Last man on earth when there is no earth?

Ch 03.5

Sector twenty one, planet Gorgola, the lab ruins.

“Um… uh… are you alright?

“Yeah, I don’t think so…”

We had to cut the ruin exploration short after arriving to the next floor. That was the part where things got really ugly.

Not that long ago I was looking at eight dead, fleshless sets of bones and all I thought was 'man those graphics look sick'.

It wasn't the normal reaction a sane human being would have when confronted by real life skeletons, but as I thought about it I realized that I have seen and heard a lot of not so normal things in succession for the past few days. My perception of reality isn’t in the best of conditions.

As we walked through the woods Lilia quickened her pace to catch up with me.

“I understand how you feel, but let’s not rush to conclusions,  okay? There must be some logical explanation behind it…”

The next floor was larger and had a slightly higher ceiling than the previous one. It had much wider rooms as well. Ones clearly not meant for personal use. You could say they are storage rooms of some sort.

Most of them were empty except for one. It was filled with rows of shelves that went on from one side of the room to the other, each one stacked with pods, but none like the ones we saw before.

They were smaller in size, their plates had only numbers, and they all contained the remains of a human. But those weren’t the remains of human adults. The only thing that could fit inside those would be the bones of a less than a year old child.

Three hundred of them…

I almost threw up the energy bars I just ate.

Three hundred dead, no survivors. After scanning the contents of those pods, Lilia told me that, unlike the one I had been kept in, they had the traces of another component that didn’t have the same long term preservation properties.

I had to immediately leave that place. Lilia soon followed.

My fears were confirmed.

Original human sample. The only reason they would have to point it out is if one that isn’t original exists.

“Shit….”

~◇~

Back at the camp, I sat in a corner inside the ship, facing the wall.

Hello depression, my old friend.

Lilia was hugging her knees on the front seat where she always slept. After hours of silence the sunlight started to dwindle. When it got too dark to see the lights inside the ship switched On by themselves. Lilia got up and opened the door.

“I will heat the soup, do you want some?” She asked as she lifted the pot.

“Yeah, I will have some.”

I can’t keep thinking about it, at least for the time being. Sitting around the fire we tried to eat, but in the end I couldn’t muster the appetite. Spacing out once again I raise my head to take a look at the sky.

Just then I ended up witnessing something amazing. Aurora lights. The phenomenon that usually happen in the polar areas back on earth. What made this even more breathtaking is the variety of colors that covered the small part of the sky visible from the opening between the woods.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lilia said.

“Yeah, it’s the first time I see it myself.”

“Really? I used to watch it every night when I first came here, waiting for someone to respond to my distress calls.” She stopped for a moment, a weak smile forming on her lips.

“Did something happen?”

“I eventually gave up, that’s all. Then decided to search for anything that could help me escape.” She followed after a long sigh. “I thought that I may not be the only one who ended up here…”

“… I see”

The silence returned as we observed the light-works, the bothersome feeling at the end of my throat weakened and the stress was lifted.

I hurriedly finished my dish before the disturbing thoughts return, and ended up going for more. The pot was empty now, and continuously looking at the sky became awkward.

Ugh… this could have been a really romantic event. It should be a point where I up my affection points and yet… thinking that I descended to the grass and rested my back on the log we used as a chair.

“H-hey..." even though it's  only the two of us here her voice still managed to startle me. “What do you think they were trying to do in that lab?” Lilia said breaking the silence.

I pretend to think about it for some time but I already had formed an idea of what was happening there.

“They were trying to recreate the human male population, I guess…”

If what Lilia told me that time is true, about human males going extinct, then it’s not that hard to figure out.

A world where only human females live. Some may say it’s heaven, some might say it’s hell. Either way there are two questions you ask when hearing this. What happened, and how did they survive?

“Lilia, could you tell me more of what you know about the state the humans are in those days? What you said before is a little vague.”

“Hmm… Wait just a minute.”

She went to the ship for some time then returned with a thin board about the size of a notebook. Instead of going to her place she sat down on my log which put her delicious exposed thighs right beside me. She probably noticed that because a moment later she moved away a bit looking quite uncomfortable.

“I remember reading a book about the hierarchy in the interplanetary union…”

The board was similar to the tablets we had back on earth, the difference is that it didn’t have a normal screen, but a half transparent rectangular window that appears when you switch it on. Then it hit me.

Wait a minute… is there a chance for his device to have some games like ours did? I have to make sure of that at a later time.

Lilia tapped on the half transparent window multiple times, moved her finger here and there then tapped it again.

“This is the one.” She said as she showed me the screen.

“Uh… Lilia, I don’ know if I said this before but… I don’t understand this language.”

She blinked a few times then took a look at the tablet, her cheeks flushed a little.

“S-sorry, I just assumed…” she said in a small voice. So cute.

Now that I think about it...

“I've been ignoring it for a while now but... how are we able to understand each other? Even when we are from completely different species?”

It didn't take her long to answer, almost as if she had been waiting for that question.

“Well, when you are about to leave your home-world they require you to implant a microchip that does the translation. When activated it gives you the ability to talk and understand a common language used across all the known universe. You have one too you know, since we are able to communicate.”

“That… sure is convenient...”

Now I have a microchip in my body that I never knew of. Wait, what about the situation where one has this microchip and the other doesn’t? Shouldn’t they make one that translate all languages? Aren’t they at that level yet?

“As for writings, you have to learn it to be able to read. There are devices that can translate written languages, but those are rather expensive on top of being illegal in a lot of places and situations.”

“I see… then, can you read it for me?”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “You want to know about the state humans are currently in, right?”

Lilia started reading. I found it hard to believe most of the things she said, from the part where the human empire is the strongest between the three empires that rule the sixth space sector, to the part where it has multiple planets under its reign. Apparently humans colonized those planets at some point. Terrifying. What women can do when left alone is truly terrifying.

But if technology has advanced enough to allow interstellar expeditions of that level it mean a lot of time has passed since the green lizard-men aliens invaded earth. Just how long have I been asleep?

“Does it say which year those information are from?” Could it be that I have been asleep for far longer than I initially thought?

Lilia slid her finger on the half transparent rectangle then stopped to say.

“This is an article from 7356, which is last year on my planet. As for the human calendar, it says it was year 2129.”

“… huh?”

“Coincidentally humans use the Interstellar calendar and clock, which is a bit different from Zesion.”

“You mean to say…” please tell me I’m wrong “I was asleep for more than a hundred years!!?”