Awakening.

I slowly opened my eyes and almost fell of the crooked bed, I was inside a white room with glass windows all around it, I was wearing a white medical robe. Outside of the room I could see small lights of different colors blinking on the black walls, the slide door was cracked open. As I slid of the bed my legs collapsed, they felt numb. How long was I laying there? I finally noticed several small red tubes connected to my back, I pulled them out sitting on the floor, it was incredibly painful. Then I began to rub my legs. I had some memories coming back to me as well. My name was Thomas Makks, I had a family, wife, son and daughter. I was a private detective, before that I served in the military. These general vague memories came back, but not much else. What was going on here? Why was I here?

My legs began to regain some color and feeling, I got to my knees and then gingerly stood up. I came up to the door and read the sign.

“Exodus project room 1.”

I did not ring a bell as I went into the hallway. There was another room just around the corner and as I entered I was astounded and at the same time horrified by the scene. Astonishment came at the technology on the walls and tables that I’ve never seen, or perhaps couldn’t remember? The horror came from the fact that were people laying on top of table machines there, but they were all dead, each one had a deep hole in their head, my curiosity of a detective overpowered the terror, so I examined the hole further, it seemed their brains were missing.

I heard a noise of something like metal being dragged in the hallway. My instincts told me to hide under one of these machine beds. I lay there motionless, barely breathing, slowly letting air in and out through my nose. The dragging noise intensified as I also could now clearly hear deep powerful breathings and nails hitting the floor. I could see part of the floor through a tiny slit, part of the hairy black beast entered into my path of vision, it was sniffing around. I did my best to calm the heart and keep still. Finally the beast moved on, it seemed like some sort of wires and equipment were stuck to it as it kept dragging them on the floor. I waited till the sounds were completely gone before I peeked my head out.

I crawled out and stood up, my legs wobbled again, but I kept my balance. I realized that it was too dangerous to leave this general area without making sure my legs were ready to run if noticed by something. I had no idea what was happening. I searched several other rooms nearby. Stretched my legs further and found some protein, mineral and vitamin tubes. I found black pants and a slim jacket, and a small backpack which I loaded with more nutrition tubes. I kept listening for that creature again, but the hallway seemed extremely long and I assumed this whole building was quiet large.

I lurked around the rooms and in each one there was destruction, elevators did not work and I finally realized that this was the basement of the building. I found the staircase leading up. The indicator showed that there were five underground floors and eighty floors up above.

On the following floor I found an office with a sign intact.

“Doctor Munchshwar.”

The name seemed familiar, I tried to remember, but it only brought a headache. I entered the room and was surprised to find that this one did not have fancy technology in it, on the table there were different papers and files laying scattered.

“Exodus project.”

This was the one that caught my eye as it was the same name as on my room sign.

I saw my name stated there, but the very next few lines dropped me to my knees. It said I was born in 2010, which I remembered, but the following line stated that I died in 2047, this was already enough to send anyone into a frenzy, but on top of this the following line said that I was scheduled to be “reborn” for “Exodus Project” in 2150.

I sat there shocked and shaken for about an hour, just staring into space. Once I finally regained control of myself I continued reading the description of the project. Apparently this project begun in 2040, in secret, the government collected DNA information and all the blood samples of who they thought was perfect for the project. The company, “Atrius”, together with government was trying to open a rift or a tear into another dimension and also reanimate advanced human beings, to send into that space.

In 2090 a rift was opened. I was shocked to read the word that came next for I did not fully believe in such a thing before, it said that a rift was opened into a hole connecting our world to “hell”. Several pages went on describing the creatures that appeared on our planet, but also the madness that seemed to be taking over all of the humans, turning them against each other.

In 2101, when remaining intact governments found a medicine to suppress the madness, special forces were formed to combat the monsters, but Atrius main center was sabotaged and the dimension machine opened up other tears and rifts, welcoming cosmic beings.

The final entry states that Exodus Project has failed and that the doctor was going to leave codes if anyone stayed alive so they could input these into the main computer and it would tell that person what it has been gathering around the world, if it’s satellite net was still intact.

I wrote down the code on a piece of paper and put it into my pocket.

It said the project failed, so how did I survive?

All of a sudden I heard the noise of something, like a loud cough, but it did not sound human. I closed the door and hid under doctors table. I could hear the sound of nails on the floor come close to the door, loud breathing, it was the same type of monster as from before, but then it distanced itself. Perhaps the creature did not understand the concept of doors? How did they enter here then? Perhaps it just didn’t catch my scent, thankfully. I remembered how narrow the opening in the broken door of my room was, perhaps that why one of these monsters didn’t come in and suck my brain out.

As I sat back up at the table I realized the saddest truth of all. My family had to be gone and dead for a long time.

I made my way up to the above ground floors and there was a large sign that was a bit damaged.

“Main Computer Makks.”

It was my last name, it had to be a coincidence, I entered a large room and at the end of it was a glass wall, behind it, in a metal chair and plugged to many cables sat what looked like a humanoid robot. Near the wall was a panel with touchscreen numbers. I entered the code.

The robot opened his eyes and raised his hand.

“Hello father.” said a robotic voice.

I came closer to the glass and stared at him in confusion.

“What do you mean, father?” I asked slowly.

“I am your son, or better put, your son’s mind. I was kept a secret as I worked on this robot, to avoid being found, before the cosmic beings kill all humans I was able to connect my brain and transfer it into this machine. I went into power save mode for many years, but before I did I made sure that part of my supply kept your room going and one other room with several humans, as I now received the data from the building I know that you are the only one who survived, this makes you the only living human on this planet, father. You will be the last human. There is no woman to continue our kind, sadly. There is no technology left, at least not to my knowledge, that could clone one from dna.”

“How can you be sure?” I sat on the floor feeling completely lost.

“I have many powerful satellites that just came back to full charge and the initial scan of the planet shows no human life other than yours, but even the most sophisticated machines have been wrong in our history. If you wish, you could arm yourself with weapons, I will guide you to the room. There are several dark spots around the world that I cannot fully scan, you could attempt to reach those.”

I sat there, somehow finding it funny and tragic all at the same time that this robot had my son’s brain, yet it was so far from human, he just spat out information, not considering the state of emotion, spiritual well being, or my mind.

“You wish not to speak for now?” asked the robot.

I nodded and he was silent.

One emotion that was most imprinted inside us all was hope. Somehow even in this dire and incredibly terrifying circumstances I felt some hope. Such an emotion could not be instilled in a human by a machine, or by evolution, such a thing could only come from God. Such where my thoughts at the time.

And now, a year later since that moment, I still have not come out of that building. That day swarms of monsters followed me in from the outside and I was able to seal myself on the third floor. I connected with my son’s computer through a smaller system he booted up and have wrote and installed my story inside of him. My food was ending, I perhaps had only a few more weeks to live. Why was I putting this information into him?

Once again it was that one thing, hope. Hope that he was wrong, hope that humans managed to escape and survive and that one day they’ll come back and know my story.

Even now, weeks later, in my dying hours, I still have hope.