When we first learned of the alien threat, the Monitor said it believed we would win. We said we were sure beyond all doubt that we would not let the alien invaders destroy humanity.
Turns out we were right about the second part, at least.
This should have been a clarion call to join as one, to put rivalries and ancient mistrusts behind us and rise together against the invaders. Every man, woman, and child should have been able to put down old arguments in favor of fending off the external threat.
As it turns out, some hatchets don’t stay buried.
[BREAKDOWN OF WHAT HAPPENED EXACTLY GOES HERE]
But none of that really matters anymore, I suppose. The rivers run with poison, moistening dead soil that grows only rot and tainted grass. The sun struggles to reach through the clouds of atomic ash that surround our ruined planet – which is just as well, because we no longer have an ozone layer to protect us from its radiation. There’s plenty of that down here now, though, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
I’m told that there are a few isolated communes here and there – far in the wilderness, scratching out a meager living on what plants they can grow with toxic soil and what small water they can distill. There isn’t enough usable farmland anywhere to support livestock, so steak is off the menu. They stay protected mainly by shooting trespassers on sight – so they’ll manage well enough until the ammunition runs dry, I suppose.
Or until the aliens recover from the shock of watching their prey devour themselves, and get around to looking for the crumbs. Either or.
Even if they manage to fend off human invaders, even if the aliens leave them alone, even if the burned earth turns out to be survivable – it’s clear they’re doomed, just as we all are, for the same reasons we destroyed ourselves: We’re human, we can’t help it.
It is carved into our very souls that our purpose is to flourish and expand. Every book of faith you can find bears some variant of ‘go forth and multiply’. Therein lies the rub – you can forgive your brother, you can forgive your neighbor, but for those who we don’t bother to recognize as of ourselves, there can be no forgiveness, only undying enmity. So a small community may do well, but eventually they will grow, and grow to the point where some of its members don’t recognize each other – and there the madness sets in.
Perhaps the Pope was right. Shortly before the Vatican vanished in a flash of atomic fire, he spoke to the people at St. Peter’s Basilica, telling them that the aliens were God’s judgment, and that we had failed. “All we can do now,” he said through his translator, “is prepare to be received in God’s holy light and contemplate our failings.”
Ironic that mere minutes later, Vatican City vanished in a flash of light – hardly God’s, though.
I wonder if he saw the bombs falling. I wonder what he thought, in the place of the shepherd seeing the wolves finally descending.
[IF US GOVERNMENT DESTROYED]
I wonder what the mood was at Mount Weather at the end. When they heard the first explosions and knew that the Blue Ridge wasn’t protecting them anymore. What must it be like to truly believe that one is invincible, and hear your own destruction whistling toward you?
[ENDIF]
During the war, I used to worry about the future. It was only recent events that shattered my firm belief that we would win this war, but I would still wonder how we would count the cost. I used to worry what we would suffer between then and our surely inevitable victory. I don’t worry anymore – perhaps because my worst fears, everybody’s worst fears, have already come to pass. Our deaths are certain and agony is a constant. There is no future to worry about unless you want to ponder how many hours, exactly, it will take before your scorched and oozing lungs finally give out, or before a madman with a rifle kills you for your last can of peas, or before the tumors growing inside your head finally eat the last few functioning remnants of your brain.
You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe that’s worth much time thinking about.
Instead, I spend most of my time thinking of the past. Remembering good times, back when the world was good, and safe, and worth fighting for. Remembering friends and family, wholesome food, music – remember music? – and what it was to be alive.
Thankfully, I won’t have much longer to suffer. The blood I cough up with nearly every breath has a foul smell to it, which paired with the constant headaches means that sepsis is setting in. I have enough time to finish writing this, and send it to our webserver – not that there’s much point, as the destroyed infrastructure means that nobody could read it even if they were alive to to so – before I pour myself one last glass of bourbon, this time, cut with sodium cyanide instead of my preferred Dr Pepper. I’m told that there will be a moment of incredible pain, as my body’s cells forget how to hold onto oxygen, then blessed silence as hypoxia sets in and my body shakes itself to death. If the chemist who sold this to me was telling the truth, it’ll take no more than a few seconds to slip away. I hope so. If I somehow survive this, I’m going to be very disappointed and will urge people not to use his services.