The next morning, Aruna’s signal returned. “Neville, a naval vessel is en route to pick you up. We’re taking survivors to a research station in Antarctica. You have 48 hours.”

“I’m not going,” he said into the mic.

“I stayed for the cure,” he said, glancing at the rows of petri dishes growing a modified measles vector. “But the subjects keep rejecting it.”

They have a leader, Neville realized. A new evolution.

Robert Neville didn’t cheer. Cheering was a waste of calories and hope. Instead, he methodically tuned the ham radio, his fingers remembering the frequency his wife had used before the Exodus. The world had gone silent after the Krippen virus mutated. Darkseekers—the infected—owned the night. But during the day, Neville owned the streets of a dead Mumbai, not New York. In this version, he was an Indian virologist, alone in a high-rise lab in Bandra, with a German Shepherd named Amara and a collection of Hindi film songs on a solar-powered MP3 player.

He was no longer the last man.

He turned off the radio. Amara wagged her tail. Below, the new world was waking up—not with screams, but with silence. And in that silence, Neville Sharma smiled.

He was the first witness. End.