[Short Story] The Last Breath On Earth

A bug is a computer anomaly that is generated usually because of developer’s ignorance or environmental factors. The former is more prominent in computer programs. The term debugging means to find the cause for the bug and fixing it. The term debugging has a humorous origin.

In 1947, Grace Murray Hopper was working on the Harvard University Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator. On the 9th of September, 1947, when the machine was experiencing problems, an investigation showed that there was a moth trapped between the points of Relay #70, in Panel F. The operators removed the moth and affixed it to the log.

The word went out that they had "debugged" the machine and the term "debugging a computer program" was born.

As the technology progresses it advances towards perfection and minimizes its flaws, unfortunately, this was not true for computers. The bugs and errors increased exponentially with the advancement of computers. What earlier was a mere moth trapped in the points, became complex lines of code.
Computers were our future, since the day Charles Babbage invented the abacus machine we always prophesied a brighter future, more and more systems came online. I cannot definitely say what went wrong, but maybe it was the 2nd world war that made armies put defense control on the computer, or maybe it was the creation of virus by hackers. 

Today, I sit here on the threshold at the end of humanity. Everywhere I look I see nothing. Void. I cannot tell you what day it is because all the time is gone, the entire calendars dissolved into nothingness.

I don’t know what actually started it, maybe it was the developers fault or maybe the testing was not proper, whatever it was now, there is no way of finding it now. Maybe it could be prevented, maybe not, it was a simple bug. A simple bug.

The guided nuclear missile program relied heavily on the computer. It was built with maximum precision and minimum errors. They were programmatically locked into a button so that if someone accidentally fires the switch there was a fail-safe program to prevent the holocaust. Somehow they missed the find the computer bug.

There is no way of knowing what actually happened, maybe the code went wrong, maybe the computer intercepted a command wrong, maybe it was a virus or maybe a simple bug. A simple bug.
The missiles took flight before anyone could actually understand what was happening. It was all over in a matter of minutes.

The ocean level rose to an enormous proportion, the wall high tsunami drowning half the planet in one splash. Japan never stood a chance, as the boiling ocean drowned it completely, neither did Australia.

India and the sub-continent were vaporized like placed in a giant microwave. Every bit of matter liquefied into the atom. The oceans evaporated superheating the atmosphere, creating a globe-spanning firestorm that destroyed the atmosphere.

The rest was drowned by radioactive water falling from the sky as the ocean came down as an endless downpour. No dogma could prevent this, no sacrifices for the sins of humanity could prevent it, no law could justify. Noah could not even build his ark. Manu could not save anyone.

Everything simply was destroyed within seconds.

Nothing remained just the traces of humanity in the form of the dead.

Humanity perished.

Except me.

I was working in the international space station at the time it happened. I saw the whole destruction of the planet with my naked eyes. I tried hard to maintain contact, but nothing worked. After the long day ended and the radioactive dust settled, I decided to come back and find out if any life is left here.

I came here last month and what I see is horrifying, piles and piles of dead bodies. Everywhere I see is destruction, no trace of mankind. No trace of any lifeform. I wonder had God prophesied this before? Was it planned or unplanned? If it was unplanned it was a big flaw on his part. If it was planned, here I was, a flaw in his plan.

But some part of me tells me, this was all planned. He, the almighty, planned all this. Well, that must be the religious part in me. All the boundaries, religion seem distant shadows now. No preacher, no believer.

I slept under the poisoned sky for the night, for the first time, I do not am not afraid of anything. I am not afraid of monsters under the bed, not afraid of robbers robbing me.
I am pretty sure the radioactivity in the air has entered my lungs. I am going to die of radioactive poisoning soon, but today I have decided to muster the courage to travel.
Travel to see if there is someone alive other than me. If all those religious dogmas were true then my perfect half must be somewhere, or maybe I will stumble upon the almighty on the way.

I do not know where this journey will lead me, nor do I know how things are going to shape up for me. I do not know why I have survived the holocaust, but there be some purpose in my life.
I am keeping this note, in hope that maybe someday; someone will come across this and learn what happened here. Maybe some alien species will send an expedition on the planet.
Today I commence my journey into nothingness; I commence my journey into the void, in search of a company and to find the purpose of my life.

I am the sole survivor of planet earth.

The last breath of humanity.

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