“Time for breakfast,” she announced to no one in particular. Speaking aloud had become a habit, a way to keep herself tethered to sanity. Her voice echoed slightly in the empty observation deck, bouncing off the windows and returning to her like a faithful companion.

She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a can of peaches. Food wasn’t a problem yet – the city had enough non-perishables to last several lifetimes. She’d organized systematic raids of every grocery store and warehouse in her vicinity, carefully rotating stock to avoid spoilage. Sometimes she wondered if she was being too methodical about it. Who was she saving the food for?

As she ate, Sarah watched a family of deer pick their way through the street below, now visible as the morning fog began to lift. They moved confidently through the urban landscape, no longer startled by the remnants of human civilization. She’d named the mother deer Augusta, after her own mother. The fawns she called Thing One and Thing Two, a small homage to Dr. Seuss that made her smile.

“Good morning, Augusta,” she called through the glass. “Kids looking healthy today.”

The deer, of course, couldn’t hear her. But they were part of her daily routine now, like the broadcast and the tally marks. Routine was important. Routine kept the darkness at bay.

Sarah had been alone since The Silence began. She still wasn’t sure what had happened – there had been no war, no pandemic, no dramatic catastrophe. People had simply… vanished. She’d gone to bed one night after a normal day at her software engineering job, and when she’d woken up, everyone was gone. No bodies, no signs of struggle, just empty clothes lying in empty beds and cars stopped in the middle of streets.

The first week had been chaos. She’d run through the streets screaming for help, broken into homes looking for survivors, tried every phone number she knew. The internet had still worked for a few days, but no one was posting, no one was responding to messages. Then the power had started failing in sections of the city as automated systems reached their limits. Now only her solar panels and generators kept her small corner of the world humming with electricity.

She’d tried to leave Seattle once, about six months in. She’d loaded up a truck with supplies and started driving south, broadcasting as she went. But after reaching Portland and finding it just as empty, just as silent, she’d turned back. Seattle was home. If she was going to be alone, she wanted to be alone somewhere familiar.

The peaches were gone. Sarah carefully washed the can and added it to her recycling pile. She wasn’t sure why she still recycled – habit, maybe, or some deep-seated need to maintain order in her tiny sphere of influence. Or perhaps it was optimism – someone might return someday, and she wanted them to find a world that hadn’t completely fallen into chaos.

“Daily tasks,” she said aloud, consulting her notebook. “Check the generators. Water the garden. Repair the broken window in the north section. Library run for more engineering manuals.”

She’d been teaching herself everything she could think of – engineering, medicine, agriculture, radio operations, solar power systems. Knowledge was survival now. If something broke, she had to fix it. If she got sick, she had to treat herself. The library had become her university, and she was its only student.

Later, as she tended to her rooftop garden, Sarah found herself humming an old song her mother used to sing. The vegetables were coming in nicely – she’d finally figured out the right balance of nutrients and water after several failed attempts. The first year, she’d relied entirely on scavenged food, but now she was growing more and more of her own. Sometimes she grew far more than she could eat, unable to break the habit of planting for a family that no longer existed.

“Look at these tomatoes, Mom,” she said to the sky. “Finally got them right.”

Talking to her absent mother had become another habit. Sometimes she imagined whole conversations, complete with her mother’s practical advice and gentle teasing. Was this madness? She didn’t think so. Madness would be forgetting, pretending she hadn’t once been part of a world full of people. Remembering hurt, but it kept her human.

As the sun began to set, Sarah made her way back to the observation deck for her evening broadcast. Same message, same static, same silence. She made her tally mark – morning and evening, two broadcasts a day, every day.

But tonight, something was different. As she turned to leave, a flash of light caught her eye. Far in the distance, beyond the city limits, a pinpoint of brightness flickered in the gathering darkness. She grabbed her binoculars, hands shaking slightly as she focused them.

There, on a hill several miles away: a bonfire.

