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As we circle back around to Paris, we see our flooded planet slowly. We move against the rotation of the Earth and it is as if we are viewing a terrible sunrise, or as if we are the sunrise. We move closer as Earth turns. Though we can no longer differentiate between bodies of water, a beacon shoots across the Atlantic Ocean. We fall to meet it. We circle it.
The beacon is a robot. The robot is a girl.
We keep falling, faster than she flies. So fast that we can almost feel the air move past us, howling. As we recognize the remains of Paris, we see the tops of all its monuments, waterlogged and lonely. What is left of humanity are only our fiftieth floors. The ocean stretches in every direction, but we keep a steady course as we hurtle downward. A long, windowed rooftop greets us; it could be mistaken for a train car lying on its side. The inside of the glass is murky with algae and, though we have just flown downwards impossibly far, it is clear that beneath those windows is a depth truly unfathomable. We cannot go there.
A boy reclines on the center window. We are near enough to see the image of the soaring beacon flash across his eyes, which stare through us, as blue and empty as the water.
We linger a moment. It is still hard to believe that this is what the end of the world looks like.
Then we turn slowly, wheeling outward to see the beacon wheel around and blaze towards us. No—towards the boy.
We move outward to afford them some space. She alights on the rooftop, yards away from him. Slowly, curiously, we creep closer. Is her face as cold as his? Is it the same coldness? Her hands are not clenched, but her neck is stiff.
“You are still here,” she says.
Suddenly we are looking at the reclining boy. “No,” he says. He does not stand up. “You’re thinking of someone else.”
We are at a distance again. It is as if they have pushed us away. The girl says, “Isn’t it over?”
We are watching the boy examine his ivory claws. He speaks deliberately: “Yes. But you and I are still here.”
We see them from above. The algic depths beckon below, but we cannot go there. “We do not need to be at odds with each other,” says the girl. “There is no one else left.” She hesitates. “Do you know where—”
A frigid kind of rage pulls us to the boy’s face, where we see a mirthless smirk struggling over his jaw. Finally, a twinge of feeling; an evidence of, if not guilt, then memory. “Where do you think?” he asks her. “In the water.”
We turn and look fearfully through the window beneath him. We cannot go there. We tear ourselves away and look at the girl only to see that her last spark of hope has been extinguished. But she says, “We do not have to fight.”
“And we won’t,” the boy says in his placid tone. “It’s already over. I’ve already destroyed the world.”
“I am still here.”
We are above again, but closer, staring at the green glass. The boy is in our periphery, still reclining. There is the sense of a salty breeze. “I’ll outlast you,” says the boy finally. We stop, realizing we had been drifting closer to the sea. We cannot go there.
“Impossible,” the girl retorts.
“I can last forever,” the boy says. “I am destruction; I can last until the sun dies, and even after that. Sooner or later, one of your pieces will wear out. And then…”
We stare at the girl. We don’t want her to be gone.
“And then you’ll be in the water, too,” says the boy. “And only I’ll be left.”
Emotions fly across the girl’s face. Pain and rage and fear. This is what is left of humanity—but for how long?
“Why did you do this?” she asks. We have asked ourselves the same question.
We look at the monuments. They will collapse in time, sink into the sea. We cannot go there. As we look, the boy speaks: “This is what happens when we love. There is no ‘why.’ Just imagine if entropy had claws.” In one distance, a storm brews, though rain feels pointless—there is nothing to be rained on that isn’t wet already. “You must know… How long will you last?”
The girl does not answer. We see the faraway storm clouds reflected in her eyes.
The boy laughs. Or, the sound of a laugh comes from where the boy is. There is a disconnect between them, but we know he could laugh, once. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”
The girl begins to turn away.
“Don’t you get it?” says the boy. “You’re already down there,” pointing through the window to the water, “and you always were. Everyone was. I just couldn’t see it until he showed me—this is what happens when we love. This is what has to happen. This is the punishment—this is the consequence—”
The girl is walking away. We see her, shining, reflecting the sun.
“This is what has to happen,” he explains to the back of her head.
The storm rumbles in the distance. The girl squares her shoulders, preparing to fly again.
Some kind of pain fractures the boy’s façade. He stands. “Aren’t you even going to try to convince me otherwise?”
We see the girl stop and whirl around, and again we are reminded that the last of humanity is here. “No, Adrien Agreste.” She closes her eyes. “I am not going to try to convince you of anything.” We see her turn and rocket into the sky. A blazing smoke trail blooms behind her. She is gone.
We do not turn back to look at the boy, but instead follow the trail out, over the ocean surface. We look down. The water is as alluring and as forbidden to us as ever. We cannot go there.
We spin suddenly to see the boy on his rooftop, staring into the sky far beyond us. And then it is like we are lifted by something else, drawn up gently as if by a caring hand. We tilt our view to try and see the monuments again; after all, it could be the last time. It is not long before they are too far away to be visible.
As we lift yet further, we see another storm raging over what might have been the South Pacific. There is nothing to be destroyed that hasn’t been destroyed already.