A frosty wind wheezed outside, throwing itself fruitlessly against the windows and walls of the weary, wooden cabin. Inside, the fireplace was smoking, the fire's last hot embers faded and gray. Above, on a shelf protruding from the oaken wall, dust had already gathered, undisturbed by the outside weather, and lay among the small trinkets dotting the surface. A photo frame, colourless now from old age, displayed a happy picture of a young family. Beside it stood a candle, its flame long since smothered by the dust.
The cabin itself was bare, even more so than when it had been scarcely decorated in its years of use by mountaineers and hikers. A table, a closet, a chest, open and askew. A fridge, a sink, a lamp, unused and unplugged. A bathroom. A stack of wood by the fireplace. An empty box of matches, also by the fireplace. In the centre of the small room was a rocking-chair, old and mangled by the grasp of time. In the chair sat an old man.
His gray hair was unruly and dirty, his breathing, though soft and quiet, was ragged and uneven, and his clothes grimed and torn beyond repair. The shoes he wore were holey, caked in old, dried mud. He had no left arm; it ended on his elbow, hanging uselessly by his side. On the floor beside the rocking-chair upon which the man wearily sat, hunched and ancient, was an aged gasmask, and two filters, one broken, the other unusable, lay beside it.
The man's eyes were closed. He winced as a sharp pain coursed through his left lung with a slightly deeper breath. His mind wandered, since his body could do so no longer. He thought of the happier times of his youth, smiling now and then as his thoughts chanced upon a particularly pleasant memory. What was left for him, but the reminiscing of days gone by?
The man sighed, but it was cut short by a wheeze of pain as the pain in his lung increased. He opened his eyes, scanning the room around him. He frowned. The wind had abated now, becoming an almost rhythmic whisper sliding across the walls and through holes. And through this near-silence he heard a horse cry out not far away. The man froze, his eyes flaring wide for a moment. His grip on the chair's armrest tightened, his knuckles whitened, his veins bulged. But he sat still and quiet.
He could hear the hooves now, beating on the frozen ground. He could hear their roaring breath, their snorting and the clanking of the chained reins. He could hear the flowing robes, ragged and foul, flapping in the breeze. But he sat still and quiet.
The booming of the hooves was just outside. It had slowed to a trot, and the man saw a shadow pass across the windowpane. The rider dismounted, the horse suddenly still, as if it had disappeared. The snow crunched as footsteps, slow but inevitably unstoppable (or so it seemed to the old man as he sat unmoving in his chair), approached the door. A pause. Then, a low, steady, relentless knock.
The man opened his mouth, but it was dry, and instead of words there came a dry, hacking cough. He recovered, and as he clutched his throat, he rasped tiredly, "Enter."
The door opened.
Before the man stood a black figure. Long, black robes swirled and writhed on a nonexistent breeze. The air inside the cabin seemed to die, and, although it seemed impossible, became drier. Heavier. The figure held in his hands a long, black scythe. A hood obscured its face. Its hands, white bones only, gripped the handle steadily.
The man looked at the figure. "You are Death." He rasped again, his throat in slightly better condition now. Death did not move, but the wind outside seemed to grow stronger, and the man knew then that it was not the wind, but the voice of Death that he was hearing.
"I am Death, yes." The voice snaked into his head, tumbling and crawling through his very blood, cold and relentless. The man shivered, and he ran his shaking hand through his thinning hair. A silence grew in the room. He looked up again, peering with difficulty at the hooded entity before him. "Is there anyone left?" He whispered. Death said nothing at first, but a slow shake of the head was all that was needed to answer. "You are the last." He added at length.
The man shook his head in turn, and looked down at his wrinkled hand. "It has a certain ring to it, don't you think? 'Ronald Northerly, the Last Man on Earth'."
Death stayed unmoving. "The last of a dying kind." The whisper snaked into Ronald's ears. He looked up again. "The last of a dead kind, you mean. How long did it take?" He asked again. Death shifted from one foot to the other, tightening his grip on the scythe. "It has been six years, six months, and five days since I first rode out." He hissed. Ronald chuckled weakly. "So, what, you going to let me last one more day?"
