Millennia Ago

Dust

The day I woke up, the sky was clouded with red, the air was thick, dusty, and dead. I was lying on my back, staring at a dirty hospital ceiling. There was no noise, other than a slight breeze shuffling through the window. Slowly, I sat up. As I did, cords pulled on my skin. I reached around and yanked them out. They stung, but I ignored the pain.
Gingerly, I stood. My legs shook as they bore my weight, my bones straining. I couldn't remember the last time I stood up or walked even, come to think of it, I didn't have any memory of anything. I didn't even know my name.
I stood, staring out the window, letting my legs get used to holding my light body. As the breeze blew across my face, filling my nose with scent, a vague memory returned to me.
I was sick, and there was nothing they could do.
So I volunteered. Helped with research. They experimented on me and did tests on me. I became a research tool. A lab rat.
They injected me with things, replaced bits of me with other things, exposed me to radiation even, but they never hurt me.

I looked at the ground and took a hesitant step forward. My bones creaked, but I leaned forward anyhow. Again, I took another step and shifted my center of gravity. My muscles protested but I forced them to work, to hold me up. I kept going until I found a rhythm in my steps and a door at the end of the hallway. I hobbled closer to it, holding the wall for support.
I pushed the door open and a hot gust of wind filled the hallway. I breathed it in and took in the view.

Remnants of the city I once lived in.

Buildings crumbled and fell, plastic bags cartwheeled through the streets like tumbleweeds, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and grit.
It was hot. And dry. The sun beat down and even the shade of the once tall skyscrapers did nothing to stop the swelter.

I began to wander the streets, just to see what I could find. I hoped for some water, electricity...another person. Anything to say someone else was here.
But I was disappointed.
I roamed the streets until I couldn't remember what I was looking for. There was nothing here.
I guessed the city was completely dead of humans or any life.
I began to wonder if the rest of the world was like this too. I wondered if I was the last living thing on this forsaken planet.
Eventually, I came to the edge of the city. By now, the sun was just sitting on the horizon, highlighting the small rocks and holes in the ground by casting their shadows in long streaks.
As I sat and watched the sun sink below the hills in the distance, a few faint memories resurrected themselves.

I thought about what the doctors used to do to me and tried to remember their names. Alexei came to mind but I didn't remember the others.
I liked Alexei. He looked after me well. He always knew what music I liked, what movies I liked, and my favorite foods. He always remembered my birthday and got me presents. All the little things that made him so much better than any of the other nurses. I missed him.
I began to wonder what happened to them all. Pondering the fate of the earth was always a dangerous game, I knew that. But what did I have to lose now? Hunger or thirst would take me sooner or later and my record-breaking life would end.
Just how long had I lived? I must be some thousand years from the life I knew. To know how far was impossible but I was sure this city hadn't had anything living grace its streets for quite a while. I couldn't know.
I lay on my back and stared at the darkening sky. I let my mind drift. I looked for constellations that I knew, but the sky was black. Just a few lonely stars glittering away on their own. Looks like the earth wasn't the only thing that had died.
Eventually, I fell asleep, my tired failing body gave out and I didn't wake up.

It was peaceful, being dead. There was no pain, no sound, no movement. No need to breathe, no need to eat or drink. Just a solemn darkness. At least it was for a while. As I slept, floating in an empty abyss, I was woken up by a bump. I had knocked into something hard.
Wondering what had disturbed me, I opened my eyes and found a door.
Nothing around it, just a simple door, sitting in a doorframe, in the middle of my peaceful black void.
How dare it.
I stared at it for a while, annoyed, until curiosity overcame me and I went to investigate.
I pushed it open gently and it immediately fell off its hinges. Despite the lack of gravity, it fell and hit the invisible floor with a thud.
I pulled myself through the doorframe and found myself in a small dark room.
In front of me, there was a desk and two doors on either side. One had a sign above it that was missing letters but still readable. It spelled 'He v n' and was bordered by a flickering white light. The other door had the same but was bordered by a red light and spelled 'He l'. The chair behind the desk was on its side further away and the desk was covered in disintegrating ink. so the Christians were right I thought. I was never religious but I always liked how kind the old ladies that fed the homeless at church were.

I tended towards heaven's door and poked my head inside. It was white, everywhere. like standing in a blizzard engulfed in silence. I stepped in and an animated voicemail rang through my head. A feint hologram of a skeleton draped in a grey cloak appeared in front of me and bobbed gently up and down like a 'choose your character' menu.

"Greetings, my name is Thanatos. I am the Grim Reaper, more commonly known as Death, this is a recorded message as we are all out at the moment. The commercial council of Heaven thanks you for your esteemed stay but regrets that the entire heavenly side is temporarily closed. If you would like to leave your name, and an address where you can be contacted, kindly do so at the tone"

A telephone beep echoed through my head and the hologram fazed out. I was silent. I didn't have a name or an address. A slightly higher-pitched tone sounded through the empty white space and I was shoved back out the door and into the waiting room.
I reluctantly looked towards hell's red door on the other side of the wall. Did I have any other option?
But the moment I stepped through I was met with the same message from the grim reaper and the scythe in his hand. And again, I was launched back into the waiting room.
well, what do I do now?

I drifted back out into the black abyss I had first found myself before the door frame so rudely interrupted me. I took a deep breath and looked out into the void. Suddenly I knew where I was.

Quietly floating in the vacuum of space, I could see what had happened.
They weren't lonely glittering stars I was looking at before, they were the remains of our solar system. The planets that once revolved around the sun, were breaking apart and dissolving.
Intrigued, I studied my view. I found Earth, it was split from north to south while its melted innards leaked into space like a lava lamp.
The sun was much dimmer, smaller too. Jupiter and Saturn were hardly recognizable. Their gas dispersed into oblivion while their solid rock cores were left bare and exposed with just a thin cloud shrouding them.
Saturn's rings were broken, drifting off into nothing and getting lost in oblivion.
The rest of the universe had ceased to exist. No more stars, no more galaxies, nothing. Just blackness and the rest of the solar system fading away.

With nowhere else to go, I headed toward Earth. I entered what was left of the atmosphere and blacked out.