It's a quiet space. It's a big warehouse. Or... It's a big field. Filled with cylindrical tanks. It's opaque so it doesn't show what's inside.
Evan came to this place solemnly and stood alone for a long time in silence, lost in thought.
He raised his hand and touched the tank, fingers rubbing against the cold surface.
"We want to be afraid of death and extinction and want to run away. However, before we existed, wouldn't we be afraid to exist? Crying out of the mother's womb because of the uneasiness of the new environment..."
"Is not non-existence before existence? So why does this unknown frighten us now?"
We've never even existed before...
"We were so scared that we froze our bodies in these tanks. Instead of our blood, a different fluid flowed through our bodies, our bodies became ice cold and we froze our life activities down to our cells."
"Our perception of the world was the interpretation of our brain. But we didn't stop there, we created our own world. Another universe, other lives, another body... we escaped from reality."
"The truth was cold and bitter. It was desolate and lonely. A lifeless life, a pale life..."
He moved to the window and looked out.
An endless void. Blur...
It feels unreal.
There is only desert. The wind blows the earth, the sun scorches the red...
A few branches and litter flew aimlessly. Robots with mechanical parts stood silently in the corner.
No life.
There is no vitality.
There's just a strange and bittersweet peace.
It was so quiet and desolate that it was not sincere not to go crazy. Sometimes it made you feel like you were the only one in the universe.
He lifted his eyes to the sky. A sea of stars. There is no light pollution, so the sky is like glitter.
Big, endless and majestic.
It is so beautiful and flamboyant that it is eye-catching. This greatness made people feel helpless.
There was a silence called the vacuum of space in the whole universe.
He took a step back. His chest seemed to constrict.
He turned and took his eyes from the sea of red-orange earth. He took a deep breath and looked at the tanks. Naked bodies filled with a strange liquid lay silently in the tanks.
Some thousands of years ago, in order to be resurrected in the future, some of them closed themselves in these tanks with primitive methods, and some of them in order to cure their incurable disease in the future.
These primitively preserved bodies were artifacts that survived the crisis thousands of years ago.
This place caused a great stir when it was first discovered. A lot of work has been done to resurrect them. Although all was fruitless...
Now, it was modestly existing like a museum.
The bodies were not recovered. But it did provide data worth researching.
Going a little further, the tanks prepared with this primitive technology would be left behind and we would reach a more extensive room.
Equipped with the latest technology, with high experience and technique, this place was only more developed than the previous place. But the goal here was not to be resurrected in the future.
It was to transfer consciousness to another reality.
The remaining bodies disintegrated like a conscious, derelict puppet. Consciousness was freed from the shackles brought by the body and attained a reality that could perhaps be said to be eternal.
He moved forward and looked at the coffin-like capsules in front of him. Unconscious bodies lying motionless in transparent glasses filled with green liquid...
Maybe they wait for the consciousness that they own one day to come back. Here they are left to die. Standing among thousands of corpses in an instant, these people who had consented to their biological death, would have shaken even those of good psychological quality.
It was a strange feeling.
The truth has never been this sad.
Thousands of years ago, maybe people thought and dreamed about this day. An easy life, advanced technology, lots of entertainment options, new food types and new entertainment categories...
Thousands of years later, science has prevailed.
Various predictions as well.
Technology developed and cold metal covered everything visible to the eye.
Habitats disappeared, various populations became extinct, the air pollution index reached its worst possible level, the irreversible threshold has already been crossed, and what's more, even the climate has been shaken. Some days there was occasional acid rain. The technological level was not yet sufficient to open up to space.
War thousands of years ago shook the world order, nuclear energies upset the balance, and biological weapons brought the end of biodiversity. Technology has regressed hundreds of years, it has dealt a great blow to humanity and the world, and has now given birth to this bald and barren planet today.
Of course, technology wasn't enough to go into space. Only the peoples and colonies that settled in pre-war space helped to improve the current technological level. No matter how helpful...
Gene banks were insufficient. Problematic mutations were seen, health problems increased, cancer skyrocketed...
And it gave rise to the now diseased and fragile biological bodies. Humans have become incapable of even reproducing, without creating a healthy individual necessary for the continuation of their generation. The survival rate of a baby dropped to 11%, children became objects of national protection, laws had to take strict and drastic measures.
Now it's barren and lonely. Sick and exhausted, this planet that had lost all its joy had only a few groups on it desperately struggling to survive.
The human population, which was once 8 billion, had crashed to 10 thousand, and even now, deaths were still more than births, creating a critical situation.
Maybe the story of humanity was this far...
There is only one hope, only one hope. There are not enough places and only some people can take advantage of this opportunity. This is the successful transfer of consciousness to this simulated medium. These are the successful ones.
For your success...
The rest may have only one choice, to escape biological limitations so as not to die; transferring their consciousness into an artificial-robot body. To be a cold, empty, numb piece of metal on this desolate planet, to suffer from the devastating and deadly consequences of the environment. Maybe to lose one's feelings after a while, and humanity at times...
The universe is quite old.
It has existed in the world for a long time. It's just that the song of vitality exploded with a beautiful story and reached the end dry and muffled by the cracking voice of the singer. The tale of humanity turned its last leaves softly...
-To be continued-