Excerpts from the last of Humanity

Nottingham's State Museum of Humanoid History's collection of journals, writings, and musings from the dying days of the human era, written by the humans living through it.

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'...There is little left here for us but the gaping, starving maws of beasts. I'm sure they view us as nothing but gaunt and weak too. I can only wonder, are they just as hungry as we are?'

'In the thick gray expanse of ash we found them- the 28 we sent to fix the water treatment plant. It had rained, and the ash turned to cement at their feet, most of their bodies were still left standing and in agony, the acid rain erasing most of their features before they got buried by more ashfall. They never made it to the camp and at first we thought they were another group until Jessica recognizes Hosea's obnoxious bag on his corpse's back. I wish I could say they died quickly, peacefully, but the bodies stretch about half a mile on the road. They never made it to the plant, and we likely won't either. If you find this, we never did. Don't go to Springview, there's nothing but ash left.'

-The last entry of a journal found on the body of a man two miles from a human ruin thought to be the mentioned water treatment plant, encased in solidified ash.

'...Our camp is gone, destroyed by a dragon. We are south-southwest of the river now. It didn't seem smart like the other ones, I think it was a dragon's child, however old it may be. The kind of stumbling, clumsy movement you see out of a toddler, not malice and destruction for destruction's sake. I think it was just looking for food, just like us. Even though it burned everything we had, I wish I could tell it there was nothing there worth wasting the energy for fire on. ...Maybe I'll go back, if the camp is still burning, and steal some of its fire, my matches are gone now and the nights are cold.'

'It's July but it's still snowing. All the seed has rotten, there's nothing left to plant for next year and we've missed the growing season this. God help us, I haven't seen even rats in weeks.'

'Go south. Mexico. Nothing for you or me here.'

-Carved into a segment of road between two human ruins

'It seems like every day the shore gets closer. Earthquake hit a few days ago, no clue how big. The radio is down, been down. Where are all the fish?'

'I may just freeze to death out here. I didn't know what 50 below meant, we hadn't gotten snow since '19 and '20. How many folks died in Texas during that storm? Prob'ly nothin' compared to this. I hope at least the Rio Grande froze so I can walk over it if it ain't all dried up.'

'Those that come here after me, I hope you find more than I did here.'

'There's food in the cupboard, enough for three days. Won't be back, don't stay here. Pipes are bad so I hope you brought your own water. Going to Albany to find my uncle and niece. Good luck and be well.'

'A man was following us for three days, 25 miles at least. We kept seeing his shitty green van wherever we stopped. Thought he might be looking to rob us or worse, but we haven't seen him since last night, but a bag of tools was left in our trunk that ain't ours and the tail light is fixed. We have more food than I counted yesterday too.
Creepy guy in the green van, whoever you are, thank you. It'll keep us going another two days at least.'

'Dad left to scavenge yesterday and hasn't been back. Every time he goes out I worry but not for him. He's been bringing back a lot of cans and packaged crap; it's food, but I think you can't find much of it anymore, nobody's working the factories, nobody's making this shit anymore. I think he's stealing it from other people. I'm scared they might come back for it eventually or figure out where we are, he aint hard to miss. He always says he found it but always looks too tired and takes too long just to be raiding empty houses. Mom, I miss you. I hope Alabama is better than we are up here.'