Dark gray clouds hung in the sky, obscuring the sun and telling of rain to come. They were a dim reflection of Celestia's somber mood, casting shadows on the pavement as she walked slowly over the empty asphalt, painted with white lined parking stalls. At one time, not that long ago, most of those stalls would have been full. But now, almost all of them stood empty, with only a couple of cars dotting the blacktop here and there. They would never be driven again, standing as a monument to an age which would soon come to a tragic end. An icy wind from the north ruffled her fur, sending a cold chill through her as she approached the double glass doors of the large building, walking passed a weathered sign that read Cook County Hospital. Not long ago, the hospital had been staffed by humans. But now, it was staffed only by ponies.
It was only a few months ago that two universes had come together in a giant cosmic collision. Both pony and human astronomers had seen the signs in the stars and knew the event was coming, but neither of them expected they would encounter another sapient species in the other universe. Furthermore, neither of them had thought the galactic collision would be of any consequence. After all, the odds of two physical objects from the different universes colliding with each other had been considered extremely remote. But neither of them had considered the effects that the thaumic radiation of one universe would have on the inhabitants of the other. Once they knew, there had been several emergency projects put together in an attempt to find a way to save the humans from the devastating effects the radiation had on them. None had been successful. And now, the last known living human on Earth was a patient at this hospital, lying in a bed, and dying from radiation sickness.
The two doors slid open for her as she approached. She still hadn't gotten used to that; the small electronic eye that saw her coming and automatically opened the doors for her without her having to use any magic. As she stepped in out of the cold, her nostrils were immediately met with the hospital smells of cleaning fluid and rubbing alcohol, the dull gray of outside being replaced by the harshly artificial luminescence of brightly lit fluorescent bulbs. As she approached the information desk, a light green earth pony bent one foreleg and bowed briefly before rising.
"Your Highness," the mare behind the desk acknowledged. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm here to see Timothy Johnson," she responded somberly.
The mare behind the desk nodded slightly. "He's on the third floor, Your Highness. In the intensive care unit. I'll page the doctor responsible for his care and let him know you're coming."
"Thank you," Celestia responded, managing to force a small smile before proceeding down the hallway towards the elevators, pushing the button with the tip of her horn. The elevator arrived a few seconds later, and she stepped inside, taking it to the third floor. Elevators were another one of the human machines she had not fully gotten used to yet, and she actually had trouble fitting into most of them as they had not been designed with quadruped equines in mind. But this one was large, designed to accommodate at least two hospital beds.
She stepped out as the doors opened, a light blue unicorn stallion approaching her. He bent one foreleg, bowing slightly to her. She shook her head.
"Please, no need for that, doctor … How is he doing?"
The stallion frowned, his ears drooping on his head. "We're keeping him as comfortable we can, Your Highness. That's all we can do for him at this point." He sighed, his frown deepening, his ears drooping even lower before continuing. "But even that's becoming more difficult. As his condition deteriorates further, our pain control spells and the various medicinal pain killers we have are starting to lose effect. We had been giving him nutrition through a nasal feeding tube, but now his entire gastrointestinal system has been destroyed by the radiation. We don't think it will be long now. Maybe a week. Ten days at most."
Celestia nodded once, her own ears drooping back on her head now, her heart aching for the patient, and for humanity in general. "I will visit with him," she said somberly.
"Of course, Your Highness … but I fear I must prepare you. He's in pretty bad shape," the unicorn doctor responded, frowning again. She only nodded once in response, and followed as the unicorn turned and led her down the fluorescent lit corridor, passed the nurse's station, before stopping in front of an open door.
"Mr. Johnson? You have a visitor," he said softly. Celestia heard a quiet, rasping response that made her heart sink even further. The unicorn nodded once, then stepped aside and motioned her into the room. "You can page me if you need anything, Your Highness," he said before bowing slightly and starting down the hallway again.
"Thank you, doctor," she said before turning her attention back to the room and stepping inside, stopping once her front legs were through the door. What she saw made her wince internally. The doctor had said he was in bad shape, but she had not expected this.
The man lying on the bed before her looked like skin stretched over a skeleton. He couldn't weigh more than a hundred pounds, she guessed. His face was a ghostly white, as if someone had dumped a bag of flour onto it, and all of his hair had fallen out. Even his eyebrows had fallen out, and in their place, were only the dark circles of disease. Large purple and brown lesions covered his arms where the radiation had killed skin cells and the tissue had become necrotic. Both of his nostrils had oxygen tubes in them, and an IV in his arm provided hydration. From his chest, multiple wires led to an electronic monitor tracking his vital signs. His breath came in gasps and wheezes, each one a hard fought battle for survival.
But still, his eyes raised upon seeing her, and he looked at her with a sense of wonder on his face, before speaking in a quiet, raspy voice.
