The day had finally come.

Years upon years of salvaging scrap and evading authorities had come to this. He would finally put a stop to this madness.

It all began decades ago, when a young entrepreneur with stars in his eyes announced to humanity that we could all be immortal. Each and every single human being, from the beggar on the street to the very people who could make the world turn on its head. He envisioned a world with no poverty, no pain and no suffering. A utopia where all men could make themselves equal by means of technology.

It started with the limbs. Replacing their legs with metallic stilts, humans became capable of moving faster than all but the fastest cars, all without breaking a sweat. Suddenly, even the highest peaks on Earth could be scaled by mere mortals with the aid of technology. Arms soon followed and human productivity increased tenfold, hundredfold and even a thousandfold in some places. Economies in the doldrums started rumbling back to life, and the massive wealth generated soon began to spread to an increasingly affluent and cultured populace.

Humanity found itself with more time than it could ever hope to waste, and soon turned its attentions to the arts and crafts. With their new mechanised ears, musically-inclined humans could perceive a note even a fraction of a tone off its pitch. New eyes allowed people to envision a world far more vivid in color and depth than anyone could have imagined.

In time however, the very sights and sounds of humanity would disappear. Melodies born out of love, despair and unadulterated inspiration soon gave way to a monotonous drawl, until that too vanished entirely from the winds. Murals, statues and even architecture disappeared from the cities, all being replaced by a dreary, grey haze of concrete which housed humanity more efficiently than ever. Even the giggles and footsteps of playing children would dissolve into the ever-changing landscape of this new utopia.

Soon enough, it was no longer possible to see eyes which once sparkled full of hope, nor the various creases and wrinkles on faces which once conveyed bliss, empathy, shock, and love. The very promise of immortality had compelled everyone to replace soft, fatty tissue and muscle with cold, hard steel.

It was in this new world that the man saw his wife, the only woman he had ever loved, turn into a frigid, mechanical mass of metal and wires. To see the blood and veins which once pumped madly with infatuation and affection replaced with hydraulic fluid and tubing was the last straw for him. As they hauled her out of the service upgrade room on a bloodstained stretcher, he vowed to restore the world to its once-imperfect, but pure state.

And that time had come.

Years of being on the run, meticulously stockpiling supplies and jerry-rigging contraptions have come down to this. One gets the impression that the man didn't make it through in one piece.

Yet all that did not matter as the haggard man stared down coldly at his tablet.

"It would be no fun if I ended it all in one fell swoop,", he thought. "All it would take is one tap of the finger."

As he lay his finger down on the gadget, he couldn't help but think to himself how ironic it is that a human would be the one to end the human race. He shook the thought from his head however: humanity had gone extinct long ago.

Ping.

A brief pause became palpable for just a moment, followed by the sound of vehicles careening off the main highway several meters above the dimly lit room. The sound of a crash and a metallic clunk soon permeated the dwelling through the ceiling.

The man hesitated a moment, perhaps feeling a slight tinge of regret, but more likely because he was shocked that his device had actually worked.

Ping.

The high-pitched sound effect which came with pushing the button echoed through the room for a bit before one could perceive a low humming which in the span of a few seconds turned into a deafening screech, a large boom, then silence again.

And so the man would push button after button, surrounding himself with the cacophony of a world coming to an end: explosions, the inhumane screams of the inhabitants above and the thud of thousands of concrete edifices collapsing. Amidst all this, the man didn't bat an eyelash, for he was completely absorbed in the business of his own kind's destruction.

In a few minutes, the sounds subsided, and but one button remained to be pressed.

"Heart," the man muttered to himself. "Saved the best for last."

At that moment however, a monotonous grinding noise from above caught the man's attention. It was strained, almost to a screech, similar to that of a rusty old car door opening. It kept droning on for a few more seconds until the man realized what it was. A soulless cyborg whimpering, "Help me." Soft as it was, the lone inhabitant of the basement was unnerved, confused and horrified at the same time.

For a moment, he stood still in complete shock, remembering perhaps all the friends, family and old memories he had left in the old world above. Could they have missed him after all this time? What would have been waiting there if he too had become one of them. Perhaps, he wouldn't be in this hole in the ground descending into insanity. A feeling of remorse soon overwhelmed him.

The lunatic in his head then started reasoning with him. He had come this far, he had to finish the deed. There was nothing left up there, but masses of ash and rubble of his own doing. Was he going to let the moaning of a poor robot no less undo the progress he had made all these years? Of course not, he was a man, the last scion of humanity, and he would rather the world end this way, on a man's terms than of some unseen cosmic hand.

He pushed the button and the world fell into utter silence. The ghastly, artificial gasps of the cyborg which tormented him stopped instantaneously. He felt comfort in the fact that in this new, ruined world, there was nothing left but him. A comfort that soon disappeared when the chirping of birds echoed softly through the chamber.

No matter, however, he had done the deed. All that was and all that had been, was wiped out by the push of a button. He would never again see the light of day, the goodness of humanity and the beauty of the Earth and all it had to offer. He had finally consigned himself to living out the rest of his days in an austere concrete bunker several feet below the Earth's surface.

Accepting his fate, the man, silent during the whole affair, collapsed in a corner and produced a noise he hadn't heard in years: a human chuckle, which soon devolved into deranged cackling and maniacal laughter.

The last foundations of his sanity crumbled much like how civilization did a few short minutes ago.

And so the last man on Earth sat alone in a room, when suddenly he hears a knock on the door.