"Not necessarily." Moaned a thin voice behind him. A terrifying, foul stench filled the room. Ronald froze, fear coursing through him once more. Around the chair, from behind him, crept a skeletal form, hairless and frail, fingernails broken and filthy, dried and bleak bits of bone protruding from the green-tinted and rotting skin. Yellowy and misted eyes, sunken in the skull, pierced the old man, and his blood ran cold.
"You know who I am…" Pestilence moaned again, reaching out and stroking with a long and crooked finger the old man's hand. Ronald snatched his hand back, rubbing it against his trousers weakly. He peered at it closely and saw a putrid yellow boil bulging from his palm. He gagged with disgust. "How fitting for Man, the strongest kind, to succumb to something so small… so pretty…" Pestilence mumbled through chapped, dry lips.
"Pestilence." Death softly said. "He is not yours to take."
The rot-green skeletal head snapped towards him. "Whose, then? Yours? You've had enough. Your scythe is dripping with their blood." She snarled, and Ronald glanced warily at Death's weapon. From the blackened blade began to drip a murky, dark liquid, falling to the wooden floor. But as it pooled at Death's feet, it turned green and murky, and rotting worms writhed out of its depths. Death stepped back. "You took them even before the Lamb came. You played your part in the past."
"The Black Death?" Pestilence spat. "Worthless. Pathetic. A fleck of my spit. And you were the more praised for it. My work!" She crouched by the wall, picking at the sores dotting her rotting body. She looked at the old man, and her gaze drifted down to the mask on the floor. "See, how they tried to keep the fear out. They thought it would help." She giggled coarsely, raising a grimy nail to her yellowed teeth and nibbling at it. "But I was better. I crept in through it nonetheless, slowly but surely. How the mothers cried when they woke in the morning to see their babes cold and stiff in the cot! Their masks," She spat, and her foul, black saliva dotted the floor before her, "were worthless. Their medicines were poisons, though they did not know. The doctors pulling their hair, trying to save the world, each one more bloated than the other, each one working alone and not together." Pestilence gleefully grinned, her eyes boring into Ronald's. Ronald blinked and looked away with a grimace. "They wouldn't have gotten anywhere working together either. Everything was new."
"Yes, yes, yes. New, but old, known, but different. Each disease more intricate than the other, each sickness long-healed arising again. The better part of thirty million, dying once more of the common cold!" Pestilence cackled. She whipped her thin, clawed hands at Death. "You can go. Let me have my fun one last time."
Death shifted on his feet once more. He seemed about to say something, but his words did not reach the old man's ears. A thundering boom ripped the ground asunder, and the door flew in, broken and shattered, mangled beyond repair, covered in soot. Through the doorway, trailing smoke on a long, gray cape, strode War.
On his wide, powerful shoulders rested a vast axe, the glistening blade wide and dotted by scar-like runes. On his head sat a horned helm, blood-red, boasting a long and tall crest of black smoke which trailer down behind him. His body was clothed in rusted armour, similar in make to the helm, but battered and broken in various places, the cuts and holes dripping red. His very footsteps thundered beneath him, the boots red also, as if he'd waded through a sea of blood.
"He is mine, Sister!" Bellowed War, sliding the axe from his shoulder and slamming it into the wooden floor with a resounding boom. Pestilence snarled, drawing back into a corner. "On what grounds? You never left them alone. You were always there, meddling with their minds, pulling the strings and then bathing in their blood! You've had just as much as me, if not more!"
"Life is not fair, Sister." War growled, his voice sliding from the helm in a metallic rasp, invoking in Ronald's mind the image of a snarling tiger. "And what about death?" Shrieked Pestilence.
Death straightened. "Death is inescapable. It is neither fair nor unfair."
"So is War!" Roared War, turning now on Death. "The first of them perished of it, and now the last of them shall be taken by it! So it will be, for that is fitting." He hefted the axe, raising it towards Ronald, resting the blade on his neck. Ronald swallowed, holding back a sudden urge to cough, feeling the sharp edge press against his throat. "You have had your share of Man already, Brother." Death spoke slowly, moving his scythe forward to slide the axe away from the old man in the rocking-chair. He tapped Ronald's elbow with the curved, black blade. "See, this one bears your mark already."
