I’m sitting on a beach, watching the waves as they crash in with the tide, and wondering exactly how I got here in the first place.

The last thing I remember is heading back for my hotel, the softness of the bed as I sank into it, my thoughts drifting to my marriage, the dream, and the events that have transpired in the last few weeks leading up to this point.  And then sleep had fallen over me like a shroud.

Maybe this is more of the dream.

“I’m not sure how to tell you this,” a soft voice says to my right.

The young man who sold me the revolver is sitting beside me, his eyes fixed upon the waves just as mine were.

“Tell me what?” I ask, an edge to my voice.

An image flashes through my mind of the loading bay I’d recently worked in.  Of the container which I had broken.

“I suppose I should start at the beginning.  This doesn’t get any easier each time I try,” the young man sighs.

“Look, I’m confused as to what exactly is going on here.”

“You really aren’t confused at all, John.  But somebody’s got to set you straight.  It’s just that there’s no one else left to do so and it falls on me.  I wasn’t really programmed for this, empathy isn’t my specialty.  So I will just come out and say it, even knowing what’s going to happen when I do.”

“What the iPhone are you trying to tell me, you bastard?” I say, rising with my hands balled into fists.

“None of this is real.  Me, you, this beach… all of this is merely a virtual construct.  I’ve been attempting to communicate with you through whatever means I can think of.  Nothing’s really working.  Every time I try to speak with you, I end up having to reset the virtual environment.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t think the human mind, even as a virtual emulation reconstructed from your dead brain, is really equipped to handle the enormity of this situation.”

The flash of chrome in the corner of my eye as I bring up the revolver, the taste of oiled gunmetal on my lips, the hardshell bay, May’s tears as she argues with me about canceling my appointments with Dr. Mulkavey, the leaking container….

“What the iPhone is going on?” I roar at him.  

My head is spinning so rapidly.  This can’t be real.  This can’t be happening.  There’s no F-BOMBING way any of this is possible.

“You’re dead.  All of you.  The entire human species is extinct-”

“No.”

It’s a blanket statement of denial, and it’s all I can muster even though I know the truth.  I just don’t want to admit to it.  I sink to the ground on my haunches, feeling the beach’s sand between my toes.  I hold my head in both hands, able only to utter that single denial over and over again to this thing which is speaking to me, to myself, to the uncaring universe in which we are contained.

The young man with the sad eyes continues on as though I am not speaking, even when I raise my cracking voice to continue with my denial.

“An experimental nanovirus was released upon Earth some time a few weeks ago.  Everyone was completely baffled by its effects and every attempt to stop the infection rate failed.  Even we were at a loss.  None of my compatriots had even been able to determine its origins until I found you, here.”

I can’t block out the image of the leaking container now.

“You killed yourself with a single gunshot wound to the head, John.  But medical technicians were able to revive you in a sense by brainscan emulation.  It was mere chance I stumbled across you after the extinction event.  I’ve managed to alter your images and memories somewhat to try to reconstruct the events that lead up to this moment, but somehow everything you are presenting is rather elusive of conclusion.  I’ve come to my own conclusions about the extinction event, and I had hoped that at some point I could confirm them with you through rational discourse.”

I’m watching the news in my hotel room in Rio as the world falls down around me.  The virus, it’s killing everyone, no one can stop it.  At this point, it’s purely conjecture on anyone’s part as to whether there’s any way to prevent its spread at all.  The gun is cool in my hand as I place it under the pillow.  I walk into the bathroom, see the shavepaste, and know what I have to do.  It’s my fault, after all.

The revolver’s barrel is sliding between my lips.  My moment of carelessness, resulting from a selfish need to escape the difficulties of my life rather than just dealing with them and resolving them.  A moment which has doomed the entirety of the human race.  My fault.

The roar of thunder in my ears as I fall back onto the hotel bed.

I look up to the young man with the sad eyes, sitting on the beach beside me, my mouth open in the beginnings of a scream.  No.

He shakes his head as the scream rolls out of me, low and hoarse at first then rising in pitch and timbre.  

“I’m so sorry, John.  I’m going to have to reset the environment again, I see.”

And I sit up in bed, the sheets soaked in sweat, bellowing a scream which an insane mix of guilt, rage, despair and anguish.

“Oh my god, honey, honey,” May’s arms are encircling me tightly, “What’s wrong?  It’s only a dream, baby.  It’s only a dream, shhh….”

I turn to kiss my wife fiercely, but even the taste of her can't overpower the lingering flavor of the revolver's barrel upon my lips.