Sarah’s heart began to race. In three hundred and seven days, she’d never seen a fire she hadn’t set herself. It had to mean something. Someone had built it. Someone was out there.

She reached for her radio, then stopped. What if it wasn’t a person? What if it was something else? The world had become strange in its emptiness – she’d seen things sometimes, in the corners of her vision, that didn’t quite make sense. Or maybe she was finally cracking, seeing things she wanted to see.

But as she watched, the fire flickered in a deliberate pattern. Three short bursts, three long, three short.

SOS.

Sarah’s hands were steady now as she reached for her emergency pack – always prepared, always ready for this moment she’d started to believe would never come. She had a decision to make: stay in her safe routine, her carefully ordered world, or venture out into the darkness toward an uncertain signal.

She thought of her tally marks, her daily broadcasts, her conversations with absent people and silent deer. She thought of all the questions she’d stored up over the months, waiting for someone to ask them to.

“Well, Augusta,” she said to the empty observation deck, “watch my garden for me. I might be gone a few days.”

She shouldered her pack, checked her weapons, and headed for the emergency stairwell. As she began her descent, she felt something she hadn’t experienced in three hundred and seven days: hope.

Whether the signal led to salvation or disappointment, at least it was something new. At least it was a change. And maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the last human after all.

Behind her, the Space Needle stood sentinel in the gathering dark, waiting to see if its lone occupant would return with company, or if it would remain a monument to solitude in a silent world.

The world wasn’t completely quiet, a gentle breeze rustling the tree branches above me being the most prominent sound, but there were no animal noises joining in. Not a single tweet, coo or squawk came from the trees, no squirrels running across the grass, not even a stray dog or cat crossed my path. Did they disappear with all the people?

I returned to my apartment with more questions than when I had left hours before, and no answers at all.

With no other people, I am anxious for something to happen. When I am not actively searching for answers, I am frustrated at the dullness of the day. I know I should feel lonely. Maybe that will come in time.

Journal Entry 4 – Experiments

The last few days have not been productive at all. My few journals so far are repetitious, with no new meaningful observations or information to log. I seemed to have been waiting for something to happen rather than taking the initiative and further exploring my surroundings or examining my situation. Today has been marginally more productive, though my minor revelation seems to have been purely by accident.

My apartment never really changes, or does so only if I make a conscious effort to make it different. If I turn on a light or open a door in the room I am in, it stays on or open. But other items that should change over the course of a normal day don’t always appear to follow the same pattern. My bed, for example, is always made. Not perfectly, but always in the same manner and with the same sheets and duvet hanging identically, the pillows piled just so. I can remember making this bed a multitude of times since moving here, but I can’t say that I can remember having made it today.

When I open the refrigerator, it is stocked full of food, from fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, cheese, to leftovers stacked up in Tupperware. But it always looks the same. And though my concept of time is still skewed, it feels like some fairly significant amount of time has elapsed since I last went shopping, yet nothing has spoiled, and even though I am sure I am eating, my fridge stays nearly overflowing.

With this thought in mind, I devised a few experiments which I have initiated.

I moved a pillow from my bed to the couch in the living room. I pulled the duvet off and left it crumpled on the floor, and folded the sheet down so it only covered half the bed.

In the kitchen, I found a couple apples and took a single bite out of each, placing one back in the refrigerator and the other one on the counter.

So that my experiments weren’t limited to just inside my apartment, I went back outside and walked to a bakery on the next block. I remembered on my original walk to the park entrance that the bakery had been open, with what had appeared to be well stocked shelves from what I had seen through the window.

A sweet and cinnamony aroma assaulted my senses as I stepped through the door, like one would expect in such a bakery, if it was still actively in use. A tray of what were presumably four day plus old cinnamon rolls sat behind the glass counter. Moving around and removing the tray, I pulled a roll loose, and could tell even before I bit into it that it was no more than an hour old, still warm, flakey and delicious.

I purposely left the tray setting on the counter before heading back to my apartment, doing my best to ignore the rest of the bakery as I left.

