The Overman

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 It was the smallest of bones with the thinnest strip of meat. It couldn't have been anything more than a tendon, but It didn't matter to Philip. It went down his throat all the same.This wasn't the first rat he had ever eaten and the flavor of anything he could find to eat had long since become inconsequential. He was completely adapted to eating such things to survive. He picked at the wire thin flesh with experienced soft teeth and swallowed it eagerly.

It was night time. The world was dark and his fire was small. It was necessary as a tool of survival. Long years had been passed with small fires and small meals such as these. Time had been whittled away in dank holes in the earth surrounded by the burned and broken ghosts of what had been. Of who had been. The corpses didn't bother him anymore. They were all dusty bones and bundles of ratted dry cloth. Not even worth pretending to talk to. He didn't dare speak out loud anyways. He didn't dare make a sound at all. Every noise he made felt like a fire alarm that rang out into a giant empty world patrolled by one very terrible and perceptive predator.

No, quiet was the only way to live. Rare small fires that burned dully, hidden away in the basements of the remnants of humanity were his only short lived companions. It was the only life he could possibly know and still be alive to experience... as dreadful of a life as it was. As pointless as to keep living seemed to be. For some reason he felt compelled to keep going. He knew he was the last. He was sure of it. Just like that black rhino all those years ago. So much effort had been made to preserve it and carry its species on only for it to be euthanized by the very people who were trying to protect it. The poor bastard.Considering the choices though, Philip thought perhaps that that would be the best way to go: Peacefully, not hunted down by something horrifying and insane. Not by something that wanted his destruction simply to meet their own agenda. If it came down to it,if he really had to, Philip had decided that maybe it was better that he went out on his own terms rather than become the final victim of humanity.

He cleaned the last bit of bone and threw it into the fire. The flames lapped at it with sickly greasy pleasure.

Yes, fire. You get a last meal too. He thought.

He stood and brushed wet fingers across coarse and dirty rags he called a coat. He took a slow, quiet breath through his nose and let it out silently. He stooped over and scooped dirt and debris into his hand ready to douse the life of his only friend.

There was a scrape. A shuffle of feet. A slight crunch of the sole of a boot on old plaster, dirt, or cement. Tiny chunks of old building scattered and clacked off of corners and walls somewhere out of sight. He held his breath, his eyes wide and casing his surroundings. The knuckles of a fist-like heart pounded violently into the back of his sternum. Faint moonlight fanned a doorway through some fissure in the floor above. Dust floated lazily through its beam. Suddenly a silhouette appeared there. Philip froze.

The figure stood for a long unmoving moment. He could feel it staring at him from behind its shadowed facade. It took slow weighted steps forward from the cold silver of fuzzy moonlight into the dull orange of his campfire.

It was him. Of course it was him. There was no one else left in the world.
The Overman had finally found him.

The man was still wearing the suit he had worn all those years ago. It's once pristine white cloth looked dingy and gray, smudged with years of soot and grime. His red cape was wrapped around him like a giant scarf. His dark hair and beard were long and unkept. He almost looked like Jesus. A large Jesus with muscles that rippled just under the surface of his suit. The man stepped closer to the fire and bent down to his haunches. He stretched his hands out over it and splayed his fingers.