A witness to solitude

 

I wander through the streets like a shrouded ghost. Was it not always like this? There was always noise, yet it was hollow. True silence, it seems, existed only when the streets were overflowing with people. Now, the streets feel unbearably crowded to me, because they no longer offer any sensory stimulus.

On the day humans disappeared, my first reaction was not astonishment but recognition—because this was exactly what I had been waiting for all my life. I had imagined it so vividly, aestheticized it so thoroughly, that it had lost the power to surprise me. Naturally, I was glad. Very glad. I do not recall ever experiencing such an intense emotion before.

The first thing I did was go outside. And the first thing I felt was… complete silence. It greeted me. It was a familiar silence—not alien, not terrifying—because humanity had vanished in the fullest sense, and for me, they had never truly existed anyway. This silence now confirmed that as a verdict. I liked it so much that I felt as though I were in a dream, because something this sacred could not exist in reality. Reality had to be dull and mundane. But at last, the veil of reality had been torn—not revealing some unreal beyond, but showing that the veil itself was unreality; that it was not the true universe, but a mere curtain hiding it.

I began to walk. The weather was gloomy, exactly as I liked it. The city had fallen into a coma, and the clouds seemed to intensify the silence even further. Vehicles had stopped. Moving silhouettes had vanished. The only movement left was leaves stirred by the wind, the only sound the rustling they made. The world had escaped reinforced concrete and monotony, suddenly becoming poetic in a melancholic way. This serenity was precisely what had inspired my stories.

Finally. I could breathe. My lungs felt lighter all at once. Even the presence of people had been a burden on them, and now I fully realized it, because I was breathing more deeply than ever, and with each exhale felt spiritually relieved and liberated. The world belonged to me now, and I could do with it as I pleased.

After roaming the streets, I decided to enter the buildings. I explored all of them. Whatever existed. The tedious offices in skyscraper-like buildings, libraries smelling of old books, schools—the embodied form of routine and rules—hospitals with the lingering scent of chemicals, parks with green trees and fountains, disturbing amusement parks that had once been full of laughter and joy but were now completely abandoned, yet with machines still functional… all of it was mine.

Then I thought to climb the tower of the facility at the very peak of the mountain encircling the city. With a bicycle I had taken—because everything was now mine—I began the ascent. The view was magnificent; the entire city was visible. It had been a concrete hell when full of humans. Now, freed from them, a sudden beauty had emerged in this reinforced concrete, hypnotizing me despite its harshness.

At the top, I could see the sea more clearly. Boundless, yet not infinite—I knew other civilizations existed hundreds of kilometers away.

In school, I had always watched the sea through the windows instead of listening to lessons, because all I cared about was escaping society—not sinking deeper into it through a career, a job, a “status,” or whatever societal nonsense. I imagined the lands beyond the sea, detaching completely from my surroundings. While others competed to raise their hands to answer the teacher, I fantasized about building a flying vehicle, crossing that endless sea, leaving everything behind, starting anew.

Even though a flying vehicle remained fantasy, crossing the sea was feasible now; I no longer needed a passport or money. But I was not a captain, so not by ship. Not a pilot, so not by plane. Land travel was the only option. I would find a motorcycle and travel north along the coastline, resting and wandering as I went.

Lost in these thoughts, I returned to the physical world, remembered the tower, and descended. I found a suitable motorcycle and began riding through the empty streets. Traffic was no concern—the people, the source of traffic, were gone. I rode fast, but with pleasure, constantly observing. I might never see these places again; I would be traversing the world, and never again experience the terror of living an entire life in a single place.

I rode for hours. My aim was to leave these lands quickly, to reach the realms beyond the sea. I crossed a border that had once been a controlled checkpoint, now just a wall, as casually as crossing an ordinary road. I was in another country, but still had far to go. Tired, I entered a random house to spend the night. The food was still edible. I could always scavenge more if needed.

Before sleeping, I wondered: had everyone truly vanished? What if a few people remained, not just one? The possibility was real. Even on the far side of the world, it would prove I was not alone. Absence from view did not mean absence in context. Yet even if only a few humans remained, the odds of them being near the lands I occupied were close to zero. This brought a kind of unease I had never felt, but my desire to witness the North’s lands outweighed it. Morning came; I ate, refueled my motorcycle, and set out again.

Hours later, I reached another country—though “countries” no longer existed, and I wasn’t sure what else to call them. The lands of the North lay ahead. The structures were more beautiful than I had imagined: decayed, colorless, oppressive. Yes—this was beauty. I felt at home. My body had been born elsewhere, but my soul had returned to its origin.

To preserve the sanctity of the silence, I left my motorcycle and resumed riding a bicycle. Within this desolation—desolate even within itself—I roamed the streets under the solemn curse of these lands. But I never stopped. I wandered through towns and cities for months, taking notes, recording everything both in words and memory.

This was an adventure. I was no longer bored; my focus had shifted from the social to the existential. Civilization is a veil drawn over existence, and its disappearance left existence bare before me. I existed not in civilization, but in existence itself, and finally felt affirmed.

Yet unexpectedly, loneliness crept in. Not the absence of someone, but the absence of someone with whom I could share loneliness. Not someone to break the silence, but a familiar soul to accompany it without a sound. Do such souls even exist? When people were around, they seemed not to. If humans still existed, they would need to have adapted, becoming widespread like a genetic trait—because what is normal now is not surface-level motion, but stillness and reflection, enough to reshape the brain within months.

As these feelings intensified, I thought of leaving signs. Not announcement systems, but graffiti, notes in unlikely places—hidden yet readable, so anyone who found them could not ignore them. They had to be worthy of discovery.

I put the idea into practice, leaving marks everywhere I went. Most were cryptic; some were casual, bearing dates and messages like: “I was here. I’m still here. If you want to find me, come to … at … time.” No one would see them—but if someone caught the signal… that possibility was what drove me. I spread them widely, placing some in visible hubs.

Once, I hung a giant sheet reading “I was here” from a tall building for maximum visibility. At its base, I wrote the names of residences I frequented. Anyone visiting one could follow the chain of signs, eventually leading to me—at least, that was the hope.

Drawing on survival manuals and technical references, I assembled a rudimentary power system for a computer at my temporary base. I scavenged solar panels, salvaged batteries, and improvised a charge controller. Fragile and inefficient, it ran long stretches, even without a network.

But the system required maintenance. Batteries degraded, connections corroded, dust accumulated, components failed unpredictably. Maintaining it meant anchoring myself to one place. I refused. So I let it run as long as it could and continued my nomadic travels.

These words were on that computer. If it still works, whoever finds it should be reading them now. They should know: I did not remain in one place. I went further north, where the silence enveloping the world was natural, honest. Anyone reading this can follow the signs on roads and walls to reach me. I even drew arrows as directions; if they do not confuse the finder, they might provide a foothold in the surreal world I drift through—a ground where we could stand together, even for a moment, even if it hurts, but nonetheless persists.

Atrona Grizel.