"Your Highness? I must say, I didn't expect the Princess of Equestria Herself to come visit me." Despite his situation, she thought he smiled slightly, and seemed to brighten up just a little bit.
"I wanted to …" she started, but then stopped. What could she say? She really had no idea. There was nothing she could say that would make things any better. She could ask him how he was doing, but that seemed a stupid question. Perhaps even an insensitive one. It was obvious he was not doing well. And so, she just looked at him for a moment, trying to hold back her tears. Tears of empathy at seeing another creature suffering this way. Tears of anger at herself that she had been unable to stop this from happening. The silence was broken when he spoke again.
"They tell me … I am the last. The last of my species that is still alive." He looked at her questioningly, as if he wanted confirmation of that horrible fact.
She hesitated for a moment, feeling her heart sink even lower, as if it had been thrown into the sea to drown with some great weight attached to it. Then she nodded slowly before speaking softly and sadly.
"You are. Yes."
The man in the bed nodded slightly, responding in a sandpaper-like tone. "Well, at least," he had to pause in the middle to take another short breath. "I can say I held on until the very end, hmm?" He tried to give a slight laugh at his own dark humor, but it was stopped as a fit of coughing racked his body.
A loud beeping noise startled her, and her ears swiveled towards the electronic monitor. She wasn't sure what all the numbers on it meant, but she could see one of them had turned red and was flashing, and a red light was blinking on top of the monitor. Hearing hoof steps trotting rapidly in the hallway, she backed up slightly, turning her head to the door as the unicorn doctor, two earth pony nurses, and a unicorn nurse entered the room.
"His blood oxygen levels are too low again," one of the nurses said, looking at the monitor, then back at the doctor who nodded slightly in response before raising a forehoof and putting it on the human's chest, feeling around for a few moments before taking it off.
"Let's drain him again," he said. His horn started to glow and a drawer in the table next to the bed opened. Celestia watched as a large syringe with a long, wide needle floated out of it under the unicorn's magical control.
The human lying in the bed winced slightly as the large needle pushed into his chest, penetrating deep into it. Then, the syringe began to fill with something that appeared to be a mixture of clear fluid and blood. Celestia turned her head towards one of the nurses.
"His chest cavity keeps filling up with fluid because of the damage from the radiation," the nurse said quietly, answering her unasked question. "It presses on his lungs and makes it so they can't inflate enough for him to get enough oxygen. So we have to put a needle in it and drain the fluid so he can breath again."
Celestia frowned, but nodded once understandingly as she turned her attention back towards the bed, watching the unicorn remove the syringe. The man winced once more as the needle came out, but then seemed to relax and appeared to be breathing much easier now. The number on the electronic monitor was no longer flashing and had turned from red to yellow. She assumed it was probably supposed to be green if he had been breathing normally, but that at least yellow was better than red.
"Are you able to breath easier now?" the unicorn doctor asked, looking at the human with concern on his muzzle. "And are you more comfortable?"
The man nodded once, and responded in a still raspy, but slightly easier voice. "Yes. Thank you, doctor."
The doctor nodded and placed a forehoof gently on the man's shoulder. "Call us if you need anything. We'll leave for now so you can continue your visit with Her Highness."
"Thank you," the human said again, nodding once in thanks as the doctor and nurses turned and left the room. Celestia watched them go before turning her head back to the man in the bed, her heart sinking even further as her ears drooped again.
"I'm so sorry … for all of this," she said, hearing the sorrow in her own voice.
The man shook his head slightly. "You can't blame yourself for this, Your Highness. This is no one's fault and there is no blame to be assigned here." He coughed again several times before catching his breath. Celestia responded sadly.
"I keep thinking that if I'd tried just a little bit harder, or if I'd done something just a little bit differently, I could have stopped this," she said, frowning again.
"To stop two universes from colliding is too much to ask of anyone. Even a Goddess," the man responded.
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you truly believe that's what I am?"
"I want to believe it's what you are … When a man knows he's about to die, he starts to believe things he wouldn't have otherwise believed." He stopped to cough once and take another rasping breath. "And I suppose if I'm going to start believing in a god or goddess, I'd rather believe in one who's willing to admit that certain things are outside even their capability than one whose followers claim he could have stopped this, but chose not to because it's his will that seven billion people should die."
"Still, I should have been able to stop it," Celestia responded sadly, her ears drooping again.
"Sometimes, Princess, I think we blame ourselves for things that we couldn't have stopped because we'd rather feel guilty than feel like we didn't have control." He stopped to take another rasping breath. "I have no doubt that if there were any being in either of our universes that could have stopped this from happening, they would've done so. And you would've stopped it, if you had been able to."
She lowered her head slightly as she thought about what he said. Probably, he was right. In all of her thousands of years, there had never been a crisis she had been unable to solve, whether by herself, or with help from her sister, or by enlisting the help of others. She had come to think there was no problem she couldn't solve, no crisis she couldn't overcome. But then, this happened, and all of her efforts had come to nothing. She looked back up at him and spoke sadly.
