Alone

"Jerusalem," I started, "That's what they say this planet is named. Holy City, it means in some ancient tongue, long since passed." I placed my hand upon the scanner beside the door and it slid open.

"Who's 'they'?" asked the purple one.

"The records," I answered, briefly wondering why they didn't know that already. Then I remembered a certain philosophical book I read once upon a time. Theory of Thought, it dubbed, awareness of the fact that others have different experiences and prior knowledge that differs from one's own. Most commonly developed in humans around the age of four, or so the records say.

I stepped through the doorway and entered the lounging area, where one could look out into the universe beyond. Not really much to see, I often ignored it, though I couldn't deny that the room had a feel of sereneness, possibly explained by the large windows and low furniture, or so the records of interior design claim. "This facility is the last outpost of known life in the universe," I say, walking out onto the scarlet carpet of the den. In front of me are the tall windows, and I look out into the darkness, gesturing to the view. "Welcome to the end of the universe," I greeted the creatures, "I will be your guide."

There were six in all; white, pink, orange, yellow, blue, and purple. The computer says they most resemble Equines, but there was a percent error of 30%. Equines don't talk, the records say. Well, the records don't explicitly state this, though many of the authors of the ancient texts state that humans are the only forms of life intelligent enough to form verbal language. Of course, other organisms have their own means of communication, but none of them ever built a quantum cooling chamber.

They all turned to look out the windows. I looked with them, though I wasn't sure what about the empty view held their attention so strongly.

The purple one began shaking her head, "No, no, this isn't right," she said, "I know about humans; they live on Earth, and that doesn't look anything like the Earth I saw."

"What planet do you recall humans existing upon?" I asked, spotting an opportunity to learn. According to the records, there was a planet once called Earth-where humanity began, they say-but they left within ten thousand years. Eventually, they returned to their home planet when it was in danger of being swallowed up by their dying sun, some time around 67,000 CE. I haven't gotten exceptionally far into the archives, but I hypothesized Jerusalem was the remnants of that home planet Earth.

The purple one looked at me, "For one thing, Earth was green!"

Green was my favorite color. Out of all of the illustrations preserved in the records, I was partial to the green ones. Looking out onto the void surface of Jerusalem, I saw none of that lovely color. Instead, for miles (seventeen miles, to be precise) in every direction, there were fields of rolling hills topped in ice and snow. A pure, untainted surface of clean whiteness covered the planet's surface. It was not frozen water, it was the gases that once made up the atmosphere, condensed into solid snow. Jerusalem had no atmosphere, because it was all frozen upon the surface.

I nodded, and decided to use the rare opportunity to practice a certain rhetorical device I had read about, called sarcasm: a bitter, harsh irony. I nodded, said, "Welcome to the year One Hundred Trillion," and turned around to head to a nearby monitor. It was an example of sarcasm because the year One Hundred Trillion was a very unwelcoming time to exist.

"Where are all the stars?" The white one asked.

"Gone," I responded simply.

"Gone?" repeated the pink one incredulously, "Whaddya mean, 'gone'?"

"I mean gone," I repeated, accessing the records through the monitor in front of me. I wanted to input the new data of the six talking equines before the computer's hourly contamination sweep. "Sucked into black holes, exploded in supernovas, or dissipated into nebulas, billions and billions of years ago." I finished scanning the creatures and saving their data, inputting a personal hypothesis as to their origin and purpose, though I didn't have much to go off of. "There's no more stars left in all the universe. And I know; I've been searching."

They continued staring out the window. I honestly had no idea as to why they were so intrigued by the lack of stars, it hasn't been anything new for billions of years. Perhaps they came from a different time period, where stars still existed. I recorded that thought and closed the monitor, turning back to the creatures.

"How did we get here?" the orange one asked, finally turning away from the empty void of space. She was wearing a hat I had seen before in the records. A Stetson, it was called.

I reflected upon how to answer that. I knew exactly how they had been brought here, though I didn't know where from. I hypothesized they would need prior knowledge of my job before they could fully understand my purposes. I gestured for them to follow me, "Come," I instructed, and walked out of then den through a nearby door.

They followed me down a long corridor, and I entered a large, dark, empty room, save a small podium in the center. It was another monitor, and as I entered the room and walked towards the monitor, the room, sensing my presence, switched on the lights overhead. The six equines entered cautiously after me, and I turned my attention to the monitor.

"This room is called the Bible," I explained, "It means, 'the book', in the ancient languages. It is the interface used to access all the records this facility has stored electrically." As an example, I pulled up an archived illustration at random, and the image was projected from the wall in front of us. The equines seemed startled when the Mona Lisa covered the far wall. They must not be familiar with such advanced technology, so I took the painting down and searched for some archived music. I was partial to one in particular, and Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground began playing softly in the background. I sometimes listened to it during breaks from my work.

