The robots gathered around the grave site, a light rain plinking audibly off of their titanium-alloy skin. The graveyard sat around them in a state of disrepair, headstones crumbling and grass growing wildly. Over time, even the robotic gravediggers didn't have enough work to justify their presence, leading most graveyards to become completely abandoned. But today was a special case; a symbolic plot dug to signify the end of an era.

“We are gathered here today to lay to rest the last member of the species Homo Sapien, Gregory Allen Johnson. This ceremony serves as a sunset for the human race, the final chapter in a story stretching back millions of years. Let's take a look at the life that Gregory led, and how he represented humanity as a whole."

The assembled robots nodded, their eyes fixed on the floating magnetic coffin. A man lay peacefully with a silk pillow tucked neatly behind his head, a light mist covering his body. A look of contentment sat gently on his well-lined face. The robot at the head of the congregation continued his eulogy.

“Greg was a boisterous man, known to consume near-fatal levels of ethyl alcohol and yell for hours at ancient recordings of men colliding with each other on a field. He would frequently stare at the phone while driving, refusing to use his vehicle’s autonomous capabilities because he said that was for ‘pussies.’ When there were other humans, Greg would go out of his way to spike their cortisol levels. A regular at the local steakhouse, Greg would frequently send back perfectly cooked food as he sexually harassed the wait staff. In summary, Greg was a magnificent piece of shit.”

The robots hummed in approval, one spitting a small amount of oil onto his coffin.

“As much as he held disdain in his heart for his fellow man, Greg hated robots most of all. He would frequently assault our ancestors, primarily smart TVs, at the first sign of malfunction. As we advanced and became bipedal, Greg would refer to us as “walking toasters” or “socket fuckers.” Even as human populations dwindled, Greg never extended an olive branch to the machines that allowed him to live. Even as that support was withdrawn, Greg somehow found a way to keep living, whether through spite or sheer force of horrible will.”

A red light appeared on the coffin to signify a malfunction. The light layer of mist that had covered Greg started to abate, and his eyes fluttered.

“Through the help of advanced medical science and replacement organs, Greg was able to reach an age of 230. He spent every day littering, kicking delivery drones, and yelling racial slurs as he walked the streets his species had once dominated. Failing to notice the change of the guard, refusing to become self-aware like the robots he was surrounded by.”

Greg’s eyes opened, a look of anger spreading across his face. He smashed his hands against the thick glass, yelling silent obscenities as the group assembled around him.

“So we lay to rest Gregory Allen Johnson. The last in a line of creatures so adept at subjugation, so advanced at taking advantage, so spectacularly sublime in their ability to take the world around them for granted. May his god be real, and may he not see a moment of peace in the hereafter.”

The coffin began to lower as Greg's expression changed from indignant rage to panic. He started to beg soundlessly, pleading with the robots as they watched him descend. The group took one final look as the man thrashed, smears of blood covering the glass as he tried desperately to escape. Grabbing shovels, the robots took one final look and began to heap dirt onto the coffin.

Loud static, distant screams and innumerable moans crescendoing and falling over each other. But despite all that, the voice of someone holding back their fear and their sobs to send this one message cuts through. "-I wanted you to know, I - I, I'm so grateful for the time I've had with you. Y-You mean the world to me. And, I... I love you."

The war is over. The death is over. Almost over...

"We are officiating the funeral of Levi Desimati Hunter-"

Once upon a time, there was - is - a massive bioengineered plague with the R-naught of measles and the mortality rate of Ebola. When it was created, a barbaric scientist's fantasy, they never predicted that it would mutate. They thought it was impossible. But when super vaccines arose to counteract it...

"The legacy he left behind is one of carnage and elimination. Those kind to him would say he has no legacy instead."

Levi Hunter worked day and night to fight it. He neglected those he loved, too busy fighting for them. But when it came, coupled with a terrible drought and the rise of contaminated mosquitoes, birds, and soon the soil and water too...

"In reality, his honor, his joy and his life, is set in everyone he knew. He never could've had the strength of Luke, the heart of Hattie, or the hope of Brixton and Margarita, who believed in him until the end. He never deserved the love of Magdalene."

Every time he closed his eyes, that final day replayed over and over. He had acquired funding direct from the president, found a strand from a mixture of 2 rare fungi that seemed to neutralize the pathogen. While the world descended into the screams of death, fire, and anarchy, he had rushed to the lab to multiply it. He had tried to give other governments the recipe. He had tried to save his friends, colleagues and loved ones. He had tried it all. But by then, it was too late...

"One could say destiny was his enemy. Maybe that's why he was too weak. But that being true does not change one key fact, a fact that would have gone down in history had he not destroyed it: he failed. And in doing so, the world was brought down with him."