"I still can't help but wonder why."
"There is no why, Princess," he spoke weakly. "The universe is a cosmic shooting gallery, and our planet just got caught in the line of fire this time. We try to make sense of the insensible. To think there's some reason for it. But there is no reason. It happened to the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago. We knew that sooner or later, it would be our turn … Although I don't think any of us thought it would come in our lifetime."
She frowned as another coughing fit stopped him, looking at him with concern. Finally, he stopped coughing and wheezed a few times, catching his breath before continuing.
"The one certainty of mortal life is death. The one certainty of evolution, extinction. The age of humans has ended, Your Highness. But our world will live on. With new caretakers."
"With us as caretakers," she said quietly, her ears drooping again.
He nodded weakly. "Take good care of our planet for us, Princess."
"We will. I promise you that … We will," she said softly, trying to hold back tears again.
He nodded, and seemed to force a small smile, but it quickly disappeared again. She watched him lie there, struggling to breath. Only a couple of weeks ago, he had been a strong, healthy man. But now, he was weaker than a small child. So weak, he couldn't even get out of bed. He seemed to be lost in thought for nearly a minute before speaking again.
"Your Highness … There is one last request I would make of you."
She nodded slowly. "If it is within my power, I will grant it."
"The doctors here … They won't do it. Keep telling me about some code regarding first do no harm."
Celestia winced, her ears laying flat on her head, her heart sinking deeply into an ocean of turmoil. "You're asking me to … I can't … Please don't ask me that … I can't," she responded, her voice cracking with desperation.
"My wife is already gone. My kids are gone. All of my friends are gone … Nothing can prevent me from dying … But I don't want to die alone, Princess."
She shook her head once. "I'll stay with you … Until the end," she said, emotion welling up inside her.
"Why hang on for a few more days when death is certain? All I had is already gone."
"But you're asking me to kill you … I can't," she pleaded in a shaky voice.
"I'm asking you to do me a mercy, Princess. Let me die before they can no longer control my pain at all. Let me die while I still have some dignity."
Celestia lowered her head and thought deeply, her heart sinking even deeper into the bottom of an abyss of sorrow and torment. Never, in all of her thousands of years, had she ever killed another living being. Now, the last human alive, the last of his species, was asking her to do just that. Every fiber of her being rebelled at the idea of killing. And yet, she knew he was right. Nothing could change the inevitable outcome. And everything he truly cared about was already gone. He would live another week, maybe ten days as the doctor had said, and for what? So he could experience ever increasing pain and discomfort? She winced, but made her decision.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" she asked softly, approaching the bed and standing near his head.
He nodded once. "Thank you, Your Highness. For granting me this last request."
She only looked at him, her magenta eyes meeting his. Then, she leaned her head down, nuzzling his cheek with her muzzle. His skin felt cold against her fur, and dry, like sandpaper. "I'm so sorry … that all of this happened," she said again, quietly and sadly. He reached up weakly with one arm, placing his hand on her withers.
"As I said, Princess, don't blame yourself for this. This is no one's fault, and there's no blame to be assigned."
Finally, she lifted her head from his cheek and looked into his face again. In his eyes, she could see the fear of someone who knew the end was here. The fear of uncertainty. But at the same time, the resignation of someone who had accepted the inevitable. The eyes of someone looking into the eyes of his executioner, fearful, yet longing for what she was about to do.
She spoke again, in a soft and compassionate tone. "Know that death is not the end. It is a beginning." Then, she lowered her head, the tip of her horn touching his forehead. For a brief moment, her horn glowed faintly, and the last human alive, exhaled his last breath.
A steady tone sounded from the electronic monitor. All of the sine wave lines went flat, all of the numbers now reading zero.
She leaned down and nuzzled his cheek with her muzzle one last time. "May you find peace in the next life," she said quietly, before turning around, and walking slowly out of the room, her head hanging low. As she walked down the hallway, the unicorn doctor, and several nurses walked passed her towards the room she had left. They were in no hurry. Why should they be? She doubted they would try to resuscitate him. After all, what point would there be in that, when he would only spend several more days in pain, and then die again? But even if they did try, it wouldn't work. She had made sure of that. The spell she had used would ensure that no resuscitation attempts would be successful.
As she approached the end of the hallway, the double glass doors slid open for her again, and she stepped back out into the frigid wind. It was even colder now. She walked slowly, her head low, her normally flowing mane and tail as flat and unmoving as the line on the heart monitor back in the hospital room, as if the ethereal wind that normally blew through them had died along with the last human. Rain began to fall from the dark gray clouds, the drops splashing onto the pavement below her hooves. And mixing with the falling rain, were Celestia's falling tears.
