The Last Human in the Milky Way

Summary

The protagonist of a post-apocalyptic story observes the lack of life in his neighborhood and ponders the possible reasons for the eerie silence.

Abstract

The context is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of "The Last Human in the Milky Way," a post-apocalyptic story. The protagonist, who appears to be the last human in his neighborhood, observes the lack of life in the nearby houses and begins to feel uneasy. He recalls the last TV broadcasts before they stopped completely, which reported protests and revolts in several countries. He also mentions the gradual deterioration of the internet over the past year, leading to a complete collapse. Despite his unease, the protagonist reassures himself that he has enough food to survive and could travel to the nearest town if necessary. The excerpt ends with a note that the author is currently reviewing and editing the manuscript for the novel, and selected chapters will be published as previews on Medium.

Bullet points

The protagonist observes no changes or signs of life in the nearby houses.
He feels uneasy about the lack of new tenants or landlords in the empty houses.
He recalls the last TV broadcasts before they stopped, which reported protests and revolts in several countries.
He mentions the gradual deterioration of the internet over the past year, leading to a complete collapse.
Despite his unease, the protagonist reassures himself that he has enough food to survive and could travel to the nearest town if necessary.
The author is currently reviewing and editing the manuscript for the novel, and selected chapters will be published as previews on Medium.

A few days passed. He observed no changes in the nearest houses. Everything was quiet, no sign of life in and around the houses in the neighbourhood. He reassured himself with the fact that after a while, new owners or tenants would come to live in the empty houses.

He sat down and began to think about it. It was almost a month since the unthinkable happened. During the day, he no longer saw anyone out on the street, no boys on bicycles or girls with skipping ropes. And he felt that he was starting to get really restless. What was this? Where were the new tenants and the new landlords, if it was really the case that people had moved away, that the houses had new owners and tenants? The houses could not be left empty like this!

He felt a cold hand in his chest, it was like a hand that held around the heart. It was a frozen fist, an ice lump that had gotten stuck inside him somewhere.

He got up, felt frosty waves chasing through his body.

One of the last things he had experienced before the TV broadcasts had stopped completely was that there was increasing unrest in the world. In lands far away, on the other side of the ocean, riots and local wars had broken out. There was nothing special about it per se. This has been the case for decades. It was something one was used to, and it should not affect people here at home.

The last time he watched the TV news, they had reported protests and revolt in several countries. He did not know how reliable this information was, because there was a large stream of unconfirmed messages. The news reports came after the short speech that the President gave just before the TV screen died. He had tried to go online and check the state of the world there, but it was not possible to get anything meaningful out of it.

He was annoyed. But deep down he felt something else. Shiny fear, a white fear that no longer let go. The Internet had progressively deteriorated over the past year, but then there was almost a complete collapse of what he could understand, that Sunday more than four weeks ago when he sat and tried to log in to go and read the most important social channels he used to follow.

As time went on, he had become accustomed to the new condition. He had good dry food in the cupboard, and almost full freezer. As long as the electricity supply did not disappear as well, he would probably manage. If necessary, he could head north to the nearest town where the supermarket was probably as it had always used to be, accessible, with a limited, but perfectly okay product range for his needs.

(…)

The author is currently reviewing and editing the manuscript for the novel The Last Human in the Milky Way. Excerpts from selected chapters will be published as previews on Medium.

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FICTION

The Last Human in the Milky Way — 4

Excerpt from Chapter 4. The Event: Something Was About to Change

4

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