Everyone thought the end of the world would be some catastrophic event. Everyone thought bombs would rain from the sky or natural disasters would wipe the globe clean. Everyone thought wrong. For all our bluster, all our outrage and all of our indignation, the human race died not with a bang but with a whisper. The human race died to hunger, starvation and simple greed. By the time the corporations realized what they had done, the foundations fell out.
An advanced AI didn’t rise up, and while there were riots, they were tame almost lethargic gatherings of the unwashed masses. When factories manufactured robots to create more factories the profits started to fall.
No one pushed a button and set the world on fire. The missiles and bombs were used to delve for more resources the human race desperately needed. Desperation didn’t wake a subterranean monster. Aliens didn’t invade or come to help us. A planet of green and blue quickly turned brown and grey.
There were several efforts to “cure” the planet or even find a new one. A global space program sent out over a dozen missions, some manned some automated to find livable planets.
Some built massive ships that would take them on an endless cruise through the stars. Others tried to create super plants, some of them took root; the ones that couldn’t be used for food. There wasn’t some pheromone or pollen released that made people kill themselves. That had already been in the air and it wasn’t some phenomenon.
People checked out, silently, cleanly and often together. Those that remained struggled against the inevitable. Suits were developed to keep the wearer nourished but the corporations with their dying breaths destroyed the research notes and made the suits exorbitantly priced.
You can’t rob a store with automated vending and automated turrets. Well, not without several casualties. That was the most violent part about our end, the slaughtering of every corporate stooge the people could get their hands on. There were so few left after the migration to space.
Cities were abandoned, underground bunkers filled to bursting as people sought refuge. Disease spread easily but slowly, like the human race at the dawn of our era.
The human race died crying and alone in the universe. The remnants, the shadows, we are all that remain.