The end came more or less exactly as we had always imagined. After a few years, the euphoria at the beginning of the twenty-first century resulted in an overpowering arrogance that clouded the minds of humanity as a whole. We were blinded by our achievements in science and technology and drunk with the infinite power that resulted from them. The inviolability that we so vehemently ascribed to ourselves finally burned in the fire of hatred that was kindled before our own eyes.

An atomic spark ignited by confused spirits whose motives were forgotten before the true extent of the catastrophe became apparent. The bomb killed us, but took away a lot more.
The peace.
The hope.
Our humanity.
These are just a few of the numerous victims of an attack that would change the world forever. But none of us should be under the illusion that foreign powers were solely responsible for it. The real guilt ultimately falls on each and every one of us. We have all closed our eyes, ears and mouths to the truth and much preferred to blindly, deaf and dumbly chase our leaders without wasting a single thought on why. Driven by hunger and disease, we turned to the last of the apocalyptic horsemen that was left to us.
We ignited the spark again ourselves and stoked the war, which also took our last resources and finally left us behind, in this world of rubble, radiation and the darkened sun, which our generation may never see in its true glory again.

We were the blacksmiths of our own destiny, and the bill for our failure as a race and inhabitant of this planet was served on a silver platter.
All that remains is repentance.

With a slight sigh, he looked at the last written line and the blinking line that stood after the last word and lit up like a metronome evenly.His stiff phalanges ached and he could literally feel them slowly going numb. Nonetheless, he rubbed his hands together briefly and then continued typing.

Maybe we will belong to the last generation of people to populate this planet, but maybe our race will survive against every chance. I don't know what the future will bring, but I hope the decision will be made quickly. We are tired of suffering. And we are tired of this world, which is nothing more than a gigantic waiting room of death.

He paused for a long moment and thought over the last sentence again. Somehow he didn't really want to please him. Was he too theatrical? Too cheesy? Or maybe he was just too direct. With a slight sigh, he drew his little finger to the backspace key, but stopped it shortly before pressing it through.
Had he actually forgotten that it didn't really matter how exaggerated this text sounded? After all, it was no longer as if it were being submitted to an editor who would check it for something like that. A small smile formed briefly on his lips, but it died away again almost instantly.
A shred of memories of a better time came up in him.
A time when there was still something likeeditors.
Orjournalists.

And waiting is all we are still capable of. The most ironic factor of our human nature is that despite everything, we still hope that one day it will be better again. That we just have to hold on to be saved eventually. And so we stay alive, blinded and full of false hope we hold out and let the days go by.
Hoping that SOMETHING finally happens that will bring us out of this stagnation that is a thousand times worse than death or Hell itself.The ability to take another step is all we want.
No matter in which direction.

"Robert! Look at the clock. You are already ten minutes over time. Save now or we have to turn off the power - your decision."
The old voice sounded no more or less hostile than he was used to. In recent years, the sound of the rough, often hoarse key has become much too familiar - as has the message that resonated with it. Ian was the other side of the coin in many ways, the typical representative of the Party of Perseverance. But still he was sitting on the longer branch. Not least because the others were also on Ian's side. And that didn't make the whole situation any easier.

*

But what exactly was the situation? For Robert Clay it was pretty easy. An absolute stagnation of the whole of life, here, in a small wooden hut in the middle of nowhere of what had once been part of a Canadian province. Four people who for over six years have kept themselves afloat with the little that the country had to offer - which wasn't exactly a lot. Even if the radiation had miraculously spared this part of the planet, the darkened sun was a worldwide problem. And the eternal winter, which had lasted for more than seven years, paid more and more of the land every week, and the people who were still on it.
Only extremely robust plants, such as the mighty pine forests in the middle of which they were located, survived this long cold. But pines were only partially edible. And the rest of the flora and fauna have been more hostile than ever since the days of the disaster. Formerly edible plants that developed poisons under the influence of the cold. Formerly shy loners of wild animals who suddenly began to hunt as a pack. For Clay the explanation was pretty clear: Nature seized the last chance to get theplague of humanityunder control, before it would finally manage to destroy this planet.And deep down, Clay shared this conviction.

With a deep sigh, he finally saved the half-finished document and shut down the computer. He paused for a full minute to really make sure that the device was really deactivated before he rose from the simple wooden chair and glanced around the room he was in.
A dreary, light-shy room that was only lit by a very weak 40 watt light bulb, which was the only source of light from three o'clock in the afternoon. The small window, which nobody had dared to go near for a long time, was simply not enough. The rest of the room was spartan. The brown wooden table on which the black monitor was located, the display of which was already occasionally marked by ice flowers, formed the main facility and was only sparsely supplemented by a few half-iced cardboard boxes that were wildly arranged in the room. Storage space. For things that weren't really necessary for survival.
Books. Cultural objects. Useless memories. Things that, in a word, don't deserve[/i]to be put in the heated rooms of the house. It doesn't matter whether it was his life's work or not.

A little dreamily, he stroked the cold monitor again and noticed only incidentally that his fingers were already swollen and red again. Judging by the white mist that rose from him with every breath, it was really pretty cold. For a brief moment the question popped into his head when it was the last time he had really felt cold as such, but he pushed this thought aside with a slight shake of his head, as usual . He should slowly get back to the others. Rose would resent him if he was late for dinner again. Bill didn't really care, but he had a rough idea of ​​what Ian would say and this time he just didn't feel like arguing with the old Ranger.Not again. Not today.

Reluctantly, he turned around while standing and left his study.