The Last Connection

Dayu's legs carried him back to the control room like a machine, his body moving on pure instinct. He couldn't let himself stop, not yet. There was still something he needed to understand—something he needed to find before it was all too late. His mind was racing, but every thought was punctuated by that same, strangling sense of dread that refused to let go.

The girl's face... no, the glitch kept flashing behind his eyelids, her hollow eyes and distorted form burning into his brain. She was the cause. She had been the one behind the unraveling of everything. And yet, what did it mean? Why was she doing this? Was she just a symptom of something larger, a manifestation of some deeper, more ancient force?

He shoved the door of the control room open and stepped inside, immediately drawn to the same console he had been using earlier. The monitors were still flashing erratically, static everywhere. The usual comforting hum of the systems was silent, replaced by a low, haunting buzz that seemed to come from nowhere.

Dayu sat down at the terminal and placed his hands on the keyboard. His eyes scanned the data, searching for anything that made sense, anything that could give him a lead. He knew the answer wasn't going to be easy to find, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was hidden somewhere, waiting for him to unlock it.

Without thinking, he reached for the device sitting on the side of the desk, the small, modified transmitter he had built himself. It was designed to interact with the world's communications systems in a way that no standard tech could. Its primary purpose had always been to intercept and decode long-range signals from satellites, which was vital for his work at the space station. But after the strange events that had unfolded on the island, it had become his lifeline, a link to a reality that seemed increasingly fractured and uncertain.

Dayu powered up the device and connected it to the terminal. The small screen on the transmitter flickered to life. It should have been impossible for the device to work, not with all the systems down. And yet, here it was, responding to his commands. He tapped a few keys and watched as the device began to interface with the computer, sending data back and forth in a manner that was almost too smooth. It was as if the very laws of physics were being bent, stretched beyond reason.

He wasn't entirely sure how it was working, but it didn't matter. For the first time since the unraveling had begun, he felt the faintest flicker of hope. Maybe... maybe I can find something. Anything.

Dayu leaned closer to the screen and began typing, searching through old archives, attempting to access whatever was still functional in the system. After a few moments of fruitless searching, he stumbled upon something that made his pulse quicken. A link to the global population statistics: something he hadn't thought about since the start of the crisis.

"Let's see..." Dayu muttered to himself, navigating to the page with a sense of both hope and hesitation. It seemed absurd, but if this terminal could still connect to the wider network, maybe it could provide some answers.

The page loaded slowly, but it did load. The numbers on the screen flickered, stuttered, then settled. He stared at the digits, frozen, unsure if what he was seeing was real.

World Population: 1

It didn't make sense. It couldn't make sense.

His eyes darted from the screen to the terminal's settings, as if the machine itself had made an error. No. It was working fine. The glitch had affected everything, even his connection to the outside world, but it was still active. He wasn't just seeing things.

One. There was only one person left. But who? Who could possibly be the only human alive on Earth? He felt the room closing in on him, the walls pressing down as if the very space around him was warping under the weight of this impossible reality.

"Impossible," he whispered, staring at the number. He ran a hand through his hair, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He couldn't accept it. The numbers had to be wrong. It was just a malfunction. There had to be something else, something that could explain the state of the world, the disappearance of everything, the glitch in reality.

But the number didn't change. It remained stubbornly on the screen. One.

One person.

A chill ran down his spine as the realization hit him. The world, as he knew it, was gone. The systems he relied on, the networks connecting the planet: everything was falling apart. What was once a vibrant world full of billions of people now sat in a frozen, desolate state. And he was the only one left... or so it seemed.

His hand trembled as he hovered over the "search" function again, as if the machine could somehow provide more answers. He needed more data. More context. But when he tried to access the broader network, the same message flashed on the screen:

Connection Lost.

Dayu slammed his fist down on the desk. He couldn't let it end like this. He refused to let the last traces of civilization slip through his fingers. He had to keep going, to find out what had happened, and to understand what role he was supposed to play in all this.

He quickly typed in a few more queries, hoping for something—anything—that would shed some light on the situation. But the screen continued to flicker, the data corrupting in real-time, becoming more and more distorted, almost as if the very act of searching was pulling at the fabric of reality itself.

The numbers on the screen shifted again. The population figure remained stuck at "1," but as he watched, the word "Last" appeared next to it.

World Population: 1 (Last)

The terminal flickered violently, the screen darkening as though it were straining under the weight of this new information. A new message appeared.

Time remaining: Unknown.

Dayu stared at the screen, his eyes wide with disbelief. What was happening? The machine wasn't malfunctioning. It was receiving data. Real data about the collapse of the world, the disintegration of the population, the unraveling of everything. And yet, the terminal couldn't give him a clear answer. It could only show him the facts, and those facts were more incomprehensible than anything he could have imagined.

Last.

He swallowed hard. A feeling of loneliness, of existential weight, crashed down on him. It wasn't just the world falling apart, it was his place in it. He was the last person standing, the last one who could remember what the world had been like. And now, as the Earth was dismantled piece by piece, he was left to watch, powerless to stop it.

The lights flickered in the room, and for a split second, Dayu thought he saw a shadow moving in the corner of his vision. But when he turned, the room was empty. He shook his head, feeling a cold sweat gathering on his brow. The sense of dread was overwhelming, but he couldn't give in. Not yet.

He took a deep breath and stood up, pacing back and forth. The air felt thick, almost suffocating, and the silence pressed in on him from all sides.

"I can't be the only one," he muttered, his voice barely a whisper. "There has to be someone... someone left."

The world outside was still unraveling. The sky was cracked, the Earth breaking apart, fragments disappearing into an endless void. It was as if reality itself had come undone.

He turned back to the terminal and made one last attempt to connect to the outside world. But before his fingers even brushed the keys, the screen went black, and the terminal powered off.

Dayu stood frozen, staring at the dead machine. His heart sank into his stomach. It was as if something inside him had just snapped. There was no more connection. No more answers.

There was only the void.

And now, in this endless void, Dayu was left with one question that he could never shake:

Why me?