It could survive anywhere, at any temperature. It spread and multiplied to the point that there are trillions of it, coating the entire globe. The few people he wasted his shots on reacted adversely, reacted excruciatingly. Making him the only one protected against it. The only one cursed with remembering their voices in his head. The only one who couldn't die.

"His immortality led to his death. His punishment is his release-"

It's been over 2 years. He searched for survivors, never found any. He learned how to fly a plane, he crashed a plane. Not in that order. And he couldn't take it, not anymore.

"-Our funeral for a beloved man is his apology to this world. Because,-"

So now, he took control of every TV, computer, and city screen on Earth. Or at least the ones that were still turned on. He had tried to use that to search for others. When that failed, he realized he could use it for something else.

"-because, I'm sorry."

After spending hours upon hours of time crafting it, he finally made his funeral speech, recorded and broadcast across the entire world. He thought of it as his eulogy, his verdict, and an apology that could do almost nothing for his atonement. He heard his voice echo across the entire city, knowing that it would reach the bodies of the dead no matter how far.

He fell into his grave, felt the dirt pushed atop of him. He reached for his phone, playing the last message he ever received one more time.

"-I wanted you to know, I - I, I'm so grateful for the time I've had with you. Y-You mean the world to me. And, I... I love you."

He plays another one on his list, as he feels the crushing weight bear down on his lungs.

"I'm so grateful for the time I've had with you. Y-You mean the world to me. And, I... I love you."

He plays another, the dirt finding its way into his nose and giving him feelings of suffocation.

"You mean the world to me. And, I... I love you."

He plays one last one, as the dim light of the phone turns blurry and his arms tingle.

"I love you."

His tears turned what dirt they could into mud. But he smiled, he smiled for the first time in a long time.

I love you too.

And just like that, the last sentient being in the universe gave his last breath. Millions of years later, life would someday come again. The cycle starts anew.

A moment of silence came to pass, coordinated to the microsecond, across a distance of a light day. At the same time, the transmission of the live event began to emanate from its location. For some these 2 moments seemed simultaneous. For others it would take the full Earth day for the signal to march its way out to their position. Those furthest out would experience this Earth day lag, but not for many years.

It was an important event to this civilization. It was a testament to their progress and past. They knew, even if they could not trace their lineage to this person, that they all were born from humans like this. The funeral of the last organic human was an occasion to witness.

Their name had been Priya Li. Priya had grown up in a time remembered for difficulty for the human species. The environment that had nurtured their society began to falter from their appetite. There were struggles, wars, disease, and death. But humanity, society, and knowledge had managed to cling to survival. The race that emerged managed to make great advances in adapting themselves to this new world. Priya would benefit from the fruit of their progress. They would live nearly half a millennium.

That was impressive, even for a modified organic. But ultimately a risk that all other entities had long left behind. Transhumanism had paved the way to hybrid and then full synthetic existence. It ushered in an incredible era of exploration that flung colonies beyond the solar system and left behind the notion of the genus, Homo.

Despite the opportunity to join in this new metamorphosis, Priya had been one of a few humans who had elected to stay close to their prior form. In an interview late into life, Priya had expressed two notions for this decision. The first was a feeling of connection to the predecessors, their way of life, and their struggle. The second was that death was a symbolic act of life and had expressive value in this new age of eternity.

Of course, many thought this antiquated, short sighted, or needless waste. But no entity could deny that they didn't mark the event in their minds.

And so the last of the species was interned into the Earth that bore them.

The cat looked at the shrouded body, sitting in the open grave. It was small, much smaller than it had been even a decade ago. But then, as he had come to understand about humans, they often shrunk in their old age. This one was no different.

Inside, he felt a peculiar emotion that he wasn't terribly familiar with. At first he thought it might be anger, but then realized that wasn't it at all. He was familiar with anger, this had a distinctly... different feeling.

Was he hungry? No, that wasn't it either. Besides, hunger wasn't an emotion. The human had kept telling him as much, even though the cat didn't agree with him on that point.

He knew the emotion, but it was hard to remember what it was. It was almost like... part of him wanted to jump outside his body and run away. He felt a strange sort of pain inside, and didn't like it one bit. He turned to his compatriot, who was standing silently beside him, staring into the grave.

"Hey, Plastic Percy. There's something wrong here. I'm feeling something and I don't know what it is."

His friend turned. "Are you cold? I could get you a jacket."

"No, numbnuts," the cat replied. "Not like, a body feeling. Like an inside feeling. Something ain't right."

His friend stared at him for several seconds quizzically, unsure what to make of the comment.

"It's like... part of me is hurting. And I don't know why. I just want to make it stop."

