Some say that planets are the nurturers of life. They coddle that which touches their surface with warmth from a large molten heart. Planet C54-A was not that. Indeed, planet C54-A was an anomaly that should never have existed. A home without warmth, a camp without fire. Inside C54-A lay... something. Something that nobody on board the Solomon could understand, because only one remained.
As Arthur Standard floated weightlessly towards the seatbelt that kept him secure when he slept, he reminisced about the time they had come across C54-A. It had been a wonderful time, for everyone had given up hope in finding a plane that rivaled Earth in terms of hospitability. Oh, the ruckus at the UN's Space Division headquarters when C54-A was found! The boundless optimism flowed with a constant pulse around the room, almost seeming to come alive and join its makers in the celebrations. Earth was on its final breaths and not even the strongest of manmade ventilators could keep up with the load. So, a final taskforce was conscripted to be humanity's savior, in a 50-50 split between man and woman. The finest minds from across the globe with the best of genes, packed on a ship on a trip to C54-A.
Almost immediately, though, things went wrong. The food supply was contaminated, so half of it was ejected. There were defects throughout the ship, causing things the crew deemed 'necessary' to be unusable. Plenty of little arguments, stirring the pot until the final straw landed on top, breaking the camel's back. The final few rations were all that was left for the 20-year remainder of the journey. The crew of the Solomon, a logical, well-oiled machine, flew apart with the force of an atomic bomb. Humanity devolved into its most private form, with groups being set up, all guns drawn and aimed at the people they once called comrades. Standard knew better than most; he was once part of the first and last group to survive The War, the Salvatore. However, as rations continued to decrease and dissent grew, even the Salvatore broke down into a final colony of rats, lunging out at each other in vicious dogfights, each scrabbling at each other's throats until one came out victorious and the other was long gone.
Standard had been lucky. He had avoided most of the early conflicts, instead opting to wait it out until one sleep-deprived rat was all that was opposing him. When the stars aligned, he took his chance. He smiled a mangled grin at the man who floated through space above him, knowing that he would join them soon. Standard unstrapped the seatbelt that anchored him to what he once called home and stepped inside the vacuum chamber. When the doors began to close, he stood absolutely still, knowing what was to come. It was then that humanity fell, Arthur Standard the last man. His body floated past the non-existent atmosphere and landed on the cold, hard surface of planet C54-A.
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