Chương 170: Chapter 170
The lights in the small town flickered. It wasn't the first time, but something about it felt different. Marge had learned to ignore it when the electricity cut out. The blackouts had started months ago, but they were so common now they hardly mattered. She sat at the kitchen table, the pale glow of the moon casting its light through the window. She pressed a glass of water to her lips and thought about the strange emptiness that always followed each blackout. How things seemed to shift when the lights came back on.
Marge wiped her mouth, the coldness of the water settling in her throat. Outside, the world was still. The kind of still that made her heart beat faster, as if nature itself was holding its breath. The world outside had grown quieter over the weeks. People had become fewer, their homes dark. Marge didn't know why. Maybe they'd moved away. Maybe they'd gotten out before things got worse.
And then it happened again. The blackout. It was sudden, harsh, the house going from light to dark like a switch being flipped. No gradual dimming. Just black. A hum filled the air before it too cut off, leaving only the echo of silence.
Marge waited. The seconds dragged, stretched.
The power returned. Lights blinked back on, illuminating the kitchen once more. But this time, the change was immediate. It wasn't just the absence of the usual noise. It was something more. Something colder. The house felt emptier. Marge stood, her feet pressing against the floorboards, the wooden surface colder than it had been a moment ago. She moved toward the front door, hesitant, as if her body already knew what she would find.
She didn't want to go outside, but something pushed her forward.
Her fingers brushed against the doorframe, the wood splintering slightly beneath her touch. She opened the door. The world outside had changed. It was more than just the quiet. It was the way the trees stood, stiff and unmoving, as if held in a moment of eternity. There was no wind. No rustling. No whisper of the earth shifting beneath the weight of unseen feet.
And then it hit her. The houses were dark. Every single one. The streets were empty. No lights, no movement. Nothing.
Marge stepped outside, her breath sharp in the cold night air. The streetlights flickered once more, but the silence was deafening. The empty houses around her felt strange, too empty. As though they had always been empty. As though they had never belonged to anyone in the first place. She took a step forward, but her feet faltered when her eyes caught the sign on the neighbor's house. It was simple, like a reflection of the emptiness around her. The name was there, the same as before, but the house looked like a hollow shell. No lights, no signs of life inside. The windows were blank, but they stared at her, hollow and dark.
She was alone.
The realization hit her like a punch to the gut. Alone.
Marge swallowed. Her throat felt tight. She turned back to the street. There were no cars, no signs of life. Just the houses, standing like empty graves. The world around her had ceased to function in the way it used to, like a machine that had been abandoned, gears frozen in place.
Days passed. Marge tried to make sense of it all, but the world was only emptier. She stayed in her home, sitting by the small, weak fire she'd built in the fireplace, her mind spinning with fragments of thought. Sometimes she'd hear something—a sound that wasn't there. A door closing, or footsteps outside—but when she checked, it was always just the wind.
It was colder now. Not just outside, but in her bones. The air itself felt like it was closing in on her, suffocating her. She tried to tell herself it was just her mind. It had to be. The world couldn't just stop like this. People didn't vanish without reason.
But each time the blackout came, more homes stayed dark. More people disappeared.
Marge's thoughts grew darker. She couldn't tell if she was losing her mind or if the world itself was just breaking down. Days blurred into one another, each one colder than the last. She no longer kept track of time. There was no point. The sun barely rose anymore, and when it did, it cast an eerie light over everything. The world outside was barren—no birds, no cars, nothing.
Marge tried to light a fire, but the wood had started to rot. The houses were slowly decaying, sinking into the earth like they had been forgotten.
The final blackout came, and this time, when the power returned, Marge was alone in her house. Completely alone. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked out of the window, the cold reality settling into her chest. No one had returned. Not her neighbors. Not anyone.
There were no voices. No footsteps. No sounds. No lights.
It was as if the world had been emptied, leaving only her.
She stepped outside, her breath shaking. The houses were dark, but now they were more than that. They were like mausoleums, empty shells of lives once lived.
She walked down the street, her shoes tapping against the cracked pavement. Her eyes darted from house to house, searching for something, anything that might show that she wasn't the only one left. She wanted to scream. To shout into the empty air. But nothing would answer. No one would hear. The world had been drained, hollowed out.
The realization crushed her. There was no one left. Not a single soul.
It wasn't just the houses. It wasn't just the streets. It was the world itself. There was nothing. The very air felt wrong, as though it was breathing in a way that didn't belong to it. She could almost feel the weight of it, pressing against her skin, crushing her slowly.
Marge tried to keep moving, walking, hoping that somewhere, somehow, there might be a person left. But she knew better. She knew deep down that she was the last one. The last of the people who had once lived in this world.
Her mind began to break. She wandered aimlessly, no destination in mind. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye—a figure, standing in the distance, but when she turned, there was nothing there. The air around her began to feel heavier, like it was pulling her down.
Her body felt heavy. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed to her knees in the middle of the street. She didn't care. There was no point. There was no one left to care.
And then, like the last breath of the world, the blackout returned.
Marge closed her eyes, letting the darkness consume her, knowing full well that when the lights came back, there would be no one left to find her. No one left to remember her. No one left to care. She was just another whisper in the void, another lost soul in a world that had forgotten how to breathe.
The world outside was cold, silent, empty.
And Marge, the last human, vanished.
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