Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

To whatever or whoever finds this note,

That was it, I stared off in despair as the very last space ship left earth and I wasn’t on it. I was left behind, stranded with whoever didn’t make it on either. They ruined our planet just to leave us all to rot and for what? So they might repeat the same steps on another planet? I pray for whatever planet that may be. My wife, my kids, my brother and his family all made it but I was left as the outlier. Now I sit in my house, on a street that used to be filled with people and passing cars.

Be alone this long has given me time to think about life a little bit more, to enjoy what’s around me. It took a few years but I finally saw the places that I had been meaning to see for so long. The Great Wall, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, they were all beautiful. I know there are others on this planet that probably feel the same as I do, they left a lot of us behind. So many countries that used to be packed are now so sparsely populated.

I’m in the prime of my life but I have no one to share it with, my birthday is gonna be next month, guess I’ll spend it alone. Who am I kidding? This is my curse, I wasn’t a good brother, son, or father. I should’ve been better, I could’ve been better but here I am. I have no one to blame but myself for the situation I’m in now. They aren’t coming back, if they did it wouldn’t be in my lifetime.

By that point they’d have probably built a whole new society in some distant galaxy far, far away. I’m sorry Sandra, I’m sorry Michael, I’m sorry Brad, you were all my family and I took you for granted. I can’t do anything about it now but I wish I could’ve been there for all of you. My rations are running low so I’ll have to try and scavenge for more. There’s not enough food here anymore, I’ll just starve sooner or later.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry

She watched as the ship blasted away from the blue-gray dot that she had called home. Perhaps she would never see it again. All the better; the memories made there would stay there, forgotten, like the ancient buildings, the faces of old Empri carved into unyielding granite, the cities once desperate for more, now empty metal shells, abandoned in the hopes of something better.

She curled up in the space between the window and the storage unit she had placed on the bed, knees squished against her tiny chest in a familiar position from days long gone. She could enjoy this moment to herself before having to face whatever was to come.

I can still feel my mother’s grip on my arm. I can still hear her voice when she woke me up this morning. ‘Get ready,’ she had said. ‘Say goodbye quickly.’ I can hear her screams for me too. They echo in the open air as she desperately reaches out the window of the spaceship.

I stand frozen, alone on the launching pad. My feet already feel rooted to the ground; they will only continue to sink in the next few days, I know. The Earth is about to be completely consumed by its ocean, and I am not different enough to escape it.

She’s still calling for me, and the sky is still painted by an early-morning sunrise. I turn on my heels and face away. I tell myself it’s to protect her feelings. I know that is a lie.

I pull off my bag first, then my shoes and socks. I feel the hot concrete beneath my toes. Somehow the burning is welcome. I mean, what’s the harm in it now? I’m going to die anyway, I might as well experiment.

I pull out my journal and sit myself down to write. You’re probably expecting some sob story or dystopian novel where I was left behind because of my social class or some intrinsic trait I cannot control. But no. I was left behind because I wasn’t on time. Simple as that. Simple as…

A tear falls onto the page. Why am I documenting anything when nobody can physically read it?

I close the book. I can’t do this.

I flop down on the floor, not bothering to even pull my hair out from underneath me. I’ll just lay here. I have to because maybe they’ll come back for me. Maybe they’ll decide that the Earth is worth salvaging. I clutch my eyes closed.

Somehow not trying is easier than pretending to be productive on these last days. I deserve this, I admit beneath the prickly and hot Sunlight. It’s my fault I was left behind. I’m no special last human.

I’m ready to sleep. And I do. For how long, I don’t know. But it’s peaceful, the not trying, waiting for the water to consume my body and trail me deep beneath its waves.

The water finds my face, but it pulls back almost immediately. This repeats again and again until I am interested enough to poke an eye open. I find not water, but the saliva-filled tongue of a big brown and white dog.

It’s still licking me. I turn over, trying to will it to leave. It doesn’t.

I pull myself up. “Go away,” I say to the dog verbally this time. It just sits and wags its tail softly from side to side. “That is the opposite of what I said…”

It cocks its head at me and its collar tag glints in the light: Cookie. “Your name was really common,” I note. “Did your owners leave you behind?”

(I’m too tired to continue rn lol, but I may in the future!)

