The Last 100 – Ch.1

I had never before known what it really meant to be alone. I don’t think anyone my age did, between the internet and the increased population of the world we were a people who had forgotten. Forgotten the irrefutably most terrifying sound known to man. Silence.

I sat in my room, sinking into the soft mass of my mattress and listened. Listened to a world that had stopped turning, a world devoid of people, a world devoid of life and goodness. A world in which for the first time in my life I knew true fear.

But how had this happened, what had taken the world to this point? Well, all this stems from a most recent series of events. I was sleeping in my home, recovering from a day of forced social interaction when I was awoken by a curious occurrence. A window had appeared in my vision, it was translucent, and if focused on I could see through it.

Greetings Human.

You and your species have been inducted into the system, after some research we have likened it to be somewhat similar to the “RPG’s” of your people.

Due to the knowledge of your people of systems similar to this, the strength of your biology and your large population, in the spirit of keeping things fair and egalitarian we have decided to issue your species with a handicap.

We have culled the population of your world to a point where only 100 of you are left alive. This was done fairly and unbiasedly and the people to be killed were decided due to the population demographics of your world.

If you’re reading this you’re one of the 100 people selected to represent your world.

We wish you all of the best in your struggle humans. Good Luck.

Hostile Entities will spawn in 48 hours.

Sincerely, The Administrators.     

I swiped at the window half-heartedly, dissipating it into the air and reached over for my phone. Hissing in pain at the brightness of the display. 2:19am, fucking dream woke me up. I placed my phone softly against my bedside table and went back to sleep. I had school tomorrow.

An incessant buzz to the right of my head woke me and initiating a pounding in my skull. Ugh, I groaned as I rolled out of bed, the biting chill of the morning slicing across my half naked form. I checked my phone, 6:00am. Tossing on a shirt and pants I scuttled into the kitchen and grazed upon the variety of foodstuff that populated the inner depths of our fridge. While I was pouring myself a glass of water to complement the headache pills that would make up the bulk of my breakfast my vision wandered. In the corner of my eye, hovering above the top left of my vision was a small counter. It read 44:08:34 remaining. It reminded me of the dream. I rubbed my eyes; the numbers didn’t leave. They stayed right there, a mocking stain upon my sanity.

I shook my head at them. Wasn’t the weirdest thing my sleep addled mind had conjured, and I didn’t think it would be the last or worst. Ignore it and it’ll go away. I stumbled into the bathroom after that and purged my mouth with a tag team of toothpaste and mouthwash. I looked myself over in the mirror, checking my jaw and cheeks. I was going to have to shave before leaving.

At seven thirty I left my house, tip-toeing past the closed door of my mother, she worked nights, she would be asleep for a while.

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I walked into an Australian winter morning, it was around 12 degrees. Not that cold in the grand scheme of things but when your school uniform consisted of shorts and a polo shirt it was fucking Antarctic. My dog ran to me in a blur of black and brown fur, staring up at me with his wide, jovial smile. I smiled back at him, patting his back and sides, feeling the muscle ripple beneath them with his movements as I did so.

I looked at the sky in a window to the heavens created in the space between to palm trees. Dark clouds were approaching our skyline.

“Gonna have to take in the washing when I get home aren’t I boy.” I said to the dog, patting his head as I did so.

“Alright, say hello to mum for me when she wakes up.” I locked eyes with him for several moments, mesmerised by the glossy darkness that they held within their confines.

“Good boy.” I left my home, wincing as the poorly oiled latch screeched with the song of metal on metal and began to walk to school.

I ducked under a tree that grow its branches over the foot path in a natural roof, shielding me from a sun, trying piteously to shine its light through the thick cloud cover. I lived close to the school, walking through the paths of my estate home would find me there in about a 12-minute commute. I had lived in this small town for my entire life and the walk to school was littered with a side show of child hood nostalgia. To my left was the play ground where I had broken my first bone and to the right was the tree under which my heart was first broken. Good times.

I came to the school through the back gate that opened up onto the oval. It was weird to find it devoid of people, my mind wandered back to the dream I had, had last night and my stomach dropped in a brief moment of panic.

“Shit like that doesn’t happen in real life Jack, calm down. Probably just parade or something that you didn’t get the message for.” Walking through the school for those couple of minutes was, weird. It was the feeling you get when alone in a public space, everything is deathly quiet and still. Its unnerving.

To harken back to the opening statement of this account I had never really been alone. Not really and to be was a truly scary experience. So, it is without apt words that I describe to you the feeling I had as I walked through that school, checking every class, every hall and every office. Each one was a stab in the heart, each one had my spirits dropping to unknown depths and my stomach tying itself into knots. When I had explored the whole school, I stopped for a few moments and was just… Empty. I stood under a small pavilion, sitting on a graffitied bench, I was still I didn’t know what to do. I just sat, staring at the gates as they yawned outward into the direction of the main town. A town devoid of movement and people, it was like a water colour that had bled its colours out, the life slipping through its fingers and dripping onto the floor. Fuck, mum. I dropped my bag and ran home; the only sound was the pounding of my feet and the surge of blood in my ears. I had to know, had to know if my mother was alive. But deep down I knew she wasn’t. If they, whoever they were had decided this based on population demographics than it was a miracle that there was even one Australian left, our population being as low as it was.

I was alone, the only man in the world with an entire continent to himself. And for the first time in my life I knew true fear.