I am not positive, but have an idea what I will find tomorrow.

Journal Entry 5 – Observations

The apples are where I left them, the one on the counter having started to turn brown where I bit into it.

The pillow and bed are also as I left them, most significantly, the sheet is still covering only half the bed. There is no evidence that I have slept in it, and no indication of any attempt to remake the bed properly.

The bakery further supports my theory. The rack of cinnamon rolls I moved are room temperature and beginning to harden, particularly on the exposed edges. They now taste like what I would expect day old rolls to taste like, but still better than nearly a week old.

A final corroborating observation came out of the bakery, though I couldn’t set it up as I had done the others. I found a whole rack of similar cinnamon rolls in the back. Since I had not seen them the day before, they were still fresh and slightly warm.

Somehow, the objects in my world don’t age, don’t move or change in the slightest, until I recognize and interact with them. And normal everyday actions that I should be doing as part of a day-to-day life don’t seem to happen unless I specifically focus on them, yet I remember them, if only vaguely.

I have to be sleeping, I sort of recall sleeping, and yet my bed shows no signs of anyone having slept in it.

I have to be eating, which I also kind of remember doing, but I can’t recall specifically what I ate last for an actual meal, and food only shows signs of aging or consumption when I consciously do something with it.

I am proud of myself, if only just a tad, for my cool and scientific approach to this bizarre situation, even though it has not led to any substantial insights into what is happening. I still don’t know the fate of everyone in the world except for me.

I have, of course, endlessly run the possibilities and probabilities through my mind.

It couldn’t have been a virus: there are no dead bodies.

If everyone but me simply disappeared, why are all the cars neatly parked off the street? Why aren’t there airplanes littering the ground that fell from the sky? I live only a couple miles from the Columbus Airport, and would surely have seen evidence of such crashes. The few businesses I walked through looked open, but there was no evidence that people had recently been inside them.

There is the incredibly farfetched. I could be in a state of suspended animation, aboard a spaceship speeding through the galaxy on a mission to the nearest star, and all that I am perceiving as real, nothing but sensory deprivation nightmares.

I can’t bring myself to believe that, but the remaining possibilities go down not completely dissimilar routes.

Perhaps life on Earth has remained as it was, and I am the one affected. Either I have been moved to someplace that duplicates my world, or at least my little corner of it, or what I am perceiving as my normal world is in fact not real at all, but is a dream. Could I be in a coma?

I suppose there is one other possibility, but I am not religious enough to believe that this is Hell.

Journal Entry 7 – Utilities

The live internet is gone, or I am unable to access it, or not fully. All indications from my computer show I am connected, I don’t receive any error messages, but the information I bring up doesn’t change. It is almost as if a copy of all the information on the internet were stored, captured and frozen at some point in time, excluding any new data or live streamed information.

This observation leads me to another significant conundrum.

The power is on, but who is keeping it on? By my journals, I am at least a week into whatever events have transpired, though I still believe it to be longer, and my lights haven’t so much as flickered once. Less impressive, but still noteworthy, I still have clean, running water. How are utilities still operating without people to maintain them? And possibly just as important, how long will they stay working?

I considered venturing out to explore further, possibly even trying to find a power plant or water treatment facility, but the fear of not making it back to my apartment has kept me from risking anything beyond walking distance. My car was still fully charged down in the garage last time I checked, but what if the recharging stations aren’t working?

When you are all alone with what appears to be an infinite amount of time to dispel, strange thoughts come inevitably into your head.

My concerns have been shifting lately, away from the observations of the material world I inhabit and more inward to introspection. In short, I am beginning to worry about my sanity, and how long it can be sustained.

My emotions are a jumbled mess, and I find myself bothered as much for what I am not feeling strongly as for the clear emotions that I express.

Am I actually lonely, or only feeling lonely because that’s the way I’m supposed to feel when there is no one else around? Do I even really understand what feeling lonely is like, or actually means?

