Trillion Lights

Eye of Hiroshima (Atomic bomb) by Oscarliima

What makes you and I human? Is it because we behave in our society? That we live in our communities? Not killing each other for survival. What separates us from animals? What separates us from anything on this planet? What would happen if you stripped away what makes us human? What would happen if you stripped away our animalistic minds? What would happen if you stripped away our will to live?

I sit in this little bunker. I'm laying in bed with a cigarette between my lips. The person who lays next to me reaches over for my cigarette.He wanted to share since we were running low on rations. I keep smoking away. I don't care about him. I didn't care about anyone anymore. Time was no longer with us anymore. We had been in this bunker for so long I couldn't say if it was day or night. We all slept till we woke and did what we wanted. At this moment I wanted to smoke and be left alone. I got out of bed put my clothes on and walked to the cafeteria. My bed companion didn't follow. He knew just because I slept with him didn't mean I have any interest in him anymore. We all did what we wanted at the moment and no more. We were the last people. Humanity was placed in a small four tier bunker. I remember when the bombs dropped. Watching off into the distance of millions of people being turned to ash. I was horrified. Empathy got the better of me. I remember counting every night in the camps. I would get to about two or three thousand before falling asleep. I could never come close to the death count of the bombs. In a blink of an eye, societies were no more. There was only ash. This was the first layer stripped away. I lost my humanity. My family was gone, my friends were gone, and who I was as a person would never be achieved, I would never achieve my self-actualization, because we ruined everything that was good. After so many reports, so many bombs, how could I feel any more? When I heard that billions were now dead, there was no one to blame. There one monster to put our hatred into. This was our fault. I don't know who dropped the first bomb but we could have recovered. Pride got the best of nations and everywhere was now ash. I felt no remorse for those who did this. I didn't even feel it for myself.

I finally made it to the cafeteria. One of our pack members was rocking in the corner. She was still clinging on to a can of soup in her left hand and a knife in her right. She was paranoid we were going to take the can of food and let her starve or even worse, kill her for the food. Once my humanity was gone, my focus was on my survival, which was a terrible thing. As society went up in flames, anything good crumbled down to nothing. Chaos was rampant with no law. Peoples darkest traits were brought to light with this new power and no consequences. Watching a person being beaten to death was just another day for us. I had to survive. To take someone's life was nothing when we needed food. Little tribes came about but were smothered by people with the most guns. We had more guns than food most of the time and we used them, but the bullets would run low. We would use knives and blades, but they would be dull. We would use sticks, but they would break. So we used our hands. We became animals and we got what we wanted. Any pleasure I wanted I would do anything to meet that want. I was nothing but another beast on this planet, even though there were no other beasts on the planet. We destroyed them. The lion feels no remorse for his prey they sink their teeth into, neither did I feel for the man or woman who got between me and my needs. After the bombs fell came the animal inside us. I think I would have been better off in the explosion radius of the bombs. I know a lot of other people would be alive today in this poisoned planet. Maybe I did them a favor. There is nothing left here for us.

I sat down in the cafeteria. I realized the girl in the corner was holding the last can of food. We ran out of rations a while back and she knows that she will have to defend this last scrap of food. I had no interest in her food. For I now had my animal inside me also stripped away. I no longer had an interest in survival. You see, our pack found this little bunker. The radiation was settling on this earth and even survivors were becoming rapidly sick from the radiation poisoning. We moved to the bunker and we all set in each tier of the bunker. We had radio comms throughout the bunker and whenever the radiation began to seep in we would here the top tier scream to let them in a deeper bunker down. I was in the fourth bunker, the deepest bunker in the ground. The radiation was now digging into the earth as roots of a tree. The first two tiers of the bunker were gone within weeks. We eventually broke our comms so we could stop them from screaming and begging for us to open our door. Last week I heard the scratches from the third tier of the bunker. I knew the radiation got to them and now we were all that was left of the human race. I knew that now the six people and I in the fourth tier were all that remained on this planet. I grabbed a stool from the cafeteria and walked down to the basement. I locked the door behind me. I was now at the deepest point of the bunker. I knew this is where I would die. This is where humans would end.

You see, a famous psychologist by the name Abraham Maslow created something known as the hierarchy of needs. Where our basic human needs are food, water, shelter, and the debatable, sex. From there we would need a belief in safety. After this, we would need love and belongingness. Once that is achieved we would need esteem. Finally, we would achieve self-actualization. I knew that I was stripped of our very basic needs now. We ruined it. We ruined anything that could make us human. I accepted this fate.

I could hear others in my bunker begin to scream. The girl in the cafeteria was screaming that she did not want to die. Others were trying to get to the basement where I was now. The radiation was consuming them all. I could hear the others debating to just slit their wrists for a more merciful death. I could hear some people having sex with each other wanting to go out in some "grand fashion" thinking that was the most important activity upon death. Even heard some of them saying they loved each other as the cried and embraced each other. I know they were both lying to themselves and others. They just wanted to die with something to believe in. I don't blame them. After some time, all the noises slowly went silent. I was the last human now. Maybe Maslow was wrong. Maybe the hierarchy of needs was flipped upside down. For me having nothing made me feel alive. As I sat on this stool in the middle of this room I have felt most alive than I ever did before the bombs fell. I admit that I am contradicting myself, but as I reflect in these final moments, I don't know how human I was before all of this happened to us. I had a family, a job, a social life. I felt love, I had beliefs, I had faith, but what the responsibilities held me back from my true nature. Only after I had nothing did I realize I could be a monster, that I could hurt people, that I could bring pain and suffering. For the evil that was always in me would have never been brought to life and all it took was for me to be stripped away with the life that I had and could never have again.

This was it. I could feel the poison sinking into me just as the lion sunk its teeth into its prey. For this was the lion of our sins of humanity. For being human has led to my death. This would have never happened if this world didn't have humans. The last death on this planet was all thanks to humanity. I was the last pain on this planet. For after this moment, there would be no more life or death, there would be nothing. Earth would be another lifeless planet in the universe. This was it. I fell to the floor and death was upon me. It was the most horrifying, most beautiful thing I could have ever seen. This was what it meant to be alive. As if a trillion lights were all going off at once. For now that I end with the past, the future, and the present. As I die with the existence of any life in the universe, was I now truly human?