I turned to the equines and continued, "I run this facility you find yourself in currently," I explained, "It is my job to study the records of human life, and record my findings to this Bible. I read books, scrolls, articles, I inspect paintings, I study economics, I study science, I practice math, I study everything. I call myself a Worldologist, but that isn't my official title." The equines seemed confused, most likely because they had suddenly found themselves at the end of the universe from wherever they had been before, but it was the best way I knew how to explain my job. I continued nonetheless, "As part of my job, I study the universe, and I used very sophisticated, advanced machinery to do so. I had been toying around with a reality bender, sculpting the fabric of spacetime, when suddenly I found a wormhole. I pumped in some negative energy to widen it and see where it lead, and you six fell out, dazed and confused." That was the best way I knew to explain how they had been brought here, I hoped they understood enough about quantum engineering to accept my explanation. I had honestly not been expecting anything to fall out of the wormhole I found, I was just being curious. The purple one-apparently the leader of the group-seemed to recognize my species before I hers. After scanning them for bacterium or viruses, I had them cleansed with a quantum healing machine of all nonvital bacterium and began explaining where 'here' was.

"Okay...I think I get it..." The purple one said cautiously, "So...by some, crazy, science-y way that I don't understand, you brought us here...by accident?"

Her voice had a hint of hope at the end of her sentence, and I concluded that she feared I had malicious intentions. To quell her fears, I nodded and said, "Anything could have fallen out of that wormhole," which wasn't necessarily true; a blue whale couldn't have fallen out, as the wormhole would not have been large enough to support such a large quantum dislocation.

Nevertheless, they seemed to relax a bit after that.

"So where did you find yourself before you were here?" I asked.

The purple one opened her mouth, but it was the pink one who answered, "We were having a picnic!" she seemed exceptionally thrilled to have been partaking in a communal consumption of food, most commonly held outdoors, popularized very early in human history; circa 1999 CE.

I nodded, "Yes, but I meant what planet and or time period," I clarified.

"Equestria," the purple one answered, "one thousand and one, SEC."

I turned and recorded that on the monitor, "SEC?" I repeated questioningly.

"Solar Empirical Calendar," she clarified.

I inputted the data and searched for a match, but the computer found nothing. I sighed; it would be extraneously difficult to calculate the point in spacetime the equines had dropped out of, and would set back my work considerably. I wouldn't want the equines to interfere with my work, so I decided upon a course of action. I ordered several identification bracelets from the monitor, and within seconds they were jettisoned from the wall on a loop. I turned to the equines and instructed, "Each of you take one of these bracelets. They will provide you with clearance level five throughout the facility, allowing you to travel to the recreational areas. Consult the monitors scattered in various places for directions, and I will work to find a wormhole that will return you all to your proper time and place."

It seemed an acceptable deal, and the six of them each took a bracelet, wrapping it around their necks. They left the Bible to explore the facility; the blue and orange one walking one way, the pink, yellow, and white ones walking back to the den. I turned back to the monitor to pull up a whiteboard application to perform my calculations on, and suddenly noticed the purple one had stayed behind.

"I'm Twilight, by the way," She introduced, "Twilight Sparkle."

I looked at her, nodded, and turned back to the monitor, launching the whiteboard app.

"What's your name?" Twilight asked.

"Unit 731," I replied. Such was my designation, but Twilight began laughing as if she found it humorous. I looked at her questioningly.

"No," she replied with a smile, "I mean your name, a real name!"

I looked at her. The humans of the ancient times had names; it was an inefficient method, and very commonly were identified by social security number rather than name. As this was a scientific facility, I was designated an identification number: Unit 731. I did not need any other name, 'Unit 731' was already unique.

Twilight's smile faded when I did not answer her, "You mean you don't have one?" she concluded. I did not follow her logic; my designation was Unit 731, I did not need another name.

She smiled again, "Well, I'm going to call you Hugh! Hugh Mann." She laughed at her own statement for some time. I believe the ancient humans called what she just said a 'pun', a rhetorical device wherein the use of one word suggests another meaning, or the meaning of a similar sounding word.

Nevertheless, I did not object. I nodded and opened a new document in the whiteboard application. A large screen of white was projected into the air behind the monitor; a hologram for me to work upon. I walked around the monitor and pulled up a list of equations, beginning the tedious quantum mathematics.

Twilight watched in rapt attention as I worked, apparently impressed by my scientific prowess. I felt something new, something I remember the records labeling a similar feeling as 'pride'.

She watched me write various symbols and numbers for a time, but finally spoke up and said, "Hugh?"

It took me a moment more than it should have to realize she meant me, and I turned to acknowledge her.

"Where's everybody else?" she asked.

I stopped writing. Of course, having last seen humanity one hundred trillion years ago, she would have memories of thousands upon thousands of humans congregated in small geographic areas at a time, across the surface of the globe. The end of the universe was dissimilar in this way. I turned back to the calculations and cleared my throat. I did not remember the last time I had done that. "There are none," I responded.

"What?" she asked, clearly not understanding what I was implying.

This was my least favorite feature of my job. I turned around, put my hands on the monitor, hung my head, and sighed. "There are no more humans," I clarified, "I'm the last."