The circumstances that are creating my loneliness are about as obvious as they could be. But why do I feel it? I could chalk it up to existential pondering I suppose, to be closely followed by madness, but that does not seem accurate.

My final observation for today seems to partially bridge the gap between my concern for the change in the material world and my emotional response to those changes.

When I started this journal, I jokingly commented that it was not to be the old fashioned pen and paper type, but would reflect my generation and be strictly digital, my entries faithfully typed into my computer at some frequency commensurate to my current understanding of time progressing.

Even though I remember, or believe that I remember, typing these thoughts and observations into my laptop, I have just realized that I am making this journal entry without typing at all. I am not even in my office. My thoughts are being transferred and recorded, as I think them. How I know this to be true, I can’t explain.

I feel this latest observation may hold the key to everything, but its significance has so far eluded me.

I wish there was someone here to ask what is happening, someone to discuss and decipher pros and cons of beliefs with, but I am alone, even if I don’t feel lonely as I should.

There is such a thing as too much peace and quiet.

***********************************************

“Earlier on the tour,” said the Android Museum guide, “after I explained how HumanKind Inc. essentially followed the lead of the famous science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, and created governing programming laws for our androids to protect mankind above all else, someone asked about preventing accidental harm. After all, our androids are much stronger than humans. How do we assure that one of our androids can’t just accidently get carried away and crush a person’s hand by shaking it too hard, assist an elderly lady a bit too vigorously when helping her get dressed, or even get carried away and be a bit too, shall we say amorous, when providing one of their more intimate functions?”

That got a few chuckles, and even a slight blush or two from the tour group.

“I asked you then to hold that thought to later in the tour, and now is the time to circle back to it. And so, esteemed guests and those of you who simply had nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon, may I present the Sharon system.”

The tour group’s reaction was anticlimactic, as expected.

“Now I know she doesn’t look like much,” continued the guide, indicating the rather obsolete looking computer system displayed along the museum wall, its lights flashing, a steady low hum emanating from its cabinets. “But let me assure you, Sharon played an invaluable role in history, with her results and memories still used today.”

“So what is she? And why is she a she?” inquired a young lady near the front.

“Excellent questions. I do love an inquisitive group. If I can answer the last part first, and likely make a few of you blush again … it’s OK, you know who you are, I won’t point you out … Sharon’s first iteration came out of the sexbot craze of the late 2020’s. And since the primary demand at that time was for female sexbots, the original version was given a female name. So Sharon, in layman’s terms, is an AI. And yes, the original need for Sharon was to address the concerns, or safety, of a person having sex with an android that could severely hurt them.”

“But why is Sharon important to the larger android business, and what did she do that was so beneficial, you might wonder. Well, what she did was simply live a virtual life, millions of times over, and ‘remember’, in a digital sense, all the good, bad, inappropriate, sometimes horrific or even just emotional events of those lives. HumanKind programmed random input events for those lives, and measured and adjusted her responses in those different lives.”

“So all the androids you build only have a woman’s point of view of the world,” joked a man from the back of the group. The guide chuckled along with the group, if a bit exasperatedly, knowing the underlying prejudice likely hidden behind the comment. There was always at least one in every tour, it seemed.

“No, within her many simulated lives, Sharon has been a man, woman, transgender, non-binary, gay, etcetera. HumanKind has endeavored to be as inclusive as possible, we just didn’t feel the need to change the name constantly. What the company did do, was to take all the results of all those life experiences, and develop the Sharon platform, which is an integral part of each and every one of the thousands of androids made to date by the company.”

“Is that really the actual computer they used?” asked the inquisitive young lady from before.

“Yes, I can assure you, this is the actual Sharon system. And I can tell you something else. I have it on good authority that it is still intact and functional today. The data is no longer extracted, but Sharon herself is still in there. Retired if you will. And with no one feeding her random life inputs any longer, we like to think she is just enjoying the well deserved peace and quiet for a change.”