Eventually, it will happen.
There will be a last person on this planet. A very last person, the sole remaining representative of the human race.
Not like in the science fiction novels or films that depict a lone figure besieged by ragtag groups of survivors who have forsaken their humanity, or by vampiric mutations that are the next evolutionary phase of human development.
The last person will be exactly that, the very last person. Male or female, young or old, Hindu, Catholic, Muslim or Atheist, Asian, Kenyan, Norwegian or Inuit.
Whatever the gender or ethnic designation, whatever the geo-political borders that defined their home, that person, that very last person, will be the last Homo Sapiens to witness a sunrise or sunset, draw in a last breath, and then humanity will be no more.
It's not only an eventuality, it's a certainty.
There have already been last humanoids, as the historical record shows. Our common ancestors, Homo Erectus and Homo Heidelbergensis, died out roughly 1.5 million and 400,000 years ago, respectively.
Neanderthals, a completely separate species of humanoids, died out about 25,000 years ago.
Much like any other species of creature that became extinct, there were no witnesses and no records made of the last member of the two predecessors of the human race, or of the Neanderthals.
The last member of those species just lay down, or fell off a cliff, or were attacked by an animal, and died.
The last record-keeping, story-writing Homo Sapiens, he or she may leave some sort of last words - that seems to be a commonality shared between cultures and civilizations, a recording of last words.
For posterity.
Except there won't be any posterity. There will be nothing of the race we are a part of. Maybe, like some scientists speculate about the Neanderthals, we will become part of a new race through interbreeding, or maybe, like the giant reptiles, we will cease to exist altogether.
Nothing will remain but our bones and tools.
Will it happen suddenly, without warning, like a flash bomb going off? Will the majority of the 7 billion (quite likely more) humans die off in a very short period of time, say three or four days, leaving a handful of people walking around wondering just what the hell happened?
Will those few survivors be unable to do anything about their predicament, or will they struggle to survive, search desperately for fellow survivors, try to figure out what happened, but be unable to do anything but eventually join the dead until there is but one last remaining person on the planet, and then they die too?
Or will it happen gradually? Will the population contract slowly due to resource depletion or disease, reducing cities to vast empty canyons of asphalt, concrete, glass and steel? Will the last people, witnessing this contraction, record it dutifully, all the while trying to stop it?
If the population contraction was due to resource depletion, then eventually the population would reach a level sustainable with whatever resources are available.
However, if the contraction is brought on by incurable disease to which no one has an immunity and no mutations occur (unlike in Matheson's I Am Legend), and the last remnants of the human race can only watch themselves die off, helpless to prevent it, then what?
Will there be an acceptance of this fate? Will the knowledge that the race is coming to an end drive the remaining few mad?
Will the very last people bury the others as they die off? Will they even know the others?
What if the last five remaining humans are all living on separate continents, completely unaware that they are not alone at all, but with no means to discover the others?
Then four of the five pass away, and there is just one person left, until...the end.
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