We released the seeds at midday, following our best computer predictions, hoping against all odds that they'd travel far, re-seeding the earth, sowing a future for us.

It was months since the fall, since that terrible moment containment failed; quarantine failed; humanity itself failed. We called it ‘The Last Days’—unoriginal, perhaps, but descriptive all the same–and shook our heads in despair at our hubris, at the price we'd paid.

This would make it all right. Our computer model, proving we still had hope, that we'd make it all go away. The seeds would float on the wind, drifting into the tortured air, and carry with them new life.

And we would live again.