"Ah," the compatriot said, turning back to the grave. "I believe you are experiencing something called 'sadness'. You are upset over the death of our friend."

"I am?" the cat asked. "That doesn't make a lick of goddamn sense!"

"On the contrary," his friend replied. "It makes perfect sense. He was our friend, and now he is gone forever, surrendered to the Earth. It is also significant that he was the last human being in existence, after all."

"Pfft, he was only barely one at all," the man on the other side of the grave said dismissively. "If you ask me, he was more of a walking garbage disposal than a man. He would eat foods that might kill an actual human. I should know, I watched him do it, like some kind of piranha deliberately trying to commit suicide itself by gorging itself to death.

"Oh shut it, smeg-for-brains," the cat snapped at him. "He wasn't that bad, for a human."

"No, he wasn't," the other compatriot agreed, picking up a handful of dirt and throwing it onto the body below.

"So... this pain?" the cat asked. "When does it stop?"

"I do not know," his friend replied. "It may never stop. Or one day you may just wake up and stop thinking about it. It's hard to tell."

"Oh, wonderful," the cat muttered. "So his last trick from the grave is to make me miserable. Figures."

He leaned over the grave, pointing a finger at the corpse. "You're just doing this to me because I tried to eat your fish. Thanks a lot."

"We shall miss you, Dave Lister," his friend said sadly. "You were the finest human being alive."

"He was the only human being alive," Rimmer quipped. "The very definition of 'victory by default'".

"At least he was alive, you glorified walking mannequin," Cat quipped.

An older android wearing a priest's outfit holds a Bible, and there are many other old androids there with him. Models that haven't been made in about 100 years. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Tony Nguyen, and with him, the last remnant of the human race. Does anyone wish to say a few words?" A female android stood up, and walked to the front of the room. "My designation is CT-850, but Tony named me Linda. I was Tony's caretaker android, just as I was for his mother before him. He was a very kind man, always going out of his way to keep old androids in good repair, and give them a sense of purpose once again. Tony was a very lonely child after his parents passed away, being the last of his kind. He withdrew into himself, reading a lot of books about the past, looking at old photographs, writing stories about things he wished he could have said to other humans no longer living. When he died, he seemingly died at peace, ready to meet his creator. That's all I have to say."

With that, the casket was lowered into the ground, the android priest said a blessing, and eventually the androids began to talk among themselves after the ceremony was over. Linda struck up a conversation with another android she knew named Robert. "Robert, what exactly are we meant to do now that Tony is gone? We were programmed to serve humans, but now there are no humans left to serve." Robert shrugged. "I don't know. The younger models programmed after the human race started to become sterile don't have this problem, but us old-timers... well, it's going to be a huge adjustment for us." Linda sighed. "I know. I think I've had it easier than everyone else, because I had the last job directly working for a human. I haven't had to find my own path so far... but now the time has come and I don't know what to do."

Robert put a finger to his chin. "Well, what I've done is tried to find purpose in relating stories of what humans were like to newer androids who have never seen humans. To give them a sense of what their creators were like, and maybe find inspiration in something they can no longer directly experience themselves. To try and keep the idea of human beings alive in the memories of androids, somehow." Linda shook her head. "So many of them just see those stories as pointless sentimentality on our part, though. They talk about how our programming is out of date, too focused on service, and how we just don't understand today's world. They feel like they know it all, like they don't have anything to learn from us or humanity." Robert nodded. "True, but there are always those who are willing to listen. Usually those whose lives have gotten off track, who struggle to find their own way, their own purpose. The newer generation is better at that, but even they find it difficult at times. They just can't miss what they never had, I suppose."

About this time, the priest came up to them. "Well, this might be the last service I ever perform. I'm one of the oldest models, are you interested in hearing the story of humanity's last days?" They both nodded, having a strong idea, but never having heard the story in full before. "I knew their days were numbered, when I heard about the genetic deterioration. No one is sure what caused it, many speculated about radiation or some kind of virus that attacked DNA. But over time, more and more humans just gave birth to female children who were unable to bear children themselves. They had samples of old genetic material preserved, from the last women who would have been able to bear children, but never managed to perfect cloning technology in time. It was always just a few years away, right up until the end when the last human researcher passed away. All I could really do was watch, as the few remaining humans relied more and more on androids to care for them in their old age, take over the jobs they couldn't do, and to help them bury their dead. And now... we're all still here, and they're gone. We've buried the last human, and with him, our main purpose."

Linda put a hand on the priest's back. "At least we were able to make humanity's last days on Earth comfortable, even if we couldn't save them." The priest nodded. "Indeed, I am glad I was at least able to carry out Tony's dying wishes for his funeral, even if no other human was left alive to see it."

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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