After Extinction

“How many rations do we have remaining, Joe?”
“When we arrived at this outpost, there were 36 months of rations remaining, so by my calculations we have 23 months remaining.”

Vlad emphatically screamed, “They will come with more!”
Joe somberly stated, “They are all dead, no one else will come.”

Joe flashed through his mind, remembering the final images which long ago streamed to the outpost via the satellite internet. The bombs, screams, horror, hysteria, as the nukes rained down worldwide, continually haunted him.

Vlad felt that they were lucky to survive. As a scientist who had been sent to research at a remote arctic outpost, he had been saved from the nuclear Armageddon that had destroyed humanity. Now stranded at this outpost, unclear on the state of the world, with only brief bursts of internet connectivity randomly streaming from a few remaining satellites.

Joe fell to his knees, and started to slip into darkness. Vlad hung his head low remembering the previous life, with his loving wife and daughter in the park on a Sunday picnic. In those days, it seemed time was endless.

Joe continued a downward spiral, spewing about the evil dictator who started the war, the corrupt politicians who had enabled and emboldened him for years. He cursed the plethora of greedy corporations, oligarchs, and fascists, who together had robbed and enslaved the world. The war was all their fault, their greed and ego enabled this nuclear human extinction.

Vlad tried to stop him, but Joe sank deeper and deeper into darkness.
“We cannot be the only ones left on the planet, Joe.”

Finally, in total despair, both fell to the ground passing out from a dark hysteria of the overloaded mind.

Later, he realized his fellow scientists Joe and Vlad died months ago. The final war had left the team traumatized and now he was alone at the remote arctic outpost.  The last remaining human on earth, and he could not even remember his real name. There was only him, no one else, running out of time, and he had gone completely insane.