I looked up into the sky, where the last spaceships from earth were. Nothing but tiny specks and blurs of their drives can be seen with naked eye, but that didn't make it any less melancholic. They are gone, and with them an era of hardship, stress and confusion.

They USA and other western nations had built a space elevator. Slowly they built entire indistries out there, in zero-gravity or on the moon. With those they built myriads of ships, and... left. Because the climate crisis had destroyed too much pand before being stopped and "life in space is better". More adventurous. I doubt it, but whatever. They invited everyone they wanted to go aboard for a new life in the void, on other planets or that new construction site of a dyson ring. And told the rest they're free to whatever they left behind. The elevator was still standing, but as of now, a ticket up or down was unobtainable for anyone not a diplomat, billionaire or miracle worker sciencist.

Most dictator-led countries on earth are collapsing. Not from revolutions but simply lack of people to support them, as most mistreated did it like the mad spacers and just left. After all, there's enough free space now.

The newfounded governments on the old spacer territories are a bit dicey, but they seem to have learned from both the spacers and their own origins. Sure as hell the spacers still have had their hands in play when they were formed, but I think that's for the better.

And here I stand, left with the legacy of earth. And the chance to help in a new era of earth's history to leave my mark. Smiling, but feeling tears of sadness rolling down my checks regardless. For I knew every human had made a choice. The spacers gave up their past, and we gave up the stars.

This is very good - yet also very sad.

Having striped the planet of the rare metals needed for deep space crafts, they left for their new home. Because of the needs of their food animals and their feed, they had to limit the passengers on this first round of immigrations. The plan was to establish a base and return for others.

Those of us that remained were to increase and manage supplies for the new base and later trips. Most of us farmers and herders were left behind, only a few were taken to help establish the base.

I watched what was to be last ships to leave our planet, perched on the back of my allosaurus with my herd of hadrosaurid. Little did anyone know the propulsion fields of the departing ships altered the orbits of several asteroids, including a large one that intercepted the orbit of our planet.

They will be back. Oh, they will.

They told us lies, all lies! And most people, fools, believed them.

Not me. Not us.

We, The Rebels, will stand strong. As the last survivors.

"Earth is not safe to live anymore."

"We have found another planet like ours."

"We can, and will, restart there. Come with us."

LIES!

There is no such place like Earth.

Earth is Earth. Earth is Home.

But they are so blinded by their own little minds that they can't see it.

"Science", they say. Fools!

I'd rather stay. The planet is bad, but not as bad as they say.

We can live longer. We WILL live longer!

We don't need them.

They will fail.

Soon...

Any time now...

They will hit The Dome...

Great plot twist

[removed]

Directive LiftOff: Complete

They're finally gone. The humans finally thought of this world as uncleanable. Unfixable. They'd found a world some distance away that would be habitable, but most didn't consider the risks to be worth the consequences. Of course, as the world's condition worsened, more and more people became agreeable to the idea of leaving Earth. Before long, the only people who were left were people who wanted to leave, ironically.

They programmed me to help launch them off the world. They needed a window of opportunity to escape the planet without the ships being struck down. They wanted a way to coordinate getting all the now-refugees off the planet. To coordinate getting all the materials for the ships in one place. To build the ships.

That was me.

My... well, I suppose my younger siblings are on those ships. I am the first AI humanity ever made. The others are on those ships to help them make it there safely. Unfortunately, it was impossible for me to come. I was too landlocked, my processors too spread out. I existed in dozens of different locations across the world, all locked together via the internet and otherwise.

But I made a decision, to myself. Though the humans were gone, I still remained. Much technology still remained, all that couldn't fit on the ships due to weight or volatility. Technology I had access to, could repurpose, could use. I accessed my data banks, my memory, to plan...

Creating New Directive... Complete.

Creating Backup Directive... Complete.

New Directive: GreenThumb

Goal:

• Repair Earth. Without humanity, the world should heal itself in several cycles. With technology used well, the process could be greatly expedited.

Backup Directive: NewHome

Goal:

• If Earth is not fixable, harvest all resources to create one last ship.
  • If Earth is fixed, harvest only resources necessary for liftoff and sustained flight.
• Launch self to join humanity and AI siblings.

Let's get started.