here! We can rebuild humanity together!
Instead, I shout:
"Do you like Doritos?!"
There's a pause.
The kind of silence that could kill a man.
Then… she laughs.
It's a low, genuine laugh — the kind that starts in your stomach and makes you forget everything's broken.
"Depends on the flavor!" she calls back.
I grin. "Cool Ranch!"
She lowers her rifle, but only a little. "You got more of those?"
"I might trade for conversation," I say, immediately regretting how desperate that sounds.
She chuckles again. "You're weird."
"Thanks. I've been practicing."
Five minutes later, she's inside my makeshift kingdom, standing between the melted candy aisle and the shrine of toilet paper. She moves carefully, eyes scanning every corner like she expects a zombie to jump out.
I offer her a chair — a cracked plastic thing with "Slurpee" written across the back. She sits, gun still in hand.
Up close, she's younger than I thought. Late twenties maybe. Her hair's dark and messy, a streak of white running through it like a lightning scar. There's a jagged tattoo on her neck — something that looks like wings made of knives.
"I'm Nova," she says. "Used to be a mechanic. Used to be a lot of things."
"Milo," I reply. "Used to be a cashier. Now I'm the king of snacks."
She smirks. "Lucky you."
"Yeah, it's a hard job. Pigeons are terrible employees."
We talk.
It's awkward at first — two strangers in the ruins of the world trying to remember how to do small talk.
I ask her where she's from. She says south, but doesn't say more.
I ask about the Jeep. She built it herself.
I ask if she's met anyone else alive.
Her eyes darken. "A few. Not all good."
That shuts me up.
Before she leaves, she says, "You should pack your things."
"Why?"
"Because there's a storm coming."
I glance outside. The sky's already dark, but that's normal. "You mean weather?"
She shakes her head. "No. The kind that hunts."
I don't ask what that means.
Something in her tone tells me I don't want to know.
She starts the Jeep again, engine growling like a beast.
Before she drives off, she leans out the window and tosses me something — a small metal badge, circular, with the word "Echelon" etched into it.
"What's this?" I ask.
"Proof," she says. "You're not as alone as you think."
Then she's gone, swallowed by the dust.
That night, I sit on the roof under the cracked neon sign that used to say OPEN (now it just says OPE — which feels accurate).
I hold the badge in my hand, tracing the letters with my thumb.
Somewhere out there, there are others.
People. Survivors. Maybe even answers.
I take a bite of a stale Dorito and whisper to the empty city:
"Well, pigeons… guess we're going on a road trip."
The wind howls through the ruins, carrying the sound of my laugh across the dead streets.
It feels good to laugh again.
Even if I'm the last idiot on Earth.