The Last Human

The Last Human - Mournings

He's still in his glass cube. Men encased in rusted iron carefully move his prison onto a filthy steel cart.

He pays full attention to his surroundings now; this is the most interesting thing he's seen in days. Staring at the people walking past his enclosure got boring after the first five minutes.

But there is one person who interests him: his new owner, who looks more human than the rest. He had stepped off of that great metal beast that rattled and screeched to a stop in front of his glass case. (That thing baffled him. He'd been here for days and he had no idea what it was. Every now and then, it would come and go; it's metal doors would slide apart allowing a tide of armoured men and women to flood out onto the hallways. People from the hallways would then take their place, and the beast would be off again.)

His owner walks beside the cart as they move to an unknown destination. He stares at him, trying to figure out why he looks so human, why his skin isn't sloughing off of his bones in response to the action of acids in the air.

But he's not all skin. Like everyone else (except for him) metal is welded onto his body. His owner has a steel breast and iron shoulder blades. Shiny aluminium rings cling to his legs and allow easy movement. His face, though - his face was bare and why wasn't his skin peeling off?

(His own face had burned for days the last time he'd left the glass box)

He's confused and more than a little envious. His owner has flawless, luminous skin, as white as the snow that used to blanket the earth before pollution turned it black. His hair was the palest shade of gold and his eyes were the clearest grey. It was his mouth that fascinated the last human.

His lips themselves were pale, but their junction was highlighted by the faintest hint of pink, outlining the soft indentation of his upper lip into his lower lip. His heart stuttered when his owner barked orders at the workers, and he saw that the teasing pink bled into the brightest red on the inside of his mouth.

It was the colour of the cherries he'd once had the privilege of eating with one of his previous owners. It was warm; it was sweet. He wanted to taste it for himself.

He also wanted freedom, but it wasn't like he'd ever get that either.

He was used to disappointment, and not getting what he wanted. He could only hope that his new master was not a cruel man.

But hope is a fleeting, dangerous thing, especially in his world. So he returns to his daydreams, as he always does - what should he go with today? He'd done an underwater exploration, yesterday. Perhaps, today, he'd journey through the pitch dark universe and visit all of the other dead stars. Maybe he'd find some humans on a distant planet . . .

~

Lord Densen did notice the way his new charge stared at him.

And then the boy suddenly stopped. And stared at nothing.

The blank gaze had just started to worry him, when one of his men jostled the cart over a gap in the floor. The boy had started and looked around with wide eyes, before apparantly deciding that there was nothing for him to worry about and returned to his thoughts.

Outside of the train station, Lord Densen supervised the transfer of the glass case to his car. The vehicle was an monstrous thing, heavy and rusting and dirty. It was more than most people had. The boy eyed it with obvious curiosity, before he was shut up in the back and hidden from the light. As his men took to securing the case, Lord Densen turned to the boy's previous owner - Duchess Canterbury. She had the same fair hair and eyes that he did.

"Well, little sister, I see that you've lost interest in your little project," he stated. It was fun to watch the way her eyes narrowed at him, the same way it did when they were children. She tossed her long ponytail over her shoulder, readjusted her steel corset and said, "Yes, well, Edward doesn't like it."

In truth, Lord Densen was disappointed. He didn't blame his sister for wearing the highest fashion, but he did blame her for listening to her new husband and abandoning the one thing that they'd been so passionate about since they were children.

The human race would never accept defeat. They were resourceful. They were clever. They adapted.

Most people who were born had thin skins that burned and bubbled when it reacted with the acid in the atmosphere. Welding iron to the areas where skin was the thinnest solved the problems associated with this particular issue. When children choked on the acrid air, their parents gave them respirators to help them breathe.

Over time, the human race thrived again. Heavy metal attached to the body was a normal part of life. It was expected, and practically painless now. It was not a burden. Women started up new fashion trends by welding iron into the strangest places, and using it as a means of body modification. They were human; they were machines; they were moving forward.

But why forget the past that brought them to that point?

His sister had found the boy, bought him and put him on display in the train station. She could have put him in her husband's house, where all of his business partners could gaze upon the exotic pet that they owned.

But his sister didn't care about them. She put him in a place where people of all castes could see a Real Human. She wanted them to see what they could have been, if they had managed to undo the destruction that their ancestors had wreaked upon the earth. What they could still be, if they worked to reverse the pollution. It would take generations, but they could do it.

"Since when do you wear corsets?"he asked, wondering how her husband had changed her so much in such a short space of time.

But when she raised her eyes to him, he saw her defeat and despair, and he realised that she hadn't changed much at all. "I left him there, and checked the security cameras everyday." Her voice was raw, and, for the first time, he noticed that her eyes were red. "Nobody - nobody ever stopped. They slowed down so they could gawk at him better, but I could see that they'd stopped thinking about him as soon as he left their field of vision. They're comfortable now. They don't care if this-" she raps her hand against her corset "-is not natural, and not what we're supposed to be. They're not even trying to fix things!"

"No," Lord Densen mused, climbing into the car. "They don't care. They have no reason to care. Well, I suppose I'll have him all to myself now. See you, little sister."