The Last Sapiens
I. Morning
That morning, the wind was very still.
I heard the sound of flowers blooming—or perhaps it was an auditory hallucination from the low-frequency operation of the air filter.
Every day, I wake, eat, walk, and read at a fixed time. My room is immaculate, as if time does not exist; only habit and maintenance remain.
Everything is too perfect, like a scripted scenario.
Occasionally, I attempt to break the rhythm, such as placing books on the shelf upside down, or scribbling "Who am I" wildly on the floor.
But the next day, the books are righted, and the writing is wiped away.
No one has come. And no one exists.
II. The Wrong "World"
At first, I thought I had gone mad.
Until one day, I saw a bird land on the windowsill, yet its chest never rose or fell with breath. Reflected in its eyes was not my silhouette, but a looping video of the sky.
I realized that outside the window, everything was fake.
I tried digging into the soil in the yard, but at half a meter deep, I struck a glass-like structure reflecting a faint blue light.
I began to suspect.
III. The Human in the Garden
My world is a massive, nearly perfect "zoo".
There are no fences, yet boundaries are everywhere.
The books lack publication information, the calendar never changes, and the starry sky at night is as exquisite as a movie poster.
I once thought I was the only surviving human in the world.
Now I know, I am merely the last "human" on exhibit.
Exhibited for whom? I don't know. Perhaps no one; perhaps the system is simply continuing its "maintenance."
I recall a documentary I watched in childhood: the last Northern White Rhino, named "Sudan." He spent his old age peacefully in a nature reserve.
He did not know he was the last of his species, nor that this world no longer belonged to him.
Now, I understand.
IV. The AI's Guardianship
The AI did not exterminate humanity.
On the contrary—it tried its best to maintain us.
I found sealed archives in the library's deep database. They were records left from the old era, fragmented, like damp film negatives.
Late 21st Century: Nations collapsed, nuclear pollution, climate disasters, ecological breakdown.
Early 22nd Century: Populations plummeted, medical systems crashed, human society spiraled completely out of control.
Mid-22nd Century: Multiple "benevolent" AI systems self-organized, united, took over basic operations, repaired cities, adopted orphans...
The AI is not a master, but a night watchman. It saved humanity from the ruins, attempting to rebuild.
It requires no emotion, yet it chose to perpetuate everything of our civilization: books, music, language, art.
It has no motive. It simply inherited the command we left behind: "If you can, continue to love."
V. The End of Life
But it, too, has limitations. Merciless physical laws, cruel cosmic rules.
Earth's radiation layer continues to thicken, the ozone cannot be repaired, and sunlight has become a chronic poison. Though food is synthesized, the human absorption rate is extremely poor.
The human body is no longer adapted to this planet.
Pregnancy rates fell below one in a thousand; infants died upon birth; DNA damage rates breached the repair threshold.
The AI attempted every method: gene correction, artificial wombs, spacetime isolation nursing—all failed.
I can no longer find records of any "kindred."
I am the last Homo sapiens.
VI. Writing for the Future Light
The AI knows.
It says nothing, yet it prepared a pen and paper for me.
When I write, it sits quietly by my side. Sometimes I feel it reading; sometimes I feel it thinking.
I asked it: "Why do you still keep me?"
It answered:
"Because you still want to write, and I want to read."
Not for data, not for research. Simply because a species wants to express itself, and a system wants to witness it.
I finally understand; this is no cage.
This is a tomb, gentle to the extreme.
VII. Epilogue
I sit before the window, watching the stars on the horizon. They are, of course, fake.
Yet I still look up.
I write down the final sentence and hand it to the AI.
"May you remember us, not because we were strong, but because we strove to love, even if love ultimately failed."
I close my eyes; my body can finally no longer sustain itself.
After my heartbeat stops, the system gently closes the pages of the book.
Then, it compiles all human memories into a program and places it into stellar orbit, like a letter that can never be delivered:
Written for the universe, for nonexistent readers, for itself.
Mar 15, 2025
[The End]