[ WP ] At some point in the future , there are less than one hundred people left on Earth .

There's so few of us now. 
 
 Monica likes to call it the `` exodus.'' I prefer not to talk about it, but I think `` abandoning'' is a better term for what happened to our poor little planet, because that's exactly what what happened. They *abandoned* us. Left us to burn in the expanding corpse of our celestial anchor. 
 
 The entire affair began as a trickle. The media actually made a considerable amount of noise about the first few `` migrations.'' The prospect of heading out into the reaches of deep space was tantalizing, seducing in the way that only real danger can be. It was a long trip to Gliese 581 ( at least thirty years, even with the most advanced propulsion systems humanity could muster ), and the perils of interstellar travel had never been tested with ships holding ten, fifty, 100, 200, 500 people on them before. Most of us stayed on Earth, with our feet planted firmly in the ground, wondering when the new fad would die out, when people would realize that braving 22 light-years of empty space in a hibernation pod was n't quite as heroic as it sounded. 
 
 And yet, despite what seemed to us to be sheer lunacy, the trickle never ebbed. One ship every year became two, twenty-person cruisers became 200-person behemoth. And when the penny dropped and the public realized the journeys were about escaping a stellar apocalypse rather than an inflated sense of Manifest Destiny, the trickle exploded into an outpouring, every family with two pennies to rub together saving up to buy a ticket off this rock. Earth's population was decreasing daily, and no amount of coercing or pleading could stop Earth's society from slowly sucking itself dry, ejecting its workforce one by one irrecoverably into the abyss until Earth's governments gave in, and started making plans for what was named the `` Migration.'' I've already told you what I think of that sort of name for it. 
 
 January 13, 2257. 5:45 PM, GMT. The auto-post deposited a crisp, snow-white envelope into the mail slot of every house in the world that still had occupants. Assignments. Locations and times to board the myriad ant-like shuttles that would ferry the remainder of humanity to the hulking monstrosity of an interstellar craft that orbited just outside of Earth's gravity well. Like it or not, humankind was leaving the Earth for good, and it was happening by the end of the month. 
 
 We'd stayed behind because we could n't bear to leave the trees behind. It's funny, it sounds so trivial in hindsight, but we had spent the better part of the last 10 years nurturing that grove, and we'd be damned if we were going to abandon it at the drop of a hat. I suppose one might expect that environmentalists would be reluctant to leave the planet they fought so hard for in our cosmic rear-view mirrors, but it was n't the planet we were reluctant to leave behind ( because what in the hell could the seven of us do, when the rest of our species was fleeing with their tails between their legs? ). No, it was the trees. We just could n't bring ourselves to leave behind that lovely little grove we'd devoted so much to. Eventually, though, there was no more delaying. Not much else to do but run when the fist of God is bearing down on you. 
 
 The big day was all about timetables. At 9:00 sharp, be out the door and en route to your launch site. Arrive no later than 10:00. Have everything you're taking with you compressed and compartmentalized, disassembled and demolecularized for transport. Liftoff is at no later than 11:00, because the starliner goes to warp at 3:00. Over and over, the importance of timeliness was stressed. Well, we arrive at the launch site, and there's a delay. Mechanical issues. Some of the microcircuitry shorted, and there's not enough thrust for all of us. They ca n't lift off with the scheduled fifty people, they need about ten or so to stay on the ground to be able to make it off the launchpad, but do n't worry, they'll send a replacement shuttle for us as soon as they could. Cynthia was having a bit of an emotional moment, and she volunteered us to wait, she said she just wanted one last breath of fresh air before being sealed in a pod for three decades. We all got out of our seats, along with three other poor shmucks, and watched the shuttle's exhaust slowly disappear into the afternoon sky. 
 
 We waited at that launchpad so diligently. After thirty minutes, we were just a little annoyed at the wait, at the lack of communication through the station's transponder. After two hours, some of us were getting a tad anxious. Not much time to get to the starliner and get settled in for warp, they were saying. And through it all, we just kept waiting, the minutes dripping agonizingly by, until the fear became a certainty, and the starliner orbiting above our heads engaged its thrusters, slowly gliding off over the horizon. To this day, I'm not sure what exactly happened. I suppose they just had to stick to their goddamn timetables. 
 
 Cynthia just about drowned herself in tears and mucus, crying and apologizing for what had happened. I swear Jeff could have killed her then and there, if we had n't stopped him. I could n't say I blamed him, though. Ten of us, alone on the wide, empty Earth, food rotting on shelves and in the fields, and not enough power left in the grid to power a flashlight. 
 
 It's been almost a year since that day, and every one of the six deaths we've had have been suicides. I spend every day wondering if I can hold out long enough to be number eight.