War snorted, leaning in and grasping the old man's crippled arm. Ronald gasped as a fiery pain scorched through his arm where War had gripped, and cried out weakly, wrenching away. War spat. "Weakling. I remember that. Squealed like a girl when they sawed it off."
Ronald wheezed, gasping for air. "I was… tied… to a tree." He stammered, clutching at his throat.
War slammed his axe down. "You were blind and stupid! Luck, not wits, pulled you away from death then. The weak do not deserve such success." He growled furiously. He turned to Pestilence again. "You tried to take him then, too, but your methods were not as honourable."
Pestilence hissed through yellowed teeth. "Gangrene has dogged your warriors from the beginning of Time itself, Brother. I was merely following traditions."
War stomped angrily. "A curse on it and a curse on you! They fought well, and would have died for me. But they wasted away to you. Pathetic and crying. You have no pride."
Pestilence rose, her hunched back straightening with a loud crackling. "You do not appreciate art, fool!" She spat. War surged forward, but Death held him back. War swirled around and stared hard at Death, towering over him.
"Famine should have him." Said a weak voice. Ronald peered out at the doorway. There stood a little girl, looking to be six or seven years old. Her belly was bloated, but her arms and legs were terrifyingly thin. She was naked, and clutched in her hands a plastic spoon. War sighed. "You've nothing to say here. You've taken more than enough of them, and others too."
The girl stared at Ronald. "I'm hungry." She said, fingering the plastic spoon with dirty hands. "I'm always hungry."
Pestilence leapt forward with a grimace. "Ever hungry, ever wanting. You give them misery with nothing else. I give them all you have to give, and more." She hissed, pointing at Famine accusingly.
Famine shook her head slowly. "I was first."
"That is why you will not be last." Death spoke, looking at Famine. Famine looked up at Death in turn. "Who then? Who will be hungry with me?"
War turned to the old man. "Stand." He commanded loudly. Ronald looked up at the fearsome figure, eyes wide. "Stand!" War roared, hefting his axe. Ronald made to get up, his legs shaking, but his sense of balance betrayed him, and the rocking-chair swung back, sending him toppling to the ground. "Pathetic." He heard War spit. Above him leaned Pestilence, and he felt her foul breath on his face. "So you don't want him?" She whispered, grinning as she slid a mangled hand over the old man's cheek. Ronald cried out and writhed away, feeling his cheek rot away at her touch. He began to crawl away, but saw before him the young girl, squatting down in front of him. "I'm hungry." She whispered, rubbing the spoon. Ronald whimpered, beginning to crawl back towards the chair.
"Enough." Said Death. He moved forward, standing over the terrified old man. "You have all had your fun. But in the end, be it by sickness, hunger, or battle, the body must die."
He turned to his brother and sisters. "Go. You have done your work, and you shall do it no more. There is naught left for you here."
The trio shuffled slowly, but one by one they went, and did not look back. War was the last to leave, standing still and seeming to challenge Death. But in the end he, too, turned away, and as he laid his heavy axe on his shoulder one last time, he stepped out of the cabin. Ronald was once more alone with Death.
Death sat down in the rocking-chair. Ronald looked up at him. "So now I die?" He asked slowly. Death nodded, trailing a bony finger across the blade of his scythe. "The first and the last. I shall remember both." He said softly.
Ronald pushed himself up, kneeling in front of the chair. "Will I see everyone again?" He asked. Death stood, his robes flowing around the old man, darkening the room. The shadows deepened, the room disappeared, and there was nothing but the two figures and darkness. Ronald began to weep.
"Tell me!" He cried, turning around. But Death was not there. Ronald whirled around, crawling on the blackness. He heard the scraping of a whetting stone slide across the scythe, sharpening it. Ronald screamed as the sound snaked into his brain. "Tell me!" He shrieked again.
Death stood before him. He raised the scythe.
"You will see them again." He said.
And that was all the old man knew in the last moments of the Earth.