Humans cease to exist. Some insects and trees and grasses can be found, but never in large quantities or thriving. The sun casts a hazy orange light on the earth, dimmed by dust and chemicals that were never found in such high concentrations in times past. Ocean life exists, but there’re few fish left. Fish are completely inedible, and have been for a long time. A bitter ichor flows from any cut fish, and should deter any sensible creature from consuming it. It will be curious to see how much longer life in the oceans continue. The current state of the earth didn’t occur instantly, but happened rapidly over a period of 100 years. There wasn’t a war, communicable disease, or famine Though, the contaminated food did accelerate the situation...and the water.
What killed humankind isn’t something that can be touched or heard or seen, but it has to be imagined. It’s hard to recall the days when the buildings weren’t crumbling to dust, and the containment vessels held back their evil. The path to the earth’s demise should have been clear to its residences, but greed has a way of blinding eyes. All the advancements in science couldn’t save them, and it would be difficult to save the people from something they wanted so much. They became accustomed to consuming the cheapest from of energy put in front of them, even though better ways had already been discovered. The civilized proceeded in a way that was unsustainable.
As the population dwindled, it was a common occurrence to see people fully encapsulated in yellow chemical suits with respirators, boots, and long shiny orange gloves – the ones that could afford such things. The outfits protected them from something unseeable, and somewhat prolonged their life. They would come home from work in these suits, sit down at the dinner table, and partake in food that was well known to be toxic. They would slightly lift away the respirator from their face for a moment to drink, or eat a bit of food, while their children played unprotected in the dust covered floors. They’re situation was beyond fixing. There was no hope in salvaging the soil (they tried), and the air was forsaken well before that. Humans became increasingly sicker.
People who didn’t protect themselves from their new environment withered. If they lived beyond two years, they were considered blessed. They experienced pains and complications way before the end. Swelling of the limbs and periodically oozing serum, combined with constant infections. The ones who didn’t swell were walking skeletons. New bone growth was common, and grew in such grotesque ways and in such odd places. The bones twisted and pierced out of the skin like small spikes all over their bodies. The ones that went underground survived only slightly longer, but went insane at an accelerated rate.
Places in this world that are more contaminated than other – the kind that will kill you quicker. Humans painted these areas with yellow and magenta stripes, or just splashed the colors on walls when lacking strength or time. They used yellow and magenta chains and stanchions to cordon off areas when available. Everything seemed to turn against them at some point, even the water that fell out of the sky turned to acidic to reclaim. Children played in the yellow water under the hazy orange sky, and would run up the sides of mountains made from rusty barrels as if it were natural and normal - landfills turned into public parks.
The pile ups of low level radioactive waste, and poor contaminant combined with natural disasters was enough to doom this world. Of course, the cleaner alternatives to nuclear and oil were passed by. It